Rice Cereal: A Success Story

Here goes nuthin'...

This evening, I spoke with Eli's pediatrician (who I absolutely adore, by the way) regarding our great bottle battle. She suggested that we go ahead and get started with rice cereal, as it often serves as a "bridge" for babies who really hate the bottle - once they learn to take food from a spoon, they're more apt to take it from a bottle as well. Even if it doesn't help with the bottle problem, it would be something to feed him when I'm not at home, so that whoever is watching him doesn't have to deal with a starving, screaming baby. For reasons I've mentioned in previous posts, I knew that rice cereal was just around the corner anyway, so we decided to go for it. 

We weren't terribly optimistic, given his bottle feeding antics. I figured that since he was refusing breast milk from a bottle, he would surely reject rice cereal (which, at this stage, is mostly breast milk) on a spoon, which is completely foreign. At least the nipple on a bottle is meant to approximate (however poorly) the "real thing"... But then again, maybe something completely foreign is just what he needed. Perhaps the key is not to try to substitute for the real thing, and just use a completely different delivery system that's new and interesting.

He was skeptical at first, but never got fussy and never completely rejected the spoon. He evaded a little by turning his head, but once we got a few spoonfuls in his mouth (which promptly oozed back out onto his bib, of course), he started to show some interest. He allowed us to stick the spoon into his mouth and sort of pour the cereal in - though most of it came back out with his tongue thrusting - but before long he was swallowing and opening his mouth for more! He even started making excited noises between spoonfuls :) Perhaps I should just share a little video footage...

The Aftermath... he took down the whole bowl (about 5 tbsp)!

He did such a great job, and we're so proud! Naturally, we're simply ecstatic about this success in light of the bottle issues. We'll keep on working at it this week so that hopefully by Saturday (and my first lengthy absence), we can be confident that if he won't take a bottle, he'll at least eat some cereal. 

Phew. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I'm starting to feel like a weight has been lifted :-)

More on the Great Bottle Battle

So I've mentioned our bottle issues on several occasions, but I haven't been all that specific and I've been getting a lot of "have you tried this?" and "what about that?" kinds of questions. I think it's high time for a more detailed post on the topic, don't you? Well, you don't have to agree with me... I'm writing one anyway ;-)

What exactly do I mean by "battle"? I mean all-out war. This kid is serious about his demand to exclusively nurse. As soon as we put it up to his lips he tightens them up and starts shaking his head back and forth to evade it. Every now and then we manage to wiggle it into his mouth, to which he responds with incessant and forceful tongue thrusting. He never even comes close to latching, much less sucking. We try to be gentle with it and give him frequent breaks to calm down so as to avoid getting him all fired up, but the next inevitable step is always crying and flailing. It progresses rather rapidly from crying to full-blown screaming, at which point we'll usually take a 5 or 10 minute break, calm him down and try again. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. This has gone on for as long as two hours without success (by which point he hadn't eaten in 4 hours and should've been pretty darn hungry, as he has been nursing at least every two hours). That is what I mean by "battle".

We've tried just about everything we can think of, and we're nearing the point of taking the "he'll take it when he gets hungry enough" stance and just waiting him out. You can imagine how excited I am about that. Talk about going against every mothering instinct you have... try starving out your own baby. I just don't know what else to do. We've tried offering it between meal times when he's not hungry, we've tried when he's hungry, I've tried, Ben has tried (when I'm in the room, when I'm in another room, when I'm out of the house entirely), we've tried various times of day, we've tried a more breast-like nipple (the Tommee Tippee), we've tried playing games with the nipple for a few days (we even got him sucking on it happily!), we've tried taking a break for several days and then trying again, we've tried frozen breast milk, we've tried fresh-from-the-tap breast milk, we've tried waiting him out for as long as four hours... I'm telling you, this kid is adamant. I even tried pulling the ol' switcheroo on him when he was groggy and finishing up nursing before bed (but still actively sucking and swallowing), and the little stinker just pulled back as soon as he felt it touch his lips, eyes still closed, and clenched his lips and stuck his lower lip out. He just laid there - lower lip sticking out, eyes closed - until I offered my breast again, which he happily latched onto and continued to nurse for another couple of minutes. At that point, I just had to laugh at him. He knows what's up, and his resolve appears to remain unshaken despite our best efforts.

