Sleep Update

I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath to hear how Henry is doing with his sleep training. I can't say that it's been an easy week and a half, and our progress hasn't exactly been linear, but i do think we are making progress.

Henry has been sleeping 7-8 hours straight at night and then going back to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours. Typically he still cries about 20 minutes before falling asleep both at night and for naps, but every so often he cries much less. He's also been sleeping much closer to 13-14 hours a day which is a definite improvement. Of course usually we feel like we take one step forward and 3 backwards but hopefully as time passes and Henry gets older we'll have less crying before he falls asleep and better naps.

In other news, today was Henry and i's first day at childcare. I've never felt like such a nervous, over-protective new-mom as preparing Brenda for Henry. I think I had her thinking that he was the worst baby ever and when i came to pick him up at noon she said i had nothing to worry about. He cried when i left but settled down and loved watching all the other kids. He cried a bit before he took a nap but did sleep for 30 minutes (we're working on lengthening his naptimes). The biggest news was that he actually took a bottle which he had stopped doing from either JT or I. So tomorrow he'll be there again in the morning and then on Thursday he'll be there all day. I think it was harder on me because i missed him very keenly today. I'm sure in time i'll get used to it but these past three months have allowed me to develop a very strong bond with Henry.

FYI-- there are new pictures on the yahoo site.

Transitions

Since i last posted Henry and our little family are going through a spate of transitions. There was Henry and i's first trip away from JT when we spent a week at the Delaware shore and DC with family and friends, Henry's continued developmental progress, and preparations for my return to work on the 28th.

Henry will be starting childcare with Brenda the mornings of the 27th and 28th and will then go a full day on the 28th. In order to make the transition less jarring, and to help Henry be a more rested happy baby, we're "sleep training" little Henry.

Sleep is a hot topic with parents-- not only because new parents are so sleep deprived but because how we treat our children's sleep has become a marker of the type of parent we want to be perceived as. There are "attachment parents" who would never dream of letting their children cry themselves to sleep and "cry it out" parents who wouldn't want their children's sleep to be dependent on them for very long.

I feel we're somewhere in the middle but Henry seemed to be suffering from exceptionally poor sleep. He was never a particularly good sleeper but he had gotten to where i couldn't put him down at all during the day and even when holding him he slept very lightly-- continually waking up. I couldn't even nurse him to sleep.

We talked to our pediatrician who hooked us up with a sleep expert here in Chicago. We met with him and developed our plan to put him in his crib before he gets overtired for both his naps and at night. JT goes in after 5, 10 and then 15 minutes and talks to him and tells him things are okay. I asked the sleep expert what the worst he'd heard was in terms of crying-- he said 2 hours.

We were prepared on the first night for Henry to break the record because he's easily cried 2 hours even when we're holding him and soothing him. Luckily he clocked in at 1 hour 40 minutes and then slept for 8 hours-- straight. He had a great night and then cried for only 30 minutes for his first two naps and slept for an hour each time. His third nap however he cried right through (1.5 hours). We got him up and gave him a bath, fed him and put him back down. He only cried about 20 minutes and slept about and hour and then cried another half hour. His night wasn't great after that but it wasn't any worse than before the sleep training. His first nap this morning he only cried about 20 minutes so maybe we'll start seeing some progress.

I believe that Henry is ultimately going to be better off because he's going to be getting better sleep and will be more rested. Yesterday when he wasn't crying in his crib he was calmer and smilier than he's ever been. It's just so hard to get through. I've been sitting on the porch a lot and taking showers. We're hoping that we've made dramatic progress in 4 days or so which is about the norm.

Firsts

Since Henry's surgery he's had a spate of recent developments. He continues to smile broadly and frequently and often supplements with giggles and squeals. He's a pretty intense baby-- most often he's either smiling and happy or screaming and very, very unhappy. He doesn't have a lot of in-between. He recovered well from his surgery, but other than the cessation of his gigantic projectile vomit episodes-- he's basically the same Henry.

H went on his first vacation this past week to Estes Park, Colorado. He was quite a hiker and enjoyed taking naps at high altitude while being front-packed by Dad. There's new photos in yahoo of the trip. Henry slept almost the whole way on the flight there and only cried for a bit on the way back. It's funny how once you have a baby, you start evaluating everyone that's walking down the aisle for how baby-friendly they seem. We wound up sitting next to an older woman who was very sweet towards Henry but not overly chatty-- perfect!

