Caleb's Story: 4 Months Old!

I will admit that this has been one of the harder weeks I have had recently. Kaitlyn has been off this week and I am not sure why. It could be a number of different reasons and I am not sure how to figure out which one it is. She has been waking up a lot at night and I don't necessarily have to feed her all the time, but I have to get up and put the pacifier in and it is still very disruptive to my sleep. And sometimes she won't take the pacifier and so then I do have to feed her in order to get her to go back to sleep. I am not sure if she could possibly be teething or if this is the 4 month sleep regression I have heard about (but never experienced with Caleb) where babies have to learn how to put themselves back to sleep. She always goes to bed at night awake and falls asleep on her own, so I can't imagine that it is just the fact that she can't put herself back to sleep. It could also be a growth spurt or the fact that she is learning so much right now. I mean, just this week she started rolling from front to back, can now sit up in a bumbo seat, and wants to stand all the time on your lap instead of just sitting. She is also much more aware of things and grabs for toys now and is much more nosy. So, I have heard that when babies are learning new things it affects their sleep because they are thinking about those new things and their brain can't settle down (again, something I don't remember experiencing with Caleb). It could also be the time change, but that shouldn't have affected her too much. Also, this week Steve's mom came to babysit because my mom's knee was still pretty bad. I ended up working 2 days in a row so she could go back home after the 2 days and so that could have thrown Kaitlyn off because I was gone 2 days in a row and because it was someone different taking care of her. She has also started having a hard time nursing right before bed and is screaming for several minutes. I think she is just tired, but I don't know. Sometimes I have to give her the pacifier and wait for her to settle down and close her eyes and then I swap the pacifier with me! That seems to work, but it sure is frustrating. Used to be that nursing her before bed was my relaxing time to just sit and watch TV and enjoy nursing her and now it is stressful, at least for the first while. Again, I am not sure what the cause is. I thought it was that she was just overtired, but one day this week I was nursing her before bed less than an hour after her last nap to try to avoid this problem and it still happened so I am not sure. I was also wondering if it had to do with the fact that she had the bottle 2 full days in a row and so maybe she was not wanting to breastfeed. That thought really stresses me out, and in fact, she did have some trouble nursing during the day on Thursday after I had been at work 2 days. The daytime nursing seems to have gotten better now, so that could have been it and now she is getting back used to nursing instead of the bottle. I also read that not wanting to nurse could also be a sign of teething but it is just so early for a tooth. Anyway, needless to say, it has been a tough week and I wish I could know what was causing the sleeping and eating problems so I could know whether it would be resolving itself soon or if I needed to try to do something to help it get better. Here's hoping for a better week this week. I will be back on my regular work schedule and my mom will be back to babysitting, so hopefully that will help her.

In Caleb news, I can't believe that I have forgotten to post a big milestone for him. For a few weeks now, he has been sleeping without the side on his crib. I had been hesitating to do it because I liked that he was contained in his bed in case he woke up early, but we decided that we wanted to try it and see how it would go. I know that some people use an alarm clock that turns green when it is ok to get out of bed, so I had told Steve I wanted to get one of those, but knowing Steve, he decided he wanted to make something similar. He had some sort of computer screen left over from work, so he programmed that so it shows a sun when it is ok to get up and a moon when it is not. And he can change the time to whatever we want it to be. And he has it programmed for his naptime too. Steve told Caleb he was going to make it for him and got him all psyched up, and we also decided to take away the pacifier at night at the same time. Steve talked up the sun/moon thing and told him that was a special thing and that he needed to get rid of the pacifier at night in order to have it. Well, surprisingly everything has gone very well. He misses his pacifier and asks to have it, but he hasn't cried for it and hasn't had trouble sleeping. He also has never gotten out of his bed, even when the sun is on his screen. I think he might be a little scared because it is dark in his room. So, my fears about him getting out of bed were completely unfounded. So, we are still letting him have his pacifier at nap time, which is actually a good thing, because then he looks forward to nap time so he can have it! So, once he is done with his naps, the pacifier will be gone for good.

So, back to this week. On Monday, we went to Miss Lori's class and for some reason, Caleb didn't want to participate. I don't know if he was tired because he had gotten up early because of the time change, but he was all out of sorts and only wanted to sit on the side and watch the other kids most of the time. Then we went over to one of the libraries for a new toddler music class. Jen and Levi met us there, so that was fun. It was cute, but Caleb didn't participate as much as he would normally do, probably for the same reason that he didn't want to participate in Miss Lori's class. It was just an off day. Oh well.

Steve's mom arrived around 4:00 on Monday so it was good that she was around for a few hours for Caleb to get used to her being around since she would be taking care of them the next 2 days. I worked Tuesday and Wednesday and Grandma had fun with the kids.

Kaitlyn turned 4 months old on Wednesday, but since I was working, I didn't take her pictures until the next morning.

Quite pleased with herself to be sitting up in the bumbo

Happy girl! She kept putting her hands in front of her 4

Thursday morning was unseasonable warm, so we met a friend of ours at the playground. She has a little girl who turned 2 in August and she also had a baby boy in August. We had fun at the playground, but I think Caleb missed having some of his other friends there that he is closer to.

Thursday evening Caleb started swimming lessons again. This time he is in a new class because he graduated from the other class. Steve takes him to swimming lessons because it is during the time that I need to be getting Kaitlyn fed for bed. I wish I could go and watch him, but oh well. This time with Kaitlyn will be short-lived and over before I know it, so I should just enjoy it and let Steve and Caleb have their time together. The swimming lessons are kinda expensive, but we are seeing improvement in his swimming and confidence in the water, so I think it is worth it.

On Friday, we had our science playgroup and it was nice to be back. We didn't have playgroup last week and 2 weeks ago I had to work on that Friday, so it had been 3 weeks since I had been there. I really like the group and the other moms. There is another baby there that is only about 3 weeks older than Kaitlyn. We put them down on the floor together and it was cute to see that they noticed each other and at one point they had even grabbed hands, which was so cute.

Yes, I did say that the other baby is 3 weeks older than Kaitlyn, although Kaitlyn appears to be much bigger!

Last night my parents came to our house for supper. Rad and Jen had Jen's mom visiting so they were not able to come. It was nice to visit with them since we hadn't seen them much this week since my mom didn't babysit. Unfortunately, my mom is still in a lot of pain, so I hope she is able to babysit ok next week.

This morning we made it to Sabbath School on time and here are a couple of pictures of Caleb enjoying himself.

This afternoon is a quiet afternoon at home so I thought it was a good opportunity to stay up to date withe the blog. One less thing to stress about these days. Here are a couple more pictures of the week.