Our little Elijah will be 12 weeks this Sunday! Here are some of his updates:
Elijah is definitely more sociable now. He smiles and squeals all the time now! He laughed a few times before but it's hard to make him laugh haha maybe he just doesn't find me funny enough :( he is also getting much stronger. I try to do tummy time with him every day but he absolutely hates it. Once a while though, he doesn't mind as much and I can see that he can hold himself up much better. He also found his fists and constantly sucks on them. The best thing though, is that every time I go in to get him from his nap or in the morning, he would reward me with this giant toothless smile... sometimes he would get so excited that he may even squeal :) He also demands attention nowadays. When left in his bouncer or rocker for too long... he would get unhappy and demands attention from us. I guess he realize we are much more fun than those hanging toys.
His daytime nap has been getting better. As soon as I notice that he is getting quiet (usually an hour and 15 minutes after he has woken up from his last nap), I would swaddle him, put him in his crib, turn the white noise on and leave the room. Most of the time, he would just fall asleep on his own without any fussing.Yay!
He definitely is developing his first morning nap. I can usually count on an hour and half of morning nap. Some days where he is really sleepy, he would sleep for 3 hours! After his first morning nap though, the rest of the day is unpredictable. On a good day, he will have 2 more naps of an hour each and then it will be his bedtime. On a bad day, he will catnap for the rest of the day (20 min - 40 min) until his bedtime. He has also been fighting his bedtime this week. Eli has always been easy to put down for his nighttime sleep. But this week was different. He would protest for over an hour each night! We usually start our bedtime routine at 6ish and his bedtime would be around 6:30 to 7:15 depending on the day. But this whole week he would protest as soon as we put him down all the way until 8pm when he is exhausted from all that crying and fussing. Except today. Today was different. After reading some more books and getting advices from other mommy friends, I decided to push his bedtime earlier thinking he may be too exhausted to sleep at his regular bedtime. So today, he woke up from his last nap at 4:50pm, I quickly warmed up the room and gave him a bath at 5:20, gave him his bottle at 5:30 and he was all ready to go to bed by 6pm. I put him down and he started to protest yet again. I left the room thinking maybe he will go to sleep soon. But no... he screamed for 10 minutes and he spitted up A LOT. So I rushed in to cleaned him up and unswaddled him. I felt terrible because he spitted up so much from all that crying. He stopped crying as soon as I got to him. I put him in his rocker, put on some music with the light dimmed. Left him to do some dishes. The plan was to feed him again at 7:30pm and put him to bed at 8:00pm since he has been falling asleep at 8:00pm every night of this week after crying/fussing for an hour or more. After the dishes, I came into the room and just sat next to him on the glider and started to read my book (healthy sleeping habits, happy child, thanks Tina!).. he was just calmly sucking his fists and looking around the room. Then suddenly from the corner of my eye I saw him slowly closing his eyes! So immediately I swaddled him, placed him in his crib, turn on the white noise, and left the room. He fell asleep immediately and that was 7:00pm! I guess tomorrow, I'll try the same thing, I'll start bedtime routine early.. and just sit with him until he starts to doze off (hopefully) :)
Also, Elijah has been sleeping through the night (hopefully will continue to)! He dropped his night time feeding all together and woke up this morning at 6:45am :) This past week he has been waking up past 5am to eat and this morning totally broke the record! This morning I woke up because Danny kept checking the monitor and I said to him that he doesn't have to worry because we will hear him fuss if he wakes up. He then said to me "I know... I am checking because it's already 6:30am... I have to get up in half an hour to get ready for work.." I was so shocked Eli lasted all the way till 6:45am and he didn't even wake up crying! He woke up and he was happily cooing :)
I can't believe I am going back to work in 3 weeks! It's a bit stressful to even think about going back to work. Mainly because it's going to be so hard leaving Eli during the day. I am going to worry about his sleep! But it's for the best. Afterall, I love my job and I simply can't stand being a stay at home mom. It will surely drive me crazy. Plus, I think I will miss Eli sooo much that our time together will be so much more enjoyable.
Anyhow, it's Friday night and how are we spending it? Danny is bringing home Chipotle and mini cupcakes from Baked By Melissa! We are going to just watch a movie and enjoy some yummy food tonight ;) Oh life with a newborn....
