Rollercoaster

Sleeping

We seem to be on a roller coaster of sleep. We'll have a few days of great sleep, and then BAM he's back to being awake 2-3x per night. I don't get it! Sometimes it's our fault (we throw  his schedule off somehow) but sometimes we do the same routine as always and it's still a crapshoot.

Last week I think I did pretty well keeping him on a schedule. I was on my own Monday thru Thursday (Scott was traveling for work) and I did my best to stay consistent. Monday night wasn't great - woke up for an extended period of time from about 2-3am.

"WAAAHHHHHH"   ;'(

The next couple of days were good (I think? It's all a blur!) and only had one wake-up at about 4am. This weekend we screwed up his schedule, of course, so things haven't been great the past couple of days. I think we need to double-down on the overnight sleep training and really put in a strong effort there because we've been giving in to his fusses for the sake of (hopefully) getting him quiet quicker so we can sleep. Sometimes it works, sometimes he wont' stay asleep.

Bedtime is still good (usually). A few nights last week he was so tired at bedtime that he fell asleep while I read him his bedtime story!




Eating

On the food front, we are alllll kinds of good! He's taking to table food really well, we've gotten more and more creative with his meals.

Feeding himself green beans.

We basically give him 2 vegetables, a protein/fat, a fruit, and a carb (crackers/cookies) each meal. Most of last week he ate sweet potatoes and green beans for his veggies, and greek yogurt as the protein/fat. I would usually give him a few bites of whatever I had for dinner, just so he could try it.

 

Dinner one night: Baby yogurt, sweet potatoes, black refried beans, pulled bbq chicken & pork

Avocado and cheese quesadilla - this was a big hit!

Excited about bagel & cream cheese Saturday morning!

He's also getting better and better with the straws - still gets a surprised look every time he takes a big gulp, but it's amazing how quickly he picked it up!

One other feeding-related item: I froze my 100th ounce of milk this weekend!! I'm SO excited that even at almost 9 months, I'm able to build a stash of frozen milk. Granted, 100oz won't last but a few days (he probably eats about 20-25oz/day) but this is really exciting for me. It means I can go somewhere overnight (like, for a work trip) and we won't have to supplement! I never imagined I'd last this long, especially with my supply worries early on, but so far things are still going well. SO HAPPY!


Playing & Life

Generally Dargan is a pretty happy guy - plays by himself really well, loves to snuggle, doesn't get too upset over most things. Just love it!

He's definitely a morning person... is soooo happy when we wake up for the day (after nursing, of course).



Early Saturday morning selfies...



Playing with my slipper on Saturday...

And finally... still just one tooth...  got a photo where you can see it!

First Tooth!

It's official, Dargan has his first tooth! After months of excessive drooling and gnawing on everything in sight, a little chomper finally broke through on the lower left side. I haven't been able to get a good photo of it yet, but maybe he'll let me soon.

You can almost barely see it in the shadow under his tongue... 

Food

We're getting better at the table food this week. We made a batch of steamed vegetables (carrots and broccoli) for him to eat at dinner each night, then we try to get one protein (frequently greek yogurt) and another item - starch or fruit. In addition to that, we'll give him small bites of whatever we have on our plate. This way we know he's getting a good enough meal, plus we're able to expand his horizons with different tastes but we aren't sunk if he hates it.

Dargan's dinner: steamed veggies, greek yogurt, and apple sauce

Yum, veggies!

In addition to table foods, he's still nursing about 5x per day. Early morning (right after wake-up), breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and post-dinner / pre-bedtime. I've slightly reduced his bottle volumes at daycare from a heavy 5 oz. down to about 4.5 oz. I'm going to start doing 4 oz. bottles this week just because at home he's seemed less and less interested in nursing after meals. Overnight feeds are still a bit unpredictable (more on that later).

His other big achievement is drinking from a straw sippy cup! It took him a couple of weeks to figure it out, but now he takes good sips from the straw when we hold it up for him. He also knows how to blow bubbles into the cup with the straw. :-P

Playtime

I have to say, Dargan is really good at independent play. I often wonder what he's thinking about when he's playing by himself. I credit daycare for getting him good at this! He will just sit and play with his toys for a good long while.

