Silas John - Week 19

Our week was much smoother than last week.  I realized a couple of things in the course of the week.  The first is that Silas needs longer wake-time (the time between naps).  We've bumped him up to 1 1/2 hours between most of his naps.  This led to him napping longer too.  The second thing I learned was that Silas wasn't waking from naps because he was hungry, he was waking because he had too short of wake-time.  No wonder he acted so frustrated when I kept trying and trying to get him to take full feedings.  In actuality, he wasn't hungry enough for a full feeding!  He's now doing much better eating, and it's so fun to have him awake longer. Because, really, who can get enough of this face:

Our big news this week is that Silas ROLLED OVER onto his tummy!  Amos started by rolling onto his back, so I fully expected Silas to do the same.  To my delight, he learned his tummy first.  He still hasn't rolled onto his back yet, but I'm OK with that not happening anytime soon.  I dread the sleep disruptions that will be caused by that skill.

I thought that he was just going to be content to lay on his back and watch the world pass by him.  He changed my thinking this week.  He was pushing out of his bouncer, dancing in his exesaucer, rolling over, and wanting to sit on his own.  He's figuring out how to make his body work for him instead of against him by hitting himself in the face.

With this nice weather, he spent some time outside this week and doesn't appear to have the aversion to the sun that Amos had for the first half of his life (he's completely over it now).  And he sure makes a cute Teddy Bear.

SCHEDULE: I'm been meaning to put this on here for my sake, but keep forgetting.
7:00 -- wake up feeding
8:05 -- nap
10:30 -- feed
11:45 -- nap
1:30 -- feed
3:00 -- nap
4:30 -- feed
6:00 -- nap
7:00 -- bedtime feeding
This definitely still fluctuates, but it's the goal.

And here's Amos at the same age:

Silas John - Week 18

We had a pretty "off" week.  We had some short naps, some long naps, some missed naps and even some early morning wake-ups.  His eating has also been sporadic.  Sometimes he acted like he was starving after two hours and other times he didn't want anything.  I went back and read about Amos when he was this age, and saw some of the same things.  When Amos was going through this, I kept trying to blame it on teething, but I've recently came across a book called "The Wonder Weeks" which explains that as babies are learning a "new" thing, they have a very fussy week (or weeks) while they figure it out.  This blog does a great job of explaining it if your interested.  But suffice it to say that Silas is in Wonder Week 19 which actually last from 14-22 weeks.  It may sound crazy to you, but looking back now, Amos went through this phase to a T.  At the end of the phase, they should be much better at grabbing toys, putting then in their mouths and sitting and responding to "Where's Daddy or Mommy."  I'm hoping we'll be coming out the other sound soon.  I'm learning that when everything seems "off" for no reason, its probably a Wonder Week.  We have 6 more to look forward to!

We still had fun despite the frustration.  Luckily, Silas' cranky wake time behavior just involves needing to change positions more often and a little more attention.  He's a pretty laid back dude.  We had Dad home on Tuesday due to some snow.  As I've already mentioned, Silas enjoyed watching the snow festivities from the window.

On Thursday, we had the play group over to our house and Priscilla and Silas spent some time chatting about being babies.  These two will be up and running around before we know it.

On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa and Granny came for a visit.  They couldn't believe how big he was getting.  While they were hear, Silas camped out in our closet in the pack and play.  Luckily he doesn't seem to mind where he's sleeping, as long as he is on his tummy.  We've dropped the swaddle at night now because I think he self-soothes better without it.  Grandma commented that she now knew what I meant when I said "crazy hair."  That's the best way to describe Silas' mop on top.  Grammie and Gramps and Uncle Jason and Aunt Audrey also came for a short visit on Saturday.  Audrey chose to enjoy Silas from afar after he spit up on her a few times.  My boys are spitters.

Silas' favorite thing this week was his hands or anything else he could get to his mouth.  And so it begins.

Here's Amos at the same age.

Silas John - Week 11

And a new look to the blog.  No special reason.  I was just getting a little tired of the old look.

This past week started off with a bang!  Silas decided he needed to eat every 2 hours during the day and a shorter stretch at night.  Can you say GROWTH SPURT?  It was really frustrating me for two reasons.  The first was that it was my birthday week, and I kind of thought it would be nice of him to sleep longer for my birthday.  He decided just to be cute instead.

And secondly, this is the week Amos started sleeping 10 hours at night.  And he never stopped.  My mom reminded me that Silas is chubbier than Amos and may just need a little more food.  Here's to hoping the magic starts this week!

Jason was taking me out on Friday for my birthday so we tried all week to get Silas to take a bottle.  We had VERY little success.  I've now tried 4 different bottles.  Any suggestions?  I'm just going to continue to try once a day in hopes that he finally get it by Saturday because we have a out of town wedding to attend.

At Silas' Dr. appointment, we were told to try hydrocortisone on his cheeks.  It has been amazing.  And his cheeks are finally starting to clear up.  He's put on lots of pounds (5 of them) since birth so no problems with breast-feeding and he's in size 2 diapers now.  We're starting cloth very soon!

We're still swaddling for sleep, but he's getting really close to busting out so we may be ending that soon.  And to be honest, I look forward to it.  I know it helps so much with sleep now, but its pretty annoying to have to swaddle for every nap and night.  He's getting more accurate at hitting his toys in his bouncer and activity gym.  I hope that's a sign that he'll be ready for no swaddle soon!

Speaking of his toys, he loves to play with them.  He's so content anywhere, but he really likes to talk to toys that are hanging within his eye sight.

Amos also likes to play with his toys.  Silas just smiles and smiles at Amos.  He loves his big brother.

He looks at everything these days.  My mom says he's more social that Amos was.  I agree.  I'm getting pretty spoiled with all his smiles.

Pirate Monkey and Bananas????

It’s been a crazy week, and I thought we needed some crazy material to remember it by.

Tuesday night, Amos discovered he had a voice!  He’s made lots of noises before this point, but on the way to friends house, and back, we were entertained with a constant, “Uh…uh…uhh,” from the back seat.  Our giggles from the front seat I’m sure egged on his nice, baby bass voice.  Although his favorite place to “talk” is in his car seat, we caught some “talking” on camera at home!

Thursday, Amos was a trooper!  Rachel Eden and I hit the road and headed to Springfield for some shopping!  I learned that Amos no longer sleeps in his car seat!  Not even during an hour-long drive home that is right in the middle of naptime!  That should make our 3-hour drive to Lebanon this weekend interesting!

Friday brought an unwelcomed visitor….the growth spurt!  Just as I was thought we were headed to a 3-½ hour schedule, Amos had other ideas.  Those ideas involved eating every 2 hours and waking up in the middle of the night!  It took three LONG days, but we are on the other side of it and back to sleeping through the night and 2 hour naps! Yea!

During the growth spurt, Amos kicked his rolling into gear.  He’s been at it off and on for about 3 weeks!  However, now I can barely put the kid on his stomach without him kicking/rolling onto his back!  Jason had to hold him down so that I could get the video camera to catch this roll!  We’re still working on rolling back over!

Amos had lots of visitors this week.  He got to see Nanny, Grammy, Gramps, Uncle Joe, Aunt Amelia and Cousin Josie!

The cousins!

Cute Rainbow Josie!

         

 

We love each other!

Here I am with Gramps!

I'm starting to chew on things...like my fingers!

Yep!

I'm getting better at sitting!

And I'm such a good boy in my exesaucer!

If you look very closely, you will see that...

...I'm standing all by myself.  That's right, just leaning on my exesaucer!