Catching up

I feel like I'm getting behind on Patrick's activities...if you can call them that!

First...food...he LOVES it! We started 2 weeks ago on 'solids'. And from first bite, he was in love. He opens his mouth as soon as he sees the spoon and gets so mad when we're done. Apparently I've been starving the kid all along! We're starting with stage 1 right now. The doctor said to skip the cereal and oatmeal. We've had bananas, sweet potatoes and peaches so far. All a big hit. We did a half of container at first, but realized real quick that he wanted more. After a week of just 1 container, once a day, we moved onto 2 containers twice a day. We'll see how that goes. I am hoping to get a better feeding schedule down in the next few weeks but I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to get that much food in him. Here's his schedule in a nutshell
8:00-9:00 am get up, have 5 oz breastmilk in a bottle (or nurse on the weekends)
10:30 - quick cat nap (usually 30 minutes)
12:00 - 5 oz of breastmik in a bottle if I am not home yet or nurse if I come straight home from work
2:00 - another quick cat nap (usually 30-45 minutes)
3:00 -4 - nurse
4:00-5 - 1 container of food
5:00-6 - nurse
7:15 - 5 oz. bottle and then bed

So we are trying to put the extra container of food in before the morning nap. And I'm only nursing him again so quickly at 5pm because I feel like he hasn't nursed enough throughout the day. This is a huge improvement from eating every 2 hours. I know all babies are different, I'm just hoping he starts putting on some weight soon!!

Second - rolling over - he's getting pretty good at it now. He almost always rolls himself over in his sleep and wakes up on his belly. I'm thinking his is helping him sleep better at night. He can't flinch and wake himself up! We are still working on rolling back over. If he gets tired of being on his belly, he just gets mad and then forgets he can roll back over! And we're working on sitting up and standing up. He likes standing, but not sitting.

Third - sleep - it's going MUCH better! He wakes up if he has a problem (i.e. wet through is diaper or something) but for the most part is back to sleeping all night. And we are forcing 2 naps a day even if they are only 20-30 minutes. The doctor said as long as he's getting 10 hours at night, not to worry about it. But it gives us a few minutes during the day to regroup! And he isn't near as fussy in the evenings as he was with no naps. He must be tired, he falls asleep almost every time. It does take a little rocking and the vacuum sometimes, but whatever works:-)

And lastly - Patrick's mom and dad - we're doing pretty good with the routine we have going. I'm gone in the mornings until noon usually. I've been taking 2 days a week to go to the gym after work so then I get home a little after 1. I enjoy the time at the gym, so I'm glad to be able to put that back into the schedule! And Dean goes and does his errands and work stuff in the afternoons. So it works out for both. I wish it could stay this way and we could leave day care out of the scenario, but I don't think that's an option. We still have a few months to figure it out.
Originally (before Patrick was born) I was pretty sure I wanted to start trying again right away for a second baby. Knowing how long it took this time, knowing our ages, etc, etc, I didn't want to wait until it was too late. But now that we're in the throws of parenthood....I just don't know. My period came back in early December. It was two weeks late (according to pre baby calculations) and I freaked out. Leading me to believe that NO, I am not ready for another baby. Maybe in a few months. I know breastfeeding can alter a lot when it comes to cycles and timing and all that. So for a while we'll be a little more careful;)

Hopefully this catches me up on everything. I'm going to try to get a little better at posting. I hope to use this as a reference the 2nd time around...so I need to get better about my information!!