At daycare, Ms. Sandy has Dargan doing what she calls "tummy bootcamp" - he's not crawling yet, so they're trying to encourage it as much as possible. He's getting better at tummy time, pushes up on his arms really well, but still not making any moves towards getting his hind end up or moving. I'm not worried! I kind of enjoy being able to set him down and come back to find him where I left him. :)

Sleeping

We're still making good progress here, and actually had three days in a row of zero feedings overnight. He still woke up a few times during the night, but either was able to be rocked back to sleep or fussed for a bit and went back to sleep on his own. Friday night was phenomenal - he only briefly woke up and fussed around 3 am, but neither Scott nor I had to get out of bed at all overnight. AND he slept until almost 6:30am! 

Napping is also a challenge but we're getting better. We really only see this on the weekends since he's at daycare the rest of the week. He's great at his morning nap - both days this weekend he has napped 2+ hours. Afternoon naps are another story. Saturday we were out and about, so that messed up his schedule, and he only ended up napping in the car. Sunday I could tell he was getting tired and fussy, so I went up and put him in the crib. He fussed on and off for almost 30 minutes but finally fell asleep and napped about an hour.

The stages of Dargan sleep:

1) Refusal; 2) Play with hands; 3) Sleep.

Other Fun with Dargan:

Just a happy guy at home!

At Upstate Craft Beer Co. to celebrate Mom's birthday :)

Early morning smiles before work/daycare

Weekend mornings at home!

Outdoor fun - hanging out while mom & dad take turns mountain biking

Helping with laundry

Oh, and this weekend we've also gone through his clothing drawers and removed all of the 6 month onesies. He's too long for them and they strain to snap! His short little legs are still fine in 6 month pants, but the onesies and shirts? Nope. Where did my tiny preterm baby go?!

Baby's First Snow!

Snowpocalypse 2016 was certainly interesting for us!

It all started Thursday night - everything was cancelled/closed for Friday, including our daycare and work. Dargan did not understand the concept of "no work" or "sleeping in" so we were up at 5:30am per usual.





We made plans to hunker down at home, get a bit of work done, and possibly play in the snow. Most of what came down was ice - about an inch total.



Things got really interesting at about 10:30am on Friday when our power flickered and then went out! Yikes! Thankfully our fireplace is gas and can be lit with battery power, so we got that going right away. The house stayed comfortable throughout the day, and we set up camp in the living room in front of the fire.



Pretty much spent the day playing and napping (yes, all of us!).

In the evening, we had dinner with the neighbors (their gas stove was able to light without electricity) and then had some trouble sleeping at night due to the cooler temperatures.

Side Note: We had a really good night Thursday night, he only woke up once at 1:30!

Friday morning we woke up to about 5-6" of snow that had fallen overnight, which made a beautiful white winter scene outside. Without power still, we didn't want to venture out to play without a warm house to come back to, so we stayed in and admired the beauty from the house.




I also was worried about my milk stash - both refrigerated and frozen. Google told me that a freezer can hold its temperature for ~48 hours without power, so we were ok so far, but Duke Energy estimated our power wouldn't be back until 3pm on Sunday (about 53 hours from first outage). The refrigerator was rapidly warming to room temperature by this point, so we packed everything into a cooler and set it outside on the back porch. Turned out to be a good opportunity to thoroughly clean the fridge!



Then, miraculously at 11am the heat hummed and all the lights came on! HOOORAY!!! We took the next opportunity to go out in the snow for a few minutes. Dargan was largely unimpressed.





In other news, Dargan is getting the hang of feeding himself and mastering the pincer grab for smaller foods (Cheerios, puffs, Goldfish crackers).



He's supposed to be 100% on "table foods" now, so we're trying to give him bits of whatever we're eating (within reason). He loves banana slices and yogurt, but everything else is pretty hit-or-miss. He'll eat a bit of most things and then make faces when we try to give him more. They're feeding him table foods at daycare, too, so it's always interesting to get the report of all the things he tried during the day. Interesting adventure for sure!

Other Milestones:

Still just sitting, no crawling yet here. He can stand ok if we set him up, but he isn't pulling himself up at all. He still hates tummy time after a few minutes, and we have yet to witness any rolling over. We know he can, but have just never seen it happen (only the end result a couple of times).

Napping is another big challenge, but we've made great progress. He'll usually take two 1-2hr naps (~9am and ~noonish) and then maybe a third shorter nap late afternoon. He will still usually nurse to sleep for naps, but that's really just because of how the timing works out more than anything else.

Sleep at night is getting better. He's still good at putting himself to bed - we put him in the crib awake and he'll usually only fuss <5 mins, if any, and then will play with his hands for awhile before drifting off. Night wake-ups are still all over the map, but I think we're getting better.