Reflections of Week 39

This week has been a great week. Things have seemed more settled and Jack has been really fun. Jack has learnt a few new skills. He deliberately coughs to be funny (he's always put one a cough, but it's only been recently that he seems to do it to make us laugh) and sometimes he'll do it on cue. He claps (but only when he wants to) and he shakes his head, which is VERY cute.

Crawling
Jack's crawling is coming along well. He is a little bit more adventurous now, but he doesn't seem to want to get into everything (yet!). But he does like to explore. He loves going under the dining table and into the bathroom (to get to the bin!). I'm thankful that he hasn't discovered the heater or the DVD player that's sitting on the floor (we're yet to do something about that. It's on our "to do" list).

Jack's moving with a lot more co-ordination (fewer floor face-plants) and speed. He also moves into a crawling/sitting/crawling position really easily now. Jack likes to do the "tripod", where he moves from his hands and knees to his is hands and feet. Not really sure why he does it, but he's very fascinated with it, especially balancing on his head to look through his legs.

As well as this, Jack gets up on his knees from a crawling or sitting position. A few times now, he's been on his knees, holding on to the edge of his cot, when he's woken up from his nap. He's just started to do it before his nap.


Sleeping














Things are going along well in this department. He's sleeping from 7pm to 6.30am. He seems to be stuck at the 6.30am mark, but there's nothing I can do about it. He's good at playing in his cot until I come and get him. His naps are going really well, too. He seems to be so much more consistent with his naps now. A couple times he's slept for 3 hours in the afternoon, which has been great (I got to catch up on my TV viewing in one afternoon). There were a few times this week where his naps have been short. This seems to be mainly due to him sleeping in a different environment or due to somebody else looking after him (other than me). We'll keep working on that. He doesn't seem to sleep very well in his pram anymore. I think it's mainly due to the fact that he doesn't do it very often.

Wake Time
Pretty much the same. Jack seems to be staying up longer in the morning. He definitely handles being up longer than he used to. We definitely need to get a play pen and some toys that are more age-appropriate.



Solids
I dropped a feed this week. It sort of evolved. I was thinking about it and I noticed that there was one feed during the day where Jack wasn't drinking much. So, one day I decided to drop a feed and see what happened. It all went well. Jack adjusted to the change and so now we've stuck with it. After his morning nap we give Jack some solids and then at 12pm I'll feed him. We do the same thing after his afternoon nap. I try to hold off to about 5pm to feed him. It's a bit tricky at that time of the day as he just seems to want to eat all afternoon. So, for solids, Jack has breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.

Discipline
Jack does know 'no' as he stops what he's doing when he hears us say it. Sometimes he'll stop completely and other times he'll go back and do it again. It depends on how much he wants to keep doing what he's doing (like playing with the bin in the bathroom. Saying 'no' doesn't work at all. Very hard when I'm in the shower!!).

Babysitting
This has been fantastic!! We are so lucky to have two sets of grandparents close-by. I've been fully exploiting this factor :-). Granny looked after Jack for two afternoons this week while I painted our back door. Since I dropped a feed it has been so much easier to have someone look after Jack. I can drop him off at 12.30pm and I won't need to see him again until 5pm. But I do miss him. Though, it's been good for Jack to spend more time with his grandparents, too.

Routine
Here's what our days are looking like at the moment:

7:00am - Wake, feed, solids, play
9.00/9.30am - Nap
10.30/11.00am - Wake, solids, play
12.00pm - Feed
1.00pm - Nap
3.00pm - Wake, solids, play
5.00pm - Feed, play
6.00pm - Dinner with family
6.30pm - Bath and stories
7.00pm - Bed