We are seven weeks in and I'm pretty sure I love being a mom. I especially love being a mom to this guy...
and a parent with this guy...
About two weeks ago our sweet, cute and perfect baby turned into Mr. Fussypants...at least after 3:00 pm. Granted, he was not colicy or inconsolable, but his sweet demeanor that appeared every morning seemed to disappear every evening. R and I trudged through about a week of this and I am happy to report we are on the other side. Here's how we navigated the bumpy waters...
1. Baby Boot Camp - As I've said before, R and I completely believe in letting our baby cry it out. I am here to tell you it is much easier to believe in that method when your baby doesn't cry. When your baby does start to cry, however, that's where the rubber meets the road. Two weekends ago R spent three days letting/listening to Eli cry and scream and yell. Of course we made sure he wasn't hungry, dirty, or have any other obvious issue. Once we knew he was perfectly fine, we let him have at it. About every 10 minutes or so, R would check on him and calm him down, letting him know we were still there, but we didn't pick him up. R suffered through his entire weekend putting E through the ropes at Baby Boot Camp. And come Monday morning? I got to spend the day with an angel. Seriously. He was perfect. R had taught him that he could, in fact, soothe himself and mama got to reap the benefits. I'm not going to lie, I did feel a little bad that I got to enjoy the spoils of all of R's hard work, but Ryan definitely deserves the credit. Way to go daddy!
2. Operation Over-stimulation
Another major change in Eli's life occurred around this same time. We got the go ahead from our pediatrician to stretch E's feedings out to 4 hours during the day and let him go as long as he could at night. Well if you feed a baby for 30 minutes, play with a baby for 30 minutes and then let him nap for the remainder of the 4 hour cycle, that's a three hour nap. Surely he's not supposed to sleep that long we thought! Our biggest fear of letting Eli sleep so much during the day was that he would get his days and nights confused. If there is one thing this kid has known how to do since day one, it is sleep at night. And we weren't willing to compromise that for anything. Thus began our attempt to keep Eli awake for longer periods: we sang, we read, we danced. We rattled, squeaked, and crunched every toy in the house. And when he got fussy or fidgety, we tried harder. Until I read a nifty little article about overstimulating babies. The article stated that you know a baby is over-stimulated when he turns away from you (check), gets fidgety (check), arches his back (check), fusses (check), or shuts his eyes (check). Turns out our attempt to entertain our fussy baby was just making him fussier. As soon as mama and daddy backed off, gave him some space and let him sleep, E was just fine. Once again, we learned the hard way that Eli usually knows what he needs if we just pay a little bit of attention.
So here we are a week later. Eli is still sleeping at night and is a much, much happier baby during the day. Of course he still cries from time to time, but mama and daddy are getting much better at reading his cues. So, now that we've got this figured out, what is the next curve ball you're going to throw little man?!?
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Who you callin' 'Mr. Fussypants'?!?
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It has been fun to watch Kelli and Ryan parent Eli. They are 100% into the job and work so well as a team. It puts a smile on my heart. The Good Lord has blessed Eli with great parents.
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