Stomach Bug!

Ben seems to be over the pneumonia, thank goodness!  However, he was not healthy for long before a stomach bug set in!  Last night he woke up at 12:30 covered in… well… his stomach contents (sorry if that’s TMI!).  We changed him and his sheets and put him back to bed.  Ten minutes later, the same thing happened again, but now we were out of clean sheets for him!  We put a towel down on our bed and brought him in with us.  He was sick off and on all night and none of us slept well for the rest of the night.  This morning, we thought he seemed OK, so we gave him a bottle.  A little while later that came up.  He’s napping now.  He fell asleep in my arms on the couch and didn’t wake when I transferred him to his crib.  Poor Ben!

 

Another Milestone: Ben can roll from side to front!

It’s another milestone! Ben is 21 weeks today…

Ben has been getting close to this for a couple weeks now but he couldn’t quite get his lower arm out of the way to complete the transition. Yesterday evening, he was laying on the floor and pulled himself all the way over from his side to his front using the leg of the coffee table. He did it twice.

Now, I have to preface this next part by saying we have been putting Ben to sleep on his side for the past couple weeks, a fact that will be explained in a future post. The night before last, he woke up without crying and I could hear him “playing” on the baby monitor for 40 minutes! This morning at about 4 he wanted to play again, so I put him back in his crib awake. About 30 minutes later, he began crying so Tim went to check on him. He was on his belly! We tried to feed him but he wanted to play so we put him back in his crib. About 10 minutes later he cried again so Tim went to check on him- he was on his belly again!

So, it’s not technically “rolling from back to front.” However, I think that’s just a technicality. After all, he can roll from back to side and now from side to front. It stands to reason he can do a full roll- we just have to “catch” him doing it!

As for the disturbing trend of wanting to play in the middle of the night, here’s hoping it’s just a fluke!

 

Sleepyhead

Ben has been sleeping really well this week! Our bedtime routine seems to be working:

6:30 pm*: feed Ben
7:00 pm: give Ben a bath- This seems to be his favorite part of the day. As soon as we start undressing him he starts smiling and looking around. Even if he is crying, he stops crying when he realizes his bath is coming. He smiles in his bath and looks at a little rubber ducky toy. Sometimes he tries to grab the toy but isn’t coordinated enough to do it yet.

7:15 pm: feed Ben until he falls soundly asleep- By “soundly asleep,” I mean he doesn’t wake up when I sit him up and burp him!

Then I put him to bed and he sleeps until about 4 am. This morning I put him back to sleep after that and he slept until 8:15 or so! Usually he wakes up again at 5:30 or so.

Yesterday we had a “bonus” day together, thanks to the “Potomac Primaries.” Today, we have another “bonus” day, thanks to the weather! Even with the weather yesterday, I took Ben in to see Tim. Tim wanted to show him off at work now that he’s “interactive.” I dropped him off at the CAC and did a little shopping. Tim said after a couple of minutes talking to each new person, Ben started to stick out his lower lip like he was going to cry. Is the the beginning of stranger anxiety?

Ben continues to enjoy watching TV! Right now we can just turn him away and he forgets about it. Soon “Law and Order” will become a thing of the past in our house…

One other thing to note is Ben’s journey towards finding his thumb (or first finger, or both!). He started several weeks ago putting his knuckles in his mouth. Then he started last week putting his thumb and pointer in together. Now, he sometimes puts his thumb OR his pointer in individually. Sometimes he still puts both in. And just when I think he’s showing a hand preference, he changes it up again! The point is, he’s self-soothing a bit, and that’s a good thing.

*All times are approximate

 

Hmm….

(This picture is not Ben, but this is kind of what he looked like Sunday night playing with my computer. Except he was sitting on his dad’s lap).

I think when Ben was playing with my computer, he must have read all the bragging I was doing about him sleeping for so long and decided he was being too easy on me. This week he has gone back to 5-hour stretches. Hmm… Ben, if you’re reading this, Daddy and I want you to know that it’s OK for you to sleep through the night again. There is nothing that says a baby has to wake up in the middle of the night.

 

Welcome to Lake Wobegon…

…where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average….

Well this has certainly been a good week. Much better than last week. I actually felt like a functional human being most of the week! Ben hit a new sleeping record last night! 8 HOURS straight! He still usually only takes 20-minute naps during the day.

We took Ben to meet our neighbors (they have a vacation cabin and only come once in a while but they are very friendly and sent a gift when he was born). They were oogling over him and we were bragging about him and Tim mentioned that he could roll over. She said, “isn’t that early?” I said, “yes, and he started doing that at 11 weeks, which was REALLY early.” Then I smiled and sort of sarcastically said, “of course, Ben is very advanced.” The husband said “Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above-average.” We all got a good laugh, but I secretly wasn’t joking.

Ben got to visit me at school Monday evening, which was great fun. I had parent-teacher conferences and had to stay until 7:30. Tim brought him at 3:30, after I was done with bus duty, and we visited (and nursed) until about 4:10. Tim got mega-double brownie points for bringing him in. All the teachers were impressed with his thoughtfulness and super-impressed with Ben. They have seen him before, but I had to show him off again. I’m so proud. One of the teachers said, “I’m not kidding, Laura, he’s one of the best-looking babies I’ve ever seen!” See, it’s not just me. Other people can tell how wonderful he is too!

Of course, he’s not perfect. Yesterday at about 5pm he had such a major diaper blowout, he had to be stripped immediately and placed directly into the bath. My advice for anyone who hasn’t had a baby yet: You will know they need a bath when they have poop in their hair.

 

Ben’s 1st Concepti-versary!

Yesterday was Ben’s first “concepti-versary”! January 29, 2007 was the day he was conceived. We know the exact date because we did IVF (read all about it using the IVF Blog link on the right of this page). We were too busy to celebrate though.

The day after I wrote the last post about the new record, Ben set a NEW record of 7.5 hours of straight sleep! His average is still 6 hours though. Not too shabby for a 3.5 month old!

Other new things he is doing include purposely using his hands to gesture at an object he’s looking at (he hasn’t learned to purposely grab things yet, but he holds on to things you put in his hand), arching his back when laid down on his back, and scooting when put down on his belly (he moved 2 feet forward the other day!). My parents gave him an Elmo stuffed animal, which he loves to look at!

 

An Official Record!

Last night Ben slept 7 hours STRAIGHT without even needing a binky! He’s starting to get the hang of things…

 

A New Record!

Last night Ben set a new personal best time: he slept 7 hours in a row! His previous record was 6.5. Around December he started sleeping consistant 4-4.5 hour stretches, and around New Year’s he started sleeping 6 hour stretches sometimes. Lately 6 hour stretches have become the norm. He goes to sleep at about 8:30, wakes up at 2:30, eats, goes back to sleep, wakes up at 4:30, eats, goes back to sleep, then wakes up at 7, eats, then I leave for work. He’s been fairly consistant, which is nice. Last night he slept from 8-3! He cried a little at 2 and I gave him his binky and he went back to sleep for an hour (I do that sometimes so I think it still counts as a 7-hour stretch). When he finally did wake up, it was strange. Instead of wimpering and grunting for a while before fully waking up, he suddenly let out several loud, panicked cries. He was probably hungrier than he’d ever been since that was the longest he had ever gone without eating.

Now we need to get him to take naps consistantly. Sometimes he sleeps for 2 hours in a row during the day, and sometimes he only makes it 15 minutes at the most.

Speaking of sleep, I need to get some now while I have the chance!