Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A Cute Little Boy: Month 2 Update

Ismail oubarka | 7:38 AM

Wow this little boy is growing and progressing more and more everyday! He is so smart, alert and active.

Some Current Loves:

Eating, bath time, music, when his daddy talks to him, cuddling, story time, listening to Adventures in Odyssey, playing on his play mat.

Some Current Dislikes:

Being in his car seat, getting bored, and nap time

Sleeping Habits:

Simon is a pretty good sleeper for a breastfed baby. Breastmilk digests faster so they don't stay full as long as they would on formula. Consequently, he won't be sleeping "through the night" for a whole. Generally he sleeps for three to four and half hours, wakes up and eats for about 20-30 minutes and goes back to sleep for another two to three hours. Since he sleeps next to us in a little portable rocking crib, I pull him up to the bed, feed him laying down and put him right back once he's done. This has worked out the best for us because everyone gets more rest! I'm not disturbing Brendan by leaving the room or waking Simon up by taking him to the nursery to eat.

However, during the day I have him nap in his crib at least once so that he is familiar with it. To date he has done several nights in his crib in his own room but we prefer having him next to us for now.

Some Challenges:

Cluster feeding in the evenings. This is when a baby eats constantly for several hours to store up for night time. Initially it was pretty hard to adjust but now it's part of the schedule. He begins cluster feeding around 5:30pm, takes a break for bath time around 8:00pm and continues to until between 9:30pm-10:00pm which is when he goes to bed. When he first started doing this I was convinced that something was wrong with my milk supply and that he wasn't getting enough. However, after looking into this I found that cluster feeding is very normal for little ones. And if it means more sleep for everyone- I'm game!

Mastitis. I will dedicate a whole post to this soon but I had a breast infection that was horrible. Thank God it didn't stop us from nursing. But lemme tell you- what a wild deal!!

Milestones:

Simon is really beginning to recognize faces and voices. He also interacts vocally now! He smiles and laughs, tries to imitate facial expressions and sounds. Language acquisition at its best! We try to encourage this as much as possible by talking to him, reading to him, singing to him and playing with him.