Keeping Jack Occupied #1

Yes, it's been a LONG time between posts on Jack.  Can't believe my last post was when he was 20 months! How slack. Well, as you can imagine, he's changed quite a bit! I'll try to post more about these changes, but for now I'm going to focus on my latest mission: keeping Jack occupied.

Since Jack was about 3 1/2 years he has become a lot more boisterous and needing more direction, structure and stimulation.  We go out quite often and socialise nearly every day in order to counteract this.  But, we can't do this all the time, especially with a 4 month old.  I'm beginning to realise that it's important for my relationship with Jack to do fun activities with Jack at home.  So, I've been on the hunt for fun activities to do with Jack.  I've been finding lots of great ideas on Pinterest and have been using these to create a list.  I'm going to work through the list and try a new activity every day or so.

Today we made "Moon Sand".  I found the recipe for it here (http://www.jugglingwithkids.com/2011/11/cloud-dough.html).  It's just flour and baby oil mixed together.  It's a little mouldable but also breaks up and feels like flour.  As I write this post, Jack is happily playing with it.  

What's good about it?  It's really easy to make and Jack could do a lot of helping. It's a little messy, but nothing a vacuum cleaner can't fix.  It kept Jack occupied for about 45 - 60 mins, which is pretty good, although I would have liked a little longer ;-)

Ben at 4 months (18 weeks)

Ben is one cute baby, if I don't say so myself. He's very interactive, always smiling at you, which can often be quite a cheeky smile.  He's making more and more talking noises.  When I sing to him before his sleep, he loves it.  He smiles and even "sings" along with me.  I feel like he often does things to get my attention and he seems to really love it when he gets attention from people.  At the moment, he seems to be a very happy and content baby.

Sleeping

Generally, Benjamin is a really settled sleeper.  Most of the time he'll go sleep by himself without much of a cry, usually just a grizzle.  If he's really unsettled (he has been having one period of being unsettled each day), he won't go to sleep unless I feed or rock him, but this doesn't happen too much.  

He's still waking through the night - about 1 - 3 times.  He's been pretty inconsistent at the moment, so I never know how often he'll wake and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.  I was waking him up around 10 - 10.30pm to give him the late evening feed in order to see if he'll then only wake once in the night.  But, he still woke up twice during the night.  So, I'm thinking of ditching it and just letting him wake up on his own.  I would love it if he would consistently only wake once during that night - that would be a dream!  On a positive note, he will often sleep in until 7 - 7.30am (and sometimes even later), which is great and slightly makes up for the night-waking :-)

I'm still wrapping Benjamin.  I stopped wrapping him about a month ago, but he seemed to cry more and be more unsettled when going to sleep, so I started wrapping him again.  He seems to like being wrapped and it's a good sleep cue for him.

Ben's been having about 4 naps a day.  He'll often only nap for 45 - 60 mins, but over the last couple of days, he has had two 2 hour naps.  He sleeps really well in the pram and car, which is great because we're often out most days.  If I know that we're going out around his nap time, I'll put him to sleep in the car capsule before we go out so that I don't wake him up.  The car capsule is fantastic! Today was the first day I've tried him on 3 naps (dropping the late afternoon nap).  He was awake for over 2 hours this evening before going to bed and he has coped well with it so far.  He's gone to bed really well tonight.  

Wake time

Over the last few weeks Ben's wake time has been around an hour, maybe a little more.  Over the last couple of days I've been stretching him out to see if he'll cope with being awake for longer as he seemed to be ready and wanting to go longer.  Today his wake time has been 1 1/2 hours and that's gone well.  He's been happy for most of the time and he lets us know when he's tired and wants to sleep.  He's gone to sleep well after his wake time, so I'll take that as a good sign that he can manage the longer wake time.  

Benjamin has started to grab hold of and play with his toys now.  He often will grab a toy or blanket and put it in his mouth.  Come to think of it, he often has things in his mouth - fingers, toys, etc., - whatever he can find.

Tummy Time

Benjamin is really good with being on his tummy.  He can stay on his tummy for long periods of time.  He often lifts up his bottom and bends his knees, looking like he's trying to get up on his knees. He moves around a lot on his tummy, but no sign of wanting to roll over as yet.  I did notice that he's managing to move onto his side from time to time, though.

Feeding

Benjamin is a quick feeder, just like his brother.  He'll often only feed for 5 - 10 mins at a time, and sometimes only on one side.  He's very clear when he doesn't want any more.  He throws his head back, away from me, and lifts his hands up to his head with a very cross look on his face, like what I'm trying to do is very offensive to him!  As I mentioned previously, Ben has often wanted to feed every 2 - 2 1/2 hours, until recently.  I think he's finally moving to a 3 hour routine now.  Over the last few days when I've tried to feed him sooner than 3 hours, he's hardly had any milk or he refuses to have any.  Today, most of his feeds have been 3 - 3 1/2 hours apart, with the afternoon and dinner feed being about 2 - 2 1/2 hours.  This has been so much more manageable for me.  I hope he'll continue this pattern.

Routine

So, Ben's not really been much of a routine baby.  BUT yesterday and today have felt like he may be heading in that direction.  So, today went something like this...

