12 weeks -4/1/13
interesting thing happened in this 13th week of life (between 12 and 13 weeks)- Zeke started having trouble napping! noooooooooo :( my very good sleeper/napper all of a sudden started having trouble going down for naps and staying asleep. the return of the 45 minute intruder has struck! :( in Babywise, the 45 minute intruder is referred to as a baby waking 45 minutes into a nap or waking 45 minutes early from a nap. we have had both situations on our hands - specifically during his afternoon naps (the naps following the 11am and 2pm feeds). the advice i have read says that this is most likely due to coming in and out of sleep cycles and they just wake themself up but are unable to get back to sleep easily. one recommendation is to give them some time to settle before going in. this is what i have been doing. i'll give him between 5-10 minutes to settle, sometimes thats all it takes and he is back to sleep. if he doesn't settle on his own i will go in, pat his back, give him his paci, etc and try to settle him. then i will leave and see if he settles within a few minutes. sometimes going in helps, sometimes it makes him scream harder. if he is still not settled after about another 10 minutes i will go in and get him up, hold him and calm him. then i will put him back down to see if he will settle. if he is still unsettled after all this i get him up. Babywise says to treat these disruptions as a hunger issue first. so i have been feeding early if its not too far from a normal feeding. if it is way early i will just hold him and rock, most times this does the trick to get him to settle. it's frustrating and a little confusing not to understand what is going on in his little body but i know it won't last forever. and it doesn't seem to be messing with his morning nap, bedtime or night sleep. so i am SO thankful for that! he has still gone down for bedtime fine, right around 7:30/8pm and has eaten fine at his dreamfeed and then slept through the night from his dreamfeed till 7/7:30am. this too is what makes me think its a 45 minute intruder issue where he just needs to learn how to go back to sleep, and its not a hunger issue. but i will treat it as hunger first until i'm more sure of what's going on.
13 weeks old - 4/8/13
So right after this episode of having trouble with naps we hit a growth spurt! It's never ending fun this stage.... I tell you ;) it took me about 2 days to figure out that it was most likely a growth spurt and not napping issues that i initially suspected. here is how I settled on the fact that it was most likely a growth spurt.
He started waking early from pretty much every nap, even his morning nap which has never been an issue before now.
He woke in the night one night and wanted fed twice! This has not happened since those very early weeks.
He didn't poop for the entire week.
Plus, he is right about the age where growth spurts are pretty common - between 3 and 4 months.
This growth spurt definitely was not as bad as it could have been. He still slept for most of his naps, usually waking about 45 minutes to an hour early. And he only woke in the night one night. But I definitely did a dream feed every night, which I think helped to make sure he slept through the night. I considered starting to drop the dreamfeed early in the week but I will not be doing that until I'm sure he's past this growth spurt. It seems like he is coming out of it now (right at 14 weeks) and the timing seems to be right, it's been going on for a solid week. So we will see!
His napping seemed to be better this week. He didn't have as many episodes of crying when I put him down. So hopefully he's getting the hang of this sleeping thing :)
I'm hoping in the next week or two to start dropping the dreamfeed and then transitioning him to the crib in Malachi's room after that. So hopefully by 4 months we will have both of these milestones past us :)
14 weeks old - 4/15/13
Everything was pretty much normal this week. The growth spurt seemed to pass pretty easily and we were back to napping and eating as normal -still on the schedule with a dreamfeed. But actually he has gone to more of a combination 3/3.5/4 hour schedule. This week he consistently slept longer for the first two naps of the day. So now his schedule is pretty much 7/11/3/5/730/1030. He is still only pooping once every several days, but doesn't seem to be bothered by it!
15 weeks old - 4/22/13
This week was the week Jeff's dad came to visit us. It was so nice and Zeke handled the different days and disruptions like a champ!
Once Jeff's dad left we moved Zeke into the "boys room" for real. We had already been doing some naps in there but hadn't out him in at night yet. So I figured it was time once we had our last visitor for a while.
The transition went really well and actually initiated our next big change that happened this week - we dropped the dreamfeed! I actually was planning to gradually phase it out but we did it more cold-turkey once all was said and done. First I pushed back his last feeding before the dreamfeed to like 930pm and we did this for several days. Then one day his schedule was such that his last feed was supposed to be at like 830pm and so I fed him and out him to bed but I was nervous that he wouldn't sleep till morning because it was too early, so I woke him up for a dreamfeed at 930 or 10. Well he ended up waking in the night that night! So I wondered if it was because the dreamfeed was becoming more of a sleep disruption than an aid. So the next night I didn't wake him and let him sleep from 830 on. He didn't wake! So it has become clear to me that once he is down for the night he likes to be left alone. :) ha!
So now our schedule is pretty much the same as the week prior just without the dreamfeed (7/11/3/530/830)
Malachi had such an awesome time with Papa. He is getting big enough to recognize people even if he hasn't seen them for a while. So as soon as Jeff's dad got here he knew exactly who he was! It was adorable. All we heard for 3 days was Papa! Papa! He missed him terribly when he left!
16 weeks old - 4/29/13
This week has been pretty mellow, Zeke continues to stretch out at night. I have out him to bed several nights at 730 or 8 and he has slept till 7 the next morning. I am loving the extra sleep! Eating and napping have been good this week. He has pooped a little more than the last few weeks. So that's great, maybe that trend will keep up!
He is growing like a weed! He is pretty much in all 6 month clothing now and as we look toward summer I think he's going to be in 6-9 and 12 month stuff over the summer. Which would be kinda great really, because Malachi was in 12 months last summer. So I could reuse some of his clothes! :) We'll see though how it all plays out.
Malachi got his feet measured at stride rite and she said he was measuring right at an 8! I can't believe the size of this boys feet! He's in 2t and can even fit into some 3t as well! Getting so big!
I can't believe this sweet boy is going to be 4 old in just a few short days! Where have the weeks gone?! These first few months with Zeke have just flown by, in a way I don't remember with Malachi. I'm not sad though. I do like the infant stage but its not my favorite. I love when they start to get big and discover their world. I can't wait to see him play and interact with Malachi. I can't wait to see them together! I pray they are best friends! They are both such blessings and I am so thankful The Lord has entrusted them to me :)