Thursday, April 19, 2007

we hate germs

Gabe and I have our first colds today. I've been watching him like a hawk to see if he feels sick, but besides keeping me up all night whining, he seems fine. I, however, am coughing and have lost my voice, and my throat hurts and I feel generally achy. Now I feel like whining, especially about the fact that I got no sleep thanks to my little whiner.

I can't figure out what is going on with him and sleep. I'm assuming that last night's disaster was related to this cold, but we've had some bad nights lately. For a while we were on a great schedule where he would sleep a solid 6 or 7 hours (once 8 and a half!), wake up for 10 minutes to nurse, and then go back down for another 5 hours or so. But for the past week and a half, that schedule has been nonexistent. I'm lucky if I can get him to sleep 5 hours in the first stretch, and then it is 3 hour stretches after that. I feel like we are in the newborn days all over again.

I've tried pumping and feeding him a bottle, and not pumping and breastfeeding him directly. I've tried putting him to sleep in his bassinet and then in his crib. I've tried a blanket, I've tried pajamas, and last night I tried layered pajamas in case he was cold. I've tried putting him to sleep early, and I've tried putting him to sleep late. He seems to do better when I put him to sleep later, and by later I mean around 11pm or midnight, but that seems so absurdly late, I worry that it can't be a good bedtime for him. At this point, I'm thinking that the problem is that his schedule is all over the place. So I think I'm going to pick something and stick with it for a while to see if his sleep improves.

It could also be the fact that we've been traveling all over the place, first to California, then to Florida, then my mom was here, and now she left. Maybe he is thrown off by the number of changes we've been undergoing. I'll let you know if I see any improvements.

In unrelated exciting news, Gabriel rolled over for the first time in Florida from his stomach to his back! It was such a surprise! Since then, he's done it 2 more times, both of them by accident. Then yesterday, he rolled over from back to front! It also looked like an accident, frankly, but I suppose that's how it always starts. He rolled himself onto his side, and then suddenly straightened his legs out and scooched himself forward and he ended up on his stomach. He looked up at me with this shocked look, as if asking, "what just happened here?"

This kid seriously wants to MOVE. It scares me a little, especially knowing that both Josh and I walked at 9 months. I'm planning on knocking him over if he starts trying to stand up. When I sit him in his bouncy seat, he spends a good amount of time trying to pull himself into a sitting position, so it looks like he is doing crunches in his seat. When I put him on his stomach, he flails about madly, trying to reach everything around him and can even get himself to move a few centimeters.

Just to show you that we actually do something besides sit here admiring this baby, Josh got a job. A real job. Which means that when he graduates from business school next month, he will have an actual paying job and I will no longer be supporting the whole family on my own. I am excited, to say the least. The best part of it is that this job was his first choice. Family friendly, interesting work, consulting (which he loves), but not much travel (which we both hate). So things around here are happy happy happy.

Also, now that I've convinced Gabe to nap, I'm able to read more books and I'd love recommendations. I am finishing up this book, and I recently read this book and this book. I loved them all. Suggestions?

I mean, I can't spend all day sitting around staring at this gorgeous face, although I'd like to.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't even think about all of the travel! See if he settles down now that you guys are staying put for a big, I'm sure the excitement (and time change) threw him off a little.

Recently I've loved Maybe a Miracle. Also am reading Abundance, a novel of Marie Antoinette. Water for Elephants is next on my list, I've heard it's great.

Anonymous said...

I meant "bit," now that you are staying put for a bit. Not big.

susan said...

Germs bad, jobs good, rolling babies learning new things, amazing!

Liz Miller said...

He is really gorgeous. And so mobile!!!

I know I'm always suggesting Reginald Hill and Georgette Heyer, but may I suggest Reginald Hill and Georgette Heyer? They are truly wonderful. And Josephine Tey.

Liz Miller said...

And re: the sleeping (or lack thereof), I'm guessing either illness or hunger. I know it's anathema, but you might want to try formula on his last feeding before you go to sleep yourself. MM got breast milk in a bottle for all his day-time feeds, but he got formula at night after the first four months since he seemed to sleep better that way.

Jessica said...

Precious!!!

Feel better soon.

Anonymous said...

I have a baby that doesn't sleep. Routine, schedules, crying it out. Nothing works. It is one of his own personal quirks. After 14 months of it I am still not used to it. What I would do for a 6 hour stretch of sleep!

Sorry about the colds. Hope you are feeling better soon.

Rev Dr Mom said...

Congratulations to Josh on the job! And what a cutie Gabe is--and growing so fast!

The Kid had a late bedtime at that age--in fact he's always had a later bed time than other kids which has made morings interesting (ahem!) but that's just the way he is.

ccw said...

Hope you get well and stay well.

Congrats to Josh on the job!

Gabe is beautiful!

Yankee T said...

I loved the Memory Keepers Daughter, myself.
Gabe is too adorable.

ttulizzy said...

Congrats on the job, hope you feel better soon. Gabe is a doll!

Didn't you love The Memory Keeper's Daughter? It was great.

You should read The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wells. It is a hard book to read, but is very good. Very inspiring.

I LOVE Jodi Picoult. Read any and all of her books.

OneTiredEma said...

Do you read Ask Moxie? She has a lot of columns on baby sleep.

Anyway, potential culprits in your situation could be the travel, the cold, teething (?), developmental milestones (rolling over), or a slightly early appearance of the 4 month sleep regression (Moxie talks about this).

Unfortunately for all of us who are like the walking dead, baby sleep is, in my opinion, cyclical and not linear. So a baby who is sleeping "through" (i.e. 5-6 hrs) at 3 months will probably NOT stay that way with all the developmental and physical changes coming your way--8-9 months is a doozy for many.

This is one of the things that nobody tells you before parenting happens to you...but the good news is that for the majority of kids the kinks are all worked out around age 2, when you should get a solid 10-11 hrs. (It happens for plenty before that age too.)

Geez, I am a downer, huh? Sorry. But he is adorable. Congrats on all the good family news. And the last book I read that I really loved is The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.

Anonymous said...

ooooh, what a cutiepie.

congrats on the rolling and congrats to josh on the job! that's awesome. :)

sorry about the colds. they are bound to happen eventually.

i wish i could give you some sleep advice, but julian is still on the nurse every cpl hours schedule at night (at 5 months old!), so i'm no help there. :(

hope you all are doing better now and settling back into a lovely sleep routine. :)

Anonymous said...

i thought of something (while i lay awake in bed last night - LOL) that might be affecting his sleeping patterns. being sick can obviously do it, as well as teething or even when they learn something new - like rolling over. i know that's not the news that you want to hear, that developmental milestones can affect their sleep, but i've really found it to be true.

hugs.