Any other ideas? I'm willing to try just about anything at this point! There's another bottle I've considered (Breast Flow), the mechanism of which more closely approximates the action and flow of nursing, but I really don't think it's a flow issue. He doesn't even know what kind of flow or release mechanism his bottle has, because he has never sucked milk from it! A little bit of milk always leaks out into his mouth during the struggle, so I know that he knows what's in there, but he has never removed milk from the nipple willingly. I think the core issue is that he'd just really rather nurse, and he is proving to be quite strong-willed.

"Try me, Sucka."

HELP!

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

This week has been exhausting. I've found myself working very hard at maintaining a positive state of mind! Lately it seems as though everything is a battle with Eli. From nighttime wakings, nap time issues and bottle battles all the way down to dressing him, he seems to always be testing us! I feel like I'm always forcing things on him, and it feels so icky and unnatural, not to mention frustrating for all three of us. I hate that I have to press this bottle issue. I hate that I have to "work on" transitioning him into his crib. I just want to peacefully co-exist with my baby!

According to many of my mommy friends, this "phase" is apparently typical for babies his age. It is an age where parents are often working on various transitions, as we are. He's starting to want to do things on his own terms and develop some independence, but the world is still a confusing and scary place for him. I also think that life is getting progressively more frustrating for him as his cognitive development speeds beyond his physical capabilities. I'm sure it's terribly frustrating to try to carefully manipulate and study objects in your environment with hands that just aren't quite dexterous enough to grab that dangling toy as it sways back or forth or hang onto it long enough to get a good taste! He has been more fussy in general, his nap schedule is less predictable and he's not napping very well, he's all "two steps forward, one step back" with the nighttime wakings, he's going through very clingy periods throughout the day... he's just not the "easy baby" that we've been accustomed to caring for all these months! I've said it many times and I'll say it again... change is the only constant!

I think I need to renew my commitment to a "baby-led" parenting style. I've always tried to let him lead in many ways, but when I take a step back I can see that lately I've been making little power plays and trying to seize control little by little. That's just no way to live in peace with your baby. There are certain issues that I'm forced to press, like the bottle. Others, however, can wait. I think I need to let myself focus on one thing at a time. It may seem like 4 months is a good time to start transitioning him to his room, but maybe it's just not. Maybe it's not working because we're trying to "work on" too many changes at once. We've been "working on" the nighttime wakings and self-soothing, "working on" bottle-feeding, "working on" figuring out a nap schedule, and "working on" getting him to nap in his room all at that same time. Soon it will be time to start introducing solid foods, too!

I think it's time to prioritize...

• The bottle has to be number one. I have a little over one week before my first scheduled shadowing experience (of sixteen that I'm supposed to complete by May!), during which I'll need to leave him for at least 4 or 5 hours. He simply must take a bottle. 

• Nighttime sleep and the nap schedule must be number two. I think they go hand-in-hand - the better he sleeps during the day the better he sleeps at night, and the better night he has the better next day he'll have. These issues have been plaguing us for a while now, but I think that the friction could be greatly reduced by just letting him do what he needs to do. Nighttime sleep has been getting better, little by little, and I'm fine with just continuing along the natural course that we've been on (natural with a little encouragement toward self-soothing, anyway). I think I've decided that I need to go back and spend a week or two letting him determine his own nap times during the day, and hope that allowing his natural rhythms to dictate his sleep schedule will eventually yield a more regular pattern. I thought that I had figured this out already, but it seems like he gets tired at different times every day and trying to get him to go down for a nap at any predetermined time is a bit of a joke. Maybe if I just let him do his own thing for a little while he'll work himself into a more regular routine. Part of the problem is that he wakes up for the day at different times every day. I'm sure that that is influenced by the amount of wakeful time he's had overnight, which still varies. When he wakes in the middle of the night and how long we fight determines when he'll wake up for a feeding in the early morning hours, and that in turn influences when he's ready to be up for the day. You can see how this becomes one big vicious cycle when any aspect of his sleep schedule is disrupted, so making all of these pieces come together is key!

