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?

Jack at 20 months

Yes, it's be a while since my last post. Life as been plodding along really nicely (with various ups and downs) and we have been thoroughly enjoying being parents of a little toddler. The other day, a lady at the shops asked me how old Jack was. I had no idea! I did some quick calculations (not my strongest point!) and I replied, "20 months...I think?". I wondered whether she thought I was actually his mother. Ah, well. That's just a reflection of what things are like at the moment. After 12 months, you don't seem to take as much notice of their "monthly" changes and development. Things slow down and are a lot more settled, which is so nice!

So, I guess I'd better give a proper update on Jack and how he's going.

Speaking
Jack's going well with this. He is constantly chatting away in his toddler gibberish and laughing at the funny things he's saying. He picks up a new word every few days and we often ask ourselves, "how on earth did he learn that word? He didn't get it from us." Some of the words he's learned are: key, birdie, up, bubbles, head, nose, eye, ear, toes, toast, book. The biggest achievement in this area, as far as I'm concerned, is that he finally learnt to say "Mummy". Yay!!!! This correlated with a pretty terrible week of him teething and having a nasty cold, so unfortunatley, "Mummy" became synonymous with whinging and "I want". But, at least he's saying it now. He's also learnt to say "no" (which he says quite frequently!) and "more" (my friend, Machi, taught him that one!). I find these words helpful in the sense that I have more of an idea of what they do and don't want. Well, more of an idea of what Jack THINKS he does and does not want.

As I type this, he's sitting in his highchair playing "boo" with his washer and singing in his cup.

Jack at 16 Months

Well, I must say, this last month has been so much fun with Jack. Every week he gets more and more interactive with us. We're always amazed by how much he understands and processes. It's fantastic. He is such a lovely little boy.

Signing
These last few days Jack's signing for "food" and "finished" has really improved. I was quite surprised when I asked him if he'd like some food and he signed "please" and then "food", and yesterday he signed "food" without my having to say the word at all (although, I'm not sure that he wanted any food as when I offered it to him, he didn't want it!).

Talking
Yesterday we went to the park. Jack loves going down the slide, and he giggles and laughs every time we went down. Before we went down I'd say, "One, two, three - yay!". After a while of doing this, I heard Jack saying "di, da, dee - yay!". I wasn't really sure what he was saying at first, but I eventually figured it out and I was so surprised that he had picked it up so quickly. I guess they say things all the time, but because their words don't sound exactly like "real" words, we don't realise. I think he also says, "Oh, dear", but I'm not too sure.

Jack's other new word has been "goggy". He says it when he says our sheep or chickens. Actually, I think he says it when he sees any animal. We've been showing him pictures of animals and saying their name, but he'll still say, "goggy".

Mobility
Jack is a super walker now. He is always on the move and walks around everywhere exploring. He's also started to run. This has posed a few problems, especially when his feet can't keep up him his desire to run and he ends up doing a face-plant on the ground, usually biting into his lip and bleeding everywhere. What's also been great to watch is that Jack has been trying to jump. I think this has come from jumping on the trampoline with his cousins. I never thought about how hard it is to learn to do this until I watched Jack try to do it. He has worked out the action and he tries so hard, but he just hasn't worked out how to get his feet off the ground. He loves doing it, though. We often say to him, "jump!", and he'll stop what he's doing and jump, and say "ump" while he does it. He loves it when we jump with him and cracks up when he sees us do it.

Sleeping
Things have been relatively settled with Jack's sleeping. His night sleeping is still going so well. He goes down at 7pm and wakes up between 6am and 7am. When I go to bed I pop some toys in his cot so that when he wakes up in the morning he'll play with his toys (well, usually!) so we don't have to get him up straight away.

I'm still giving him 2 day naps. There are some days where he will only have one nap. On Fridays he won't sleep in the morning at mothers group. I keep trying each week, but he just refuses to. Luckily, I've been able to get him down at bible study on Thursday mornings, which I didn't expect. There are some days when he'll have a morning nap but won't want an afternoon nap. His naps are never longer than 1 1/2 hours, usually only 1 hour. I thought he'd start to have a really long nap at some point in the day, but he doesn't. Even if he only has one nap, it still isn't that long. I think I'll just keep giving him 2 naps and just see what happens.. He's been happy when he's awake, so he's getting enough sleep.

Discipline
This is typically up and down. With some things, Jack is really good and does what we ask him to do. When he has something he shouldn't have, we'll say, "ta" and he'll give it to us - sometimes! When it's something he really likes, he'll run away. He is obsessed with running on to the road at the moment and will ignore us when we tell him to stop or come back. Luckily for us, we're quicker and stronger than he is!

I'm trying to teach him to finish eating one thing before he starts one something else. This comes down to the battle of the wills, as is often the case with parenting. There are some things I'm determined to win and my will needs to be stronger than his, and this is one of them. Sometimes, Jack will understand and finish what he's got, but other times he refuses. One time he wanted to eat my muesli, but I wanted him to finish his toast first. He refused and threw his toast on the floor (how do you stop them from throwing their food and drink on the floor?!). I was determined to win this battle so I kept explaining the situation. Eventually, I took him out of his high chair and moved him away from the situation. A while later, I offered him his toast again and he ate it, and then he got to eat his muesli. What a morning!

We're still using time-out and, at times, he'll get a smack on the hand. At the moment, time-out is more effective than the smacking. Sometimes he "gets" the whole discpline thing, but most of the time, he doesn't quite understand it. He does understand "no", though, and he knows when to throw a tantrum and cry when he doesn't get his own way. Luckily, those tantrums never last long and they're usually pretty half-hearted.

Thumb Sucking
Jack is still an avid thumb-sucker. Over the last couple of months he's been sucking his thumb more during the day when he's awake. We're trying to teach him that sucking his thumb is only for sleeping. So, when we see his thumb in his mouth, we say, "thumb out". Up until the last week or so, he didn't really respond to our instruction and we'd have to take it out ourselves, which usually resulted in him having a bit of a whinge and putting it straight back in. Now, he understands what we're saying and takes it out straight away, which is so good. But, he does, at times, put it straight back in, like he's taunting us! What's been good is that his grandparents and aunts and uncles have been saying "thumb out" to him as well, so he can't escape, there's always somebody harassing him!

Eating
This last month Jack has been eating so well. What he eats has really expanded. At dinner, we'll give him some steamed vegies to eat before his meat, and he'll happily eat his broccoli, zucchini, carrot, etc., although he's still a bit suspicious of some food! He's still obsessed with cheese and he's rather fond of grapes, too. These are great to have on hand when I'm out and I need to keep him entertained.

He absolutely loves plums at the moment. The other morning he kept point at the fruit bowl, saying "this" and signing "please". I kept picking up various fruit and offering it to him, but he kept shaking his head, until I got to the plum and then he giggled and signed "please" and subsequently ate two plums! I have no idea how he knew what a plum was and that he knew that he liked it, but he was so determined to have it and I'm certainly not going to say no to him wanting to eat fruit. Now, every morning he'll ask for a plum before he eats anything else. I just hand the fruit whole to him and he'll eat it all, minus the stone.

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

6:30/7:00am - Wake, breakfast, play
10:00am - Nap
11.00am - Wake, morning tea, play
12.00pm - Lunch
2.00pm - Nap
3.00pm - Wake, afternoon tea, play
6.00pm - Dinner with family
6.30pm - Bath and stories
7.00pm - Bed