Reflections of Week 16

This week has been a really good week. Jack has been really settled and his sleeping has been really good. He has been really happy and very cute.

Sleeping
Sleeping has been going well. He is still sleeping through the night after his dreamfeed. But, the 'dreamfeed' isn't really been a 'dreamfeed' at the moment as he seems to be waking up before I go in to feed him. I'm not sure why he's started to do this as I feed him at different times each day. I decided to feed him earlier than usual, but with a lot of things on this week, I haven't been able to do this consistently. It doesn't seem to be a big problem as he goes straight back to sleep after feeding. But, it does mean that if I'm out at night, I never know if he'll stay asleep, so I usually don't stay out for very long. I'm hoping to drop the dreamfeed soon, but I just haven't been able to do anything about it yet. I'm thinking of bringing the feed 15 mins early (as I mentioned last week) and then cutting down the length of the feed. I'll see how I go...

His day naps have been better. He seems to be sleeping better, but the length of the naps are still unpredictable. This morning he slept for 2 hours and this afternoon he's still asleep and it's nearly been two hours. It's been AGES since he's slept like that.

In the morning he has been waking up around 5 - 5.30ish (arghh!), but we haven't been getting up. We leave him and he just makes his talking noises and eventually goes back to sleep. Well, I assume he goes back to sleep as he's very quiet and if he were awake he couldn't be that quiet! This morning, he slept til 7am, which was really nice as most mornings he wakes up around 6am. I'm going to try to get him to get into the habit of waking at 7am, instead of 6am. Don't really know how I'll do it, but I'll figure something out.

Wake Time
Wake time is always fun. He is really interactive and I love playing with him. He's now giggling at when we play games or when I kiss him on the neck. One day, I played 'boo' with him and he giggled each time I popped my head over the pram. It was adorable. He really enjoys playing with Dave. He often makes his excited noise when he's playing with Dave, which sounds like half a hiccup - probably the 'hic'. He's going really well on his tummy and grabbing hold of his toys. He's still quite active and talkative.

New Things
Well, Jack's started a new thing this week - blowing raspberries. He's been doing it all the time and he looks so pleased with himself when he does it. If someone does it to him, he'll do it back to them, or it seems like he's doing it back to them. But, you've can't get too close as he drools heaps, and if you're not careful, you'll get some lovely Jack spit in your face!

The shrieking noise has continued. I still haven't figured out why he's doing it. Sometimes, he does it when he's playing, other times it seems like he does it when he's tried, and other times, it seems like he does when he's frustrated. He probably is like his mum and just likes the sound of his own voice. Here's a video of this noise. It's not as bad as it can get.


Thumb Sucking
This has continued. He's still sucking his thumb when he goes to sleep. He spends a lot of his wake time with his thumbs and hands in his mouth. He often sucks on both thumbs at once, which we call 'the double barrel'.

Wrapping
I'm still wrapping one arm and leaving the other arm out. This week, I'll try to leave both arms out. I've noticed that wrapping is a definite sleep cue for him, so I'll need to keep wrapping him in some form or another.

Routine
The routine has been working well and I feel like I can plan my day more now. This has made going out much easier.

Outings
We've been out nearly everyday this week. Monday I had coffee with a friend and then we met Dave for lunch. On Tuesday, Mum and I went Christmas shopping. It was so good having mum with me. It makes it much easier having someone willing to look after Jack or take the pram when I need to do things. I'm about half-way through the Christmas shopping - yay! We spent the day at home on Wednesday, which was really good for us. I was able to get cleaning and other little jobs done. Thursday was a social day where I spent the morning with a friend and the afternoon meeting up with friends from school. Friday was my mother's group and in the evening we had our Church's Christmas Carols service. Jack came with me for all the outings and he coped really well. He will sleep pretty much anywhere, which is really handy (except for when I met up with my friends from school, he wasn't interested in sleeping at all! Far too much excitement).