• In favor of taking it one step at a time, I think I'm going to move his swing back to our room for his naps and put off trying to transition him to his room until his sleep patterns are more regular. I thought that we had him napping pretty well when we moved him (he was taking two good long naps every day), but the timing has always been irregular and I think it's important that his body and mind be set on a regular sleep schedule before we go introducing any other changes to the sleep routine. 

• I think that we need to prepare to introduce solid foods soon-ish, but it will remain a lower priority for now. I feel like he has been nursing a lot lately (at least every two hours, where as a month ago he was going more like three and sometimes four hours between feedings) and it may be that he's ready for a little more bulk in his diet. That is certainly important, but I still get the sense that it's not super-pressing for him and I'll keep putting it off as long as I keep getting that vibe from him, in favor of getting some of these other issues resolved. I do wonder, though, if perhaps getting him started on alternative food sources might make him a little more willing to give the bottle a try...? Our experience with the bottle leads me to believe that he may not be ready to accept food from a spoon yet either, but we'll give it a try in due time and see how it goes. I've been trying to feel him out on this issue for a few weeks now and am paying close attention for signs that he's interested.

Well, I think that's about all I can muster for this evening. I'll leave you with a video of our big boy's most recent milestone... TODAY, he rolled over for the first time! I caught the second time on video :)

Contraception in America

I am SO. Sick. And tired. Of the "Why should we pay for women to have sex?" rhetoric that the conservative 24-hour news station which needs not be named here has been spouting so incessantly. It's so flipping degrading to women, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves. The Rush Limbaugh mess makes the entire discussion even more absurd, but I'm pretty sure that most thinking people already know that he's a giant ass so I won't belabor that issue here.

Like it or not, the Pill is a commonly prescribed medication, and one that is prescribed for a whole host of reasons that go far beyond some slutty college coed's insatiable desire for sex. Whether it's excruciating ovarian cysts, anemia-inducing menstrual flow, or an underlying condition which makes pregnancy life-threatening, there is a long list of alternative reasons that the Pill is used. But what I really want to know is when it became acceptable to label women who use contraception as sluts...?!?! God forbid a woman (who has no moral convictions to the contrary) use modern medicine to help prevent unwanted pregnancy. It is not at all outrageous, in the modern world, for a woman to expect that she ought to be able to have sex without getting pregnant. That doesn't make her a whore - it makes her a naturally sexual being, as God created her, who happens not to be prepared to have a child at the present moment.

Now, I have written a lot about the harmful side effects of the Pill and the reasons why I believe that the medical establishment ought to be far more cautious with it, but the reality is that for some women, the medical benefits outweigh the risks. That's a judgement call that we must make with any medication that we choose to take - they all have side effects to consider. The reality is that the vast majority of women will never experience most of the scary side effects that the Pill can cause. That doesn't change the fact that women should be much better educated when it comes to what those side effects might be, and that there are far healthier alternatives about which we should also be educating women. HOWEVER, the media has no business lambasting a woman who has chosen that route for herself.

As far as whether contraceptives should be considered a part of "preventative healthcare", it is undeniable that the insurance system in this country (and the federal government, via medicare) is overburdened with the high cost of prenatal care and labor and delivery expenses - not to mention the ensuing pediatric care - when women who would otherwise choose not to have a child get pregnant unexpectedly. Some women experience very costly complications during and after pregnancy, children are often born prematurely or with special medical needs... the business of pregnancy and childbirth can be very expensive for insurance companies. From a public heath standpoint, contraception has the potential to be tremendously beneficial if it is made more universally available. It makes logical sense to include it as part of what is considered "preventative care" when the larger goal is healthcare reform that reduces the overall cost of insurance and medical care on a national scale.