Looking at his left hand is a constant source of entertainment now and runs second only to looking at lights-- a favorite since the early days. I wish we had good news to report in the sleep department, but actually Henry's nighttime sleep has been deteriorating. Other than 2 days of constant and sound sleep after his surgery, Henry has been sleeping in shorter and shorter chunks at night. Things reached a logger-head on Tuesday night. After working for an hour and half to get him to sleep, he only slept the rest of the night in 30 minute chunks.

The next night i put him to sleep in his carseat and he slept for 6 hours straight. He's been somewhere in between since then-- sleeping 4-5 hours when i first put him down and then not going back to sleep soundly after that. We've tilted the mattress of his crib again and have a pediatrician appointment tomorrow to see if the sleep issues are related to continuing stomach problems or not.

This week my grandmother comes to visit us and then she, I and Henry are taking a trip to DC to spend the 4th at my parents' beach house and catch up with friends in DC. Look for more pictures at the end of next week!

Pyloric Stenosis

Thought i would update everyone on our slightly traumatic past few days. The short of it is that Henry was diagnosed with a stomach condition called Pyloric Stenosis. We went to the ER on Saturday, had surgery late Saturday night and we just got back home Sunday evening and Henry seems to be doing well.

The long of it goes like this-- on Thursday Henry had his two-month checkup and his immunizations. At the appointment Dr. G found what he described as a "mass" in Henry's stomach and wanted us to have an ultrasound performed. Thursday night he was really unhappy after his shots and super fussy (read screaming his head off) the next day. We were lucky enough to get the ultrasound Friday morning and although they didn't find any type of mass, they did confirm a diagnosis of pyloric stenosis. This condition involves the pyloral muscle which is located at the bottom of the stomach which opens to release the stomach contents into the lower intestine. The muscle becomes thickened, reducing the opening the food passes through. The stomach contents build up and you are rewarded with projectile vomiting.

In the past several weeks the spit-up had increased and at least once a day Henry would erupt, losing the entire contents of his stomach. This was both scary and disgusting-- especially when it came spewing from his nose. The only fix for pyloral stenosis is abdominal surgery. We were told that if your child was going to have a problem requiring surgery this was the one to have. It has a 100% success rate, is minimally invasive, and very quick. We spent Saturday at the ER and being admitted to the hospital and then late Saturday night they did the surgery. Henry did great in the surgery and his been recovering really well.

They kept us in the hospital all day Sunday to make sure that he was able to tolerate food once he started eating. He progressed through the feeding ladder like a champ and was able to keep everything down. So-- we were able to come home this evening. We're hoping that this helps Henry be a little more comfortable and perhaps cut down on some of the loud crying that was getting worse in the past several weeks.

Personality Development

A friend asked me recently if i was noticing Henry's personality developing. There are a few things i've observed and i'm curious to see if they are borne out as Henry grows. So that i can remember what they are down the line i though i would post about them.

Henry seems to be a very observant baby. He likes nothing more than to sit and look around wide-eyed. In fact he likes looking at the light and his surroundings so much that he fights sleep-- even when he's completely exhausted. He also seems fairly sensitive to transitions and new things. If something takes him off guard he isn't very happy-- trouble is it's hard to warn a baby. I provide a running commentary of what is going to happen next, but somehow i'm not always sure he gets my gist. Certain things that he wasn't very happy about at first-- like the bath-- seem to get better with time and repeated occurrences.

I'm so curious to see Henry develop more and find out if these particular traits stick around.

Outings

This past week i had two notable solo outings with Henry-- Old Navy and the grocery store. It's no surprise that after birthing a child your clothes don't exactly fit you in the way they used to. In order to get through the summer i realized i was going to require some new t-shirts, so i decided a trip to old navy was in order. Luckily Henry fell asleep in his carseat on the way there and slept in the stroller while we were in the store and i was trying on clothes.

This trip emboldened me to tackle the weekly grocery shopping after we didn't make it to the store this weekend. Again Henry slept in the car and in the stores but getting all the groceries up into the house and put away wasn't as easy. By the time we got home Henry was ready to be out of the carseat and to be held, which is not easy when you're trying to cram frozen goods into the freezer.

All in all though it feels good to be more mobile.

Smiles

This week Henry has started smiling real smiles at us. When he's in the mood, he's not stingy, choosing to smile at the walls and windows as well, but it certainly feels good when he looks right at you and flashes you a big grin. Mostly i see these smiles in the morning after he eats, when he's alert and happy, but sometimes he gives us some smiles in the evening so that JT can catch them too.

I won't say something trite like "they make it all worth it," but the smiles do certainly help to sweeten the deal-- especially after particularly sleepless nights.