7.00am - Wake & breakfast feed

8.30am - Nap

10.15am - Wake & morning feed

11.40am - Nap

1.50pm - Wake & lunch feed

3.30pm - Nap

4.30pm - Wake & afternoon feed

6.30pm - Dinner feed

6.45pm - Bed

Benjamin James (Part 2)

So here's my second part of my reflection on Benjamin from over the last 15 weeks.  As I said previously, he seems to be a pretty chilled-out, happy baby.  He's pretty easy-going and doesn't really cry that much (for now!).  When he was a newborn he very rarely cried, only really grunted and grizzled.  

Benjamin started smiling at about 5-6 weeks and it was absolutely delightful.  He smiles all the time now and makes funny noises when he does "excited smiles".  I really love it when he looks at Jack and smiles.  Over the last couple of weeks he's started to giggle, too.  When I'm undressing him for his bath I tickle him under the chin, which prompts a very cute little giggle.  It's so nice when you start to see signs of their interacting with you.  

I can't remember when exactly, but maybe at about 3 months, he started to make baby noises.  His main noise was the squeal, and it would often get very loud and particularly high-pitched!  I suspected that the more tired he became, the noisier he became.  He's now doing more "talking", noises like, "oo", "a-oo" and "ha-oo".  It's so nice to hear these sounds, especially when he's directing these at me, like he's really talking to me.  He can actually be quite noisy with his chatting.  I don't remember Jack being this chatty, but he could have been.

Benjamin's also started to use his hands.  He's frequently got them in his mouth, sucking on his hands or fingers.  He's also working out how to grab things on his playmat.  Not sure whether this is accidental or not.

A couple of weeks ago he rolled from his front to back.  He was having some good ol' rudey nudey time after his bath where I put him on his tummy in my parents' lounge room and when I came back, he was on his back, looking rather shocked.  Of course, he hasn't done it since and has shown no desire to, either. 

Benjamin James (Part 1)

On 7th March, 2013, Benjamin James was born.  This was a very happy day for us and we are thoroughly enjoying having little Benny-Boy around.  He's a happy, chilled-out, little cutie.

In the first few weeks, we had Benjamin sleeping in his bassinet in our room.  We didn't do this with Jack, but it was something I felt that I wanted to do this time.  Since Dave was working and preparing to go back to uni, he would often sleep upstairs in the spare room during this time.  But, after a while, I was ready to move Benjamin into his own room next door.  He was such a noisy sleeper that I wasn't sleeping that well with him being in the same room.

From pretty early on I tried to establish a routine with Benjamin.  But, it was fairly obvious that he wasn't going to follow any routine I tried to introduce.  I followed the feed-wake-sleep pattern and tried to do a 3-hour routine, but he had his own routine and he was sticking to it.  He pretty much wanted to be fed every 2 hours during the day, which is still the case now.  The only way I can stretch him to go longer is if he's awake for longer or has a longer nap - so different to what Jack was like.

When Jack was a baby he was sleeping through the night at about 11 weeks.  I, of course, expected Benjamin to do the same (maybe a little sooner because I now knew what I was doing - ha, ha), but, of course, he didn't.  At all.  For the first couple of months he was waking up 3-4 times a night.  Now he's doing about 2-3 times a night.  Sometimes, if I feed him around 10-11pm, he'll only wake up the once.  This has been a bit challenging for me as I just assumed that he would just sleep through because Jack did, so Benjamin should.  I had always thought that it was a badge of "good parenting" if your baby was sleeping through the night and I just assumed that it was due to "bad parenting" if any baby wasn't.  So, now it's time for me to eat my words.  I know Benjamin will do it in his own time.  God is teaching me patience.

A few times I've tried to do the "dream feed" (which worked so well with Jack), but it doesn't work at all with Ben.  He'll just wake up at his usual time as if I've never fed him.  Maybe I need to wake him up properly at 10-10.30pm and feed him, but often I'm so tired that I just want to go to bed early.  So, I just leave him to wake up when he wants to.  He does fall back to sleep really well after each feed.  More often than not, he'll fall asleep during the feed and stay asleep as I put him in his bassinet.

It is hard, though, being tired all the time and choosing not to do other things because you need to have a nap or go to bed early.  This does frustrate me a little.  But, if I don't try to catch up on sleep, I fall apart.  I do wonder how people can do this long term.  I guess you just get used to being tired - I think that's probably the badge that all parents wear.

A Long Over-Due Update

Well, it's been a while - I KNOW.  I lost my blogging "mojo" a while back as life just got busy and I forgot how good blogging is.  A couple of weeks ago I was rerading through my old posts.  I was particularly interested in all my reflections about Jack as he was growing up.  Most of the stuff I recorded I had completely forgotten about.  This made me realise how important it is to write things down.  No matter how many times you tell yourself you'll remember certain things about the kids growing up, you just won't.  These reflections are more for myself than anyone else, like a diary, I guess.

So, I shall attempt to start writing my reflections again - for both our boys. What?!  "Both" boys?  Yep, that's right.  We've had another little boy - Benjamin James.  He's 15 weeks and just a cutie.  I shall write more about him soon.

Now that I've finally written something down, hopefully I will continue...we'll just have to see, won't we?