There is a very important discussion to be held when it comes to the impact of the contraception mandate on the Catholic Church. To be honest, I'm not quite sure how I feel. On the one hand, the Church employs non-Catholics, and the Church receives federal money (and doesn't pay taxes). They would be paying for an insurance plan that covers contraception in the event that the subscriber chooses to use it, just as they provide a salary to employees that may choose to use it to purchase contraceptives. I know that's not exactly the same thing, but if it is becoming the nature of insurance plans to include contraceptive coverage, and as an employer the Church must offer their employees insurance coverage, it seems like one of those "necessary evil" kind of issues. Just as a cash salary can be used for Church-disapproved activities (because it is the nature of cash that it can be used to buy anything), so health insurance can also be used to pay for things that the church may not approve of. Perhaps that's just becoming a reality of modern health care that the Church must accept. On the other hand, I can appreciate that this is a change in policy that the Church would rather not see applied to them, and for very good reason. There is a serious moral conflict there. I certainly don't have an answer and I don't pretend to be prepared to issue an opinion or an argument for either side of this debate. I tend to be more liberal in my politics than many Christians, and I tend to err on the side of greater liberty for the general population (as opposed to protecting or promoting my particular religious convictions). I believe that religious freedom gives all Americans the right to conduct their lives beyond the confines of any one religious ideology. I believe that the first amendment was meant to protect Americans from becoming subject to any one religious majority, not to exempt a religious institution from the laws of the land. I know that many of my friends will respectfully disagree with me on that point, but that's where my point of view on this topic originates.

At the end of the day, my main concern in this debate is the blatant degradation of women that is suddenly being perpetrated by the conservative media. I'm all for empowering women with information regarding the risks associated with the Pill and the alternatives to chemical contraceptives (which ultimately bring women into closer harmony with their fertility, further empowering them to respect and cherish their femininity). HOWEVER, it's just not OK in my book for contraceptive users to be labeled as sex-crazed sluts. I'd be SO interested to see how different this discussion would be if men could get pregnant too ;-)

Impending Doom

Honestly, I have it pretty darn good. Ten months at home with my baby is considerably more than I ever thought I'd have. When we started trying for Eli, "the plan" was always for me to take a 12-week maternity leave and then return to my research job at Johns Hopkins. Having lived through the twelve week mark, I can't tell you how grateful I am that I wasn't forced to return to work at that point! No measure of time with your baby ever feels like enough, but the reality is that twelve weeks truly is not enough. I would have been a complete basket case, to put it mildly! By the sheer grace of God (and after much prayer over the subject), I was able to put together a financial solution that allowed me to stay home until my return to medical school, giving me ten glorious months to enjoy my precious little bundle :)

At four and a half months in, the countdown has already begun. Who are we kidding... I've been acutely aware of that ticking clock ever since he was born. At one month I thought, "I can't believe he's already a month old! Oh my gosh, I only have 9 months left." At two months I thought, "Oh my gosh, where does the time go - two months old! Ugh... only 8 months left." It's such a downer. The idea of being without him... the idea of him being without me... the idea of missing out on moments of his life... the idea of committing my time and attention to something else... it's all so overwhelming and upsetting. Throw on top of that the fact that I'm not just returning to a job (where I get to leave my work at the office) but returning to what is arguably one of the most challenging educational endeavors on the planet! I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of challenges that I'm anticipating. Just the thought of it is a lot to handle (or not handle, in my case).

I know that one day when my kids are in school and I'd otherwise be home all alone, this is the career that I want to have. I also know that staying home long-term is not a financial option for us - come August, I have to go back to school or find a job. While a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology may sound fancy, it doesn't get you very far in the job market, and it certainly won't put me into a job that will make me happy for the long haul. Going back to school obviously puts me in a better position for the long term, and at the end of the day it is what I want. It's the short term that haunts me... the sacrifices I'm having to make in order to set myself up for longer-term happiness.

I suppose this is a universal struggle. I'm not the first person to ever be forced to come to grips with delayed gratification. I'm certainly not the first mother to have to leave her baby in order to go back to work or school. The reality is, it sucks no matter who you are. We live in a culture that all but forces women to work, and if I have to work (and I do), I know that I want to be a doctor. Getting there just hurts. I knew all of this when we made the decision to have a baby, and I was aware that we would face some truly daunting challenges. The only difference now is that the reality is creeping up on me, and it's starting to weigh on my heart. But, I'm determined to enjoy this time with my sweet little boy to the absolute fullest, and that means I have no time or energy to waste on the impending doom that awaits. So long as it's still out of sight, I will do my best to push it out of mind.

Point: Daddy

 

You'll have to pardon the loosely veiled profanity... but admit it - as a parent, you can't help but laugh at that!

