Now isn’t that interesting?

I spend a lot of time chanting to myself, “E. is not a textbook baby”, mainly when he is doing the exact opposite of whatever books I’ve read say he ‘should’ be doing, or is likely to be doing. This kid just loves throwing curveballs.

But I’ve had my suspicions that he is absolutely textbook when it comes to “getting close to achieving developmental milestones may result in disrupted sleep” statements. I remember when he first started rolling over, he was suddenly pinwheeling around in his crib at night. And for the last week or so, there have been a few times when I’ve gone in to deal with a waking and I’ve found him on his hands and knees.

See, E. has been THIS close to crawling since Christmas. And since Christmas, his sleep has pretty much sucked. Day sleep went right back to naps of thirty minutes, and since he decided this month to drop the third nap no matter when his first two were, that made for some rough afternoons. Night sleep wasn’t probably all that terrible, but it was bad for him- random popups throughout the early evening, especially within the first hour of going to bed, or around 10 pm; an extra feed on a couple of nights; early morning (pre-6 am) starts, etc. Then we hit the point where I last posted, where when he woke up after 10 but before 11, Q. could no longer settle him.

We solved that issue by going to bed (and reading) by 9 pm, so that we couldn’t possibly wake him up. And we still had a couple of pre-11 wakeups, where I just gave up and fed him. The last of those only resulted in a two-feed night, so that’s ok. But just yesterday I was looking at E. and thinking, “You look WIPED.” Big dark circles. Bags under the eyes.

Yesterday, E. figured out how to crawl. Ironically he did this the day after his Granny had to fly back home (she was probably somewhere over the Pacific when he cracked it, after three weeks of us all saying, “He’s SO close!”). He’s still not super sure of himself, but put a power cable or the cat food in front of him, and bam! He’s off like a rocket.

Last night, E. woke up for about 15 seconds around 9 pm, settled himself immediately, and then slept through until 3.30 am, when he was woken up by Q. going into his room to check on him (because we were both wide awake wondering WTF had happened). STUPID. We are so not doing this again! And he’s now been napping for close to two hours.

I’m not going to assume anything (see, I have learned something over these last eight and a half months!), but I am hopeful that maybe getting the crawling sorted will help settle things down on the sleep front. Until he learns to pull himself up. Or cruise. Or decides to start walking.

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Poor E. is in ‘sposies at the moment so I can use a heavy barrier cream to try and sort out his red little tushie. We had a bit of a feast or famine issue with dirty diapers, and I think all the action just irritated his skin to the point that it couldn’t settle down easily. He is just loving his solid food. He eats the most at breakfast (which is the exact opposite of what the books will tell you most babies will do)- he’s been known to put away an entire piece of toast with hummus, plus an entire poached pear. Or eat half of one of my pancakes and two-thirds of a banana. Or three or four oatmeal fingers plus most of an avocado. The kid is a machine. And we can’t eat a snack around him, as he’ll just sit there staring at us and looking insulted that he’s not being included.

It’s made sorting out a routine a bit complicated, as when his second feed is around 4 or 5 am, he then doesn’t want to nurse when he wakes up. Then he has his huge breakfast, so he doesn’t want to nurse before his nap. Or after his nap, often, as he is still full. Some mornings it’s been 11 or 11:30 before I finally get a decent milk feed into him. I know it is natural to drop feeds when solid intake increases, but I also know that breast milk is still more important from a nutrition and calorie perspective for him. What I would like to do is get him to drop that second feed at night, so that he is hungry by 6:30 or 7 and willing to nurse before having a solid breakfast around 8. As an added bonus we’d all get more sleep. It makes perfect sense to me, but somehow I don’t think E. is going to view it that way.

The last few days he’s started up chomping on the breast if he’s not absolutely starving when he’s offered it, which makes life no fun at all for me, or for him, as I’m pretty stern with him every time he does it. When he knows I’m cross, he’ll smile and try to get me to smile back, and if I stay stern looking, he then bursts into tears, so of course I can’t stay stern. Ah well. We’ll figure it out. If he is really hungry, there is no problem- he just latches and gets down to business. But it is really hard to stay relaxed to encourage a good let-down if you are expecting at any moment those sharp little teeth to have an experimental chew…

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E. is chatting up a storm these days, and I am starting to think that he is actually using ‘mama’ to refer to me, rather than just using it indiscriminately. The jury is still out on this one. Gosh it is cute, though.

He had a great visit with his Granny. This was a full month where he had an adoring public, between our travels over Christmas and her visit. I think he’s going to find this week a bit boring and quiet with just Mummy and Daddy around.

Before E. figured out crawling he spent days and days either scooching around backwards or doing yoga poses- he has a great downward dog. It was so funny to watch. He got really frustrated at the end, but luckily he then figured out how to move forward a day or so later.

E. looks like a little boy now. You can see that he is much closer to toddler than baby now. It tugs at my heart to see him getting so grown up, but at the same time, he’s so much happier now that he can do things and participate.

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