Growing, learning, and sleeping (at last)!

The last month has flown by. It's hard to believe, but next week, Johan will be 7 months old. It's wonderful to see him growing and learning, but at the same time, I'm realizing that my time with him is growing shorter... in 5 more months, I will have to go back to work and put Johan in daycare. That will be a very sad day for the two of us.

In the meantime, Johan has learned a few new tricks! Since the end of September, he has been able to sit on his own (with fewer and fewer falls to the side and back). So I sit him down to play with his toys in the morning, sometimes putting a pillow behind him just in case he loses his balance and flops over.

Johan has also started to rock back and forth when put on his hands and knees, so I am sure that soon enough that will progress to crawling, and then, watch out, Mummy's life is going to change! Right now, if I put him down on his tummy on the playmat or on a blanket with toys around him, and then leave the room, when I come back, he will have done a 180 and be facing in the opposite direction from where I put him down. So even though he can't crawl yet, he is becoming more and more mobile. One day I even watched him do a breakdancing move -- the worm -- to get to a toy he wanted. The only thing that stopped him was that I was laughing so hard that he lost his concentration and decided to watch me instead of breakdancing across the floor.

Eating continues to be an adventure. Johan seems to like everything I put in front of him, from applesauce to carrots and parsnips, squash, and the oganic turkey vegetable baby food I bought at the store. It's not too much trouble to make his food. I steam the vegetables and then blend them with a little hand blender, then I freeze them in ice-cube size portions. He eats two or three of these portions, with a bit of barley, oat or multigrain cereal mixed in, three times a day. He also eats mashed bananas, avacadoes and baked sweet potatoes, and has about 4 ounces of organic apple or pear juice (mixed with water) a day.

Johan is quite expressive of his love for food. I will see if we can post a video of him eating, as he chants "MMMMMMMMMM.... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" and lunges for the spoon.

I am happy that Johan is growing again, as he had leveled off at 13-14 pounds for about 8 weeks, and fallen from the 50th percentile of babies to the 25th percentile. At Johan's six-month check up, my doctor reassured me that he was very healthy -- she noted that he is very active and strong (she called him Mr. Pilates, after she saw the sit up maneuvers he was doing), but she did encourage me to feed him lots to try to fatten him up a bit. (That's when I switched to three meals a day and added some juice to his daily regimen). It took a bit for him to get used to the juice -- at first he spat the bottle out and just looked at me as if to say, "That's not milk!", but now when he sees the bottle of juice, he starts fussing and moaning until I give it to him.

Other news: Johan is now regularly sleeping ffrom 7:00 p.m. until 3:30 in the morning, when I feed him, and then sleeps again until 6:30, when we get up for the day. He also happily takes 3 naps a day. Amazing but true! Sven and I persevered through Johan's nightly wailing and crying, and although it took him a month, he finally figured out that when he woke up, he needed to go back to sleep on his own. I have to say it was a rough 3 and a half weeks, but I kept telling myself when he woke up and cried for a while in the middle of the night, "He's crying because he's tired and doesn't know how to go to sleep -- he's not crying because he's hungry." And that gave me the motivation to keep going.

I now plan my life around being home for Johan's naptimes, instead of carting him around town to suit my fancy, but that's much better. I actually look forward to his naptimes, as I get a break! Sometimes he reaches for the crib and his little teddy as soon as I've finished our little naptime ritual (two stories and a song). Once I put him down, he grabs his teddy and hugs it, coos to it a little bit and then falls asleep. It's great! (And I really didn't think it was possible 6 weeks ago!

We have our bedtime ritual down pat too: he gets his dinner at about 6:15 and then has a bath, which he loves, at about 6:40. The bath is followed by a 4 ounce bottle of breast milk (we switched to a bottle to break the boob-to-sleep habit) and then Johan is put in the crib. He usually falls asleep instantly, clutching his teddy in his arms.

We couldn't have achieved this miracle without the help of two books: "Healthy sleep habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth and "The Sleep Sense Program" by Dana Obleman.

With 12 hours of sleep a night and another 3 hours of naptime a day, Johan, Sven and I are all much happier!

Andrea