So, just when I thought we were starting to make some progress with the nighttime fussies, last night happened. Ugh. For a few nights in a row, he required very minimal intervention on my part - he was only waking up about twice, and was getting much better about self-soothing. One night I never had to pick him up at all, and the next night I only picked him up once and he went right back down with no trouble. Last night, he was up from 2 til 3:30. On the positive side, he didn't wake up at all until 2, and he almost always wakes up sometime between midnight and 1am in addition to the dreaded 2-3am crazy-time. But when he did wake up, he was up - bright eyed and smiling at me. That's never a good sign at 2am.

I tried holding his hands near his mouth for a while so that he could suck on his fingers, which is his typical sleepy-time routine. I tried for about a half hour, during which time he'd occasionally find a finger or two and suck for a few seconds, but mostly just fussed and cried. I finally picked him up around 2:30, but he really didn't have any interest in laying on my chest and going back to sleep by that point. We fought like that for a few minutes before I got up out of bed and walked him around a little until he finally laid his head on my shoulder, and then we rocked back to sleep for a few minutes. By 2:45 he was back in his bassinet, and by 2:45:05 he was wide awake and crying. Again, I tried offering his fingers but now he was just plain TICKED and wouldn't even let me hold his hand near his face. Obviously if he's exerting himself to physically fight against me he's not going to do any "soothing", so I didn't bother with that for very long, and picked him up again. This time he was happy to fall asleep on my chest just sitting in the bed. I laid there for a good 10 minutes to make sure he was really out this time, laid him down again, and of course he was awake before he even hit the mattress. We repeated the futile attempt at offering the fingers through plenty of screeching, I picked him up and put him back to sleep, and for a third time he immediately woke up when I attempted to lay him down. This time I tried to just let him lay there and cry for a few minutes. I was fresh out of ideas. After about 5 minutes I picked him up (at which point he immediately stopped crying), sat him in my lap to calm down for a minute, and laid him back down again, knowing full well that he'd start up again (and he didn't disappoint). Again, I let him cry for a few minutes, at which point Ben finally decided to try his hand at baby whispering. It took him a few minutes to get the baby calmed down, and then he rocked him for about 15 minutes (and mommy took a little cat nap!). That was his last hurrah... when Ben finally laid him down again he stayed asleep, and slept until his typical early-morning feeding time around 5:30. 

Usually this madness lasts for about an hour, so last night was an exceptionally long battle. Usually Ben doesn't ever have to step in, and at some point I just lay him down and he doesn't wake up again. You could argue that Ben putting him to sleep made the difference in him waking up again versus staying asleep last night, but every other night leading up to this he has eventually fallen asleep for good for me (and in less time). What is it that finally causes him to stay asleep?! I'd really love to know. Maybe he just tires himself out with all the fussing... though I really hope that's not it, because that means that he just has to fuss for an hour every night in order to get sleepy enough to stay asleep. That's not a solution. Maybe we should try having Ben put him to sleep the first time he wakes up and see if he does any better...? I hate to make that kind of interruption to his sleep a nightly routine, but maybe if we do that for a few nights in a row he'll eventually stop waking up altogether...? One can dream, right?! 

I probably shouldn't get so down on myself about having Ben help out at night. I know that he doesn't prefer to be up in the middle of the night when he has to get up for work at 6am, but I also know that he wants me to ask for help if I need it and doesn't want me to feel alone and frustrated. We're both Eli's parents, and sometimes it takes two to wrangle an infant! I just feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be at home with Eli, and that blessing is made possible in large part by the fact that Ben works so hard to hold down a well-paying job. It makes me want to do what I can to support him in that, by making sure that he is well-fed, well-rested, and ready to face the work day each and every day. I've worked plenty, and I know it's not always easy to get up and go every day, particularly when you're exhausted (like the entire first third and final third of my pregnancy)!

I suppose I should just take this as an opportunity to marvel at just how lucky I am, not only to be able to stay home with my baby for 10 months, but to have the kind of husband who wants to be there for me in every aspect of our life together - even when it means giving up something as precious to him as sleep (and if you know him, you know how precious that is)! I didn't even have to ask him last night. I just looked at him and apologized for his being kept awake and said that I was out of ideas so I was trying to let the baby cry for a little while and see if he'd eventually doze off, and he just said "I'll try" and got right up. He even came back to bed laughing about how badly he'd had to cough after the baby had fallen asleep on him and the sheer will power it had taken to hold it back! I just love that man. Love love love <3 He gets one point in the battle of the nighttime fussies, and a zillion points in the Book of Mommy :)

The Art of the Gradual Transition

I've discovered that the only constant in parenting is change. Babies (and their routines) are constantly growing, developing, evolving... just when you think you've got something good going, everything gets flipped upside down! This constant flux makes it very difficult to ever settle into your own routine. Your sleep routine is constantly changing, nap times are always shifting around, the kinds of toys and activities that once entertained them suddenly become obsolete, and you're left wondering how in the heck you're ever supposed to settle into any kind of normal, predictable pattern (like anything remotely resembling your old life!). I find myself in a perpetual state of "figuring [something] out", whether it's what the heck does he want from me right now?! or how do I get him to take a bottle again, and why the heck did he suddenly decide they're poison?! or how is it that he can quietly soothe himself right back to sleep at nap time, but cries every stinking time he wakes up at night?! I suppose it has a lot to do with the stage we're in right now, but it just seems like we're always "working on [something]". It can be exhausting at times.

It's exhausting for many obvious reasons. First of all, when your child is establishing routines and habits and making strong associations, you feel like you really have to watch yourself. You don't want to set any bad precedents and train your baby into "bad habits". Whether it's a habit that could ultimately be bad for your baby himself, or a habit that just makes your life more difficult, you've got to do what you can to avoid setting yourself up for difficulty down the road. The tricky part is that babies don't come with instructions, and sometimes you just don't realize that you're making trouble for yourself. Other times you know darn well, but you're just too tired to care! Sometimes you just let them win, and quietly reassure yourself that tomorrow is another day. There's plenty of guilt in that outcome, but that's parenting for ya. Exhaustion with a side of frustration, peppered with guilt, and served on a big heaping pile of the purest, sweetest joy you've ever known. 

It's also exhausting because you convince yourself that if you break it down into small enough steps, your baby won't even notice that you're trying to completely up-end some aspect of his little world. You design these elaborate schemes for getting from Point A to Point B, which end up mostly going to pot, or being postponed and modified and scaled up and scaled down and spun around until they're just remnants of their former selves! We're working on several of these "gradual transitions" ourselves...

• Sleeping through the night. We used to be great at this one! A few weeks ago we were getting up to nurse every hour and a half to two hours. Now we've successfully cut out the nursing, but we're still waking up every two or three hours. It turned out that he wasn't actually hungry, he just needed some help getting back to sleep. I jumped to the conclusion that he was awake because he was hungry, but it turned out that if I got up and walked around with him for a few minutes he'd fall right back to sleep. Sometimes I had to walk and bounce and rock for a good twenty minutes before he'd go back to sleep, but before long all I had to do was sit up in bed and pick him up and he would almost immediately lay his head on my shoulder and drift off to sleep. Now he will sometimes soothe himself back to sleep in his bassinet with my help (I hold his hand near his mouth for a few minutes so that he can find some fingers to suck on), but other times I still end up having to pick him up. The hours between 2 and 3am are usually the worst for this. He'll fall back asleep with my help, but he won't stay asleep. If I've gotten him to fall back to sleep in his bassinet, he'll be awake again within 5 or 10 minutes. If I've picked him up and let him fall asleep on my chest, I usually can't even lay him back down without his eyes popping wide open, and the fussing ensues all over again. I have laid there next to the bassinet holding his fingers or a pacifier (which he rarely takes anymore) in his mouth for every bit of 20 and 30 minutes sometimes, trying to hold off on picking him up. Somehow, during this 2-3am stint, he just about always wins. I haven't had to resort to nursing him back to sleep, but he just will not stay asleep during that time frame and rarely falls asleep at all without me picking him up. Eventually - and I have no idea what's different that causes this - he just falls asleep and stays asleep. It's usually after about 45 minutes to an hour of this back and forth madness. I just really don't know how to move past this road block!

• The next is instituting a two-nap schedule. On this point, I've had much more success. He almost always cat-napped in the mornings and then took a long afternoon nap in his swing. I tried laying him in his bassinet for a mid-morning nap around 11 (or whenever he got sleepy around that time of day) for about a week straight, but he would never stay asleep in there for more than 30 minutes. EVER. Sometimes I could get him to go back to sleep, sometimes I couldn't, but never for any more than a second 30-minute stint. There must be something about his sleep cycle... it's 30 minutes, on the dot, EVERY time I lay him in his bassinet to nap during the day. So eventually I decided to just put him in his swing when he started to act sleepy sometime between 11 and noon every day just to establish it as a nap time, since I knew he'd sleep better in there. That was the key - it only took a few days until we had added an (at least) hour-and-a-half-long nap in the late morning. The next step is...

• Napping in the crib (and ultimately sleeping there at night, though that's still a ways off I think). As aforementioned, we have tried to have him nap in his bassinet as an intermediate step along the way toward reaching this goal, but that hasn't gone so well. About a week ago I decided to move the swing upstairs to our bedroom. I thought that perhaps  he was having a hard time napping in the quiet, isolated bedroom because he had grown accustomed to napping on the main floor with plenty of background noise and the smell of mommy nearby. Apparently the surrounding environment wasn't the problem, because he has had no trouble sleeping up there in his swing. I have always been rather perplexed as to why he seems to need the motion of the swing to nap well during the day, when he obviously doesn't seem to "need" it at night. Well, as it turns out, apparently it wasn't the motion of the swing either - the batteries ran out the other day and he stayed asleep just fine! It starts out swinging and dies about a half hour into his nap, so I've just been letting it go and he has been napping normally. Today I just never even started it swinging - he slept in there motionless and did great! He even woke up at one point and put himself back to sleep! I was quite impressed. So it has been a gradual process of narrowing down what it is that he seems to "need", or maybe he is just gradually learning to nap without whatever it is that he "needed". The next step is to see if he'll nap laying down versus sitting up - that's all that's separating the swing from the bassinet at this point! What's my strategy? I'm thinking of having him sleep sitting up motionless in the swing for a few more days just to ensure that we're over the motion thing, and then try propping him with the boppy pillow in his bassinet. Maybe if he's semi-upright he won't notice the difference...? We shall see. Then it'll just be a matter of removing that last crutch (the boppy) and, Voila! We're napping in the bassinet. See what I mean by elaborate schemes? Oye.

• Last but certainly not least frustrating is the Battle of the Bottle. Little man always took a bottle like a champ up until about a month ago. He'd even let Daddy feed him his last meal of the night and put him to bed! He took bottles from me, from Daddy, and even from friends of ours once or twice. Then one day, he apparently just decided he'd had enough of that. Now he purses his lips, shakes his head, ducks away, screeches, and generally employs any and all tactics at his disposal for avoiding the dreaded plastic nipple. We switched to a more breast-like nipple (the Tommee Tippee) at the suggestion of several friends, but so far it hasn't even put a dent in his resolve. We've been offering a bottle once a day for over a week now, and I'm about to step it up to twice (maybe once with me during the day and once with Daddy in the evening...?). I know that Daddy is probably the best person to start with, since he associates me with nursing, but I'm home with him so much that it's just convenient for me to give it a try too. Maybe I should just have Daddy do it for a while... Anyway, we've been offering it at between-meal times, so that he's not already hungry and cranky but also not full from a recent feeding. I'm also trying not to put myself in a position where he's legitimately hungry so that I'm forced to nurse him right after he rejects the bottle, because I don't want him to associate the rejection of the bottle with the reward of nursing. It's all quite tricky, to say the least. Why is this a such pivotal point for a SAHM, you might ask? I have to start doing some shadowing in the hospital for my "independent study" credits, which will require me to be away from home for several hours at a time. He's gonna get hungry, and he's gonna have to take a bottle, and I'd rather it not be out of sheer necessity and after a long, hard battle with whomever is watching him! We really need to climb back up on the bottle wagon before my first shadowing session. 

So, long story not-so-short (as usual), we've been awful busy around here! But despite the little battles we've got going on, there has been no shortage of fun times and general adorableness...

Often heard 'round these parts: "Good thing he's so darn cute" ;-)