Sleep - it's always about Sleep

I'm pretty sure that just about every mom has a single issue that consumes their thoughts about their child, an issue that they bring up every time they talk to another mom, simply because they can't help thinking about it. For me, that issue is sleep. At first it was nighttime sleep, then it became napping, and now we're back to nighttime sleep again. It's a little sad how obsessed with this issue I am.
Lately we've been having a big problem with staying asleep at night. We had gotten to the point where I would put Gabriel down for bed around 9 or 10, then he would sleep till 7-ish, with one wake up during the night for feeding. Well I decided that he was ready for an earlier bedtime, one that would allow me to actually see my husband when he came home from work, before I collapsed into bed myself. Gabriel had proven that he could sleep from midnight to 7-ish, having done so a handful of times, so I thought we would just move his feeding time, and just do one feeding for the whole night. What I neglected to realize was that this was effectively removing one feeding. It seemed okay at first, but over the past few weeks, it's just gotten more and more difficult. Gabriel will typically fall asleep when I want him to, but for the past two weeks, he has woken up every single hour until his midnight feeding. This does not help Robert and I get more time together, needless to say. You'd think I would have figured out that he was still hungry because I'd eliminated one of his feedings, but no, this simple fact did not dawn on me until this weekend. So the new solution, which is already working better, is that I do our normal bedtime routine (with one new addition! see below!), then I feed him around 9-ish when he wakes up. Then I feed him again in the middle of the night - it's been around 1am the past couple of nights. I think he's still not getting quite enough to eat at that middle of the night feeding - he's been waking up between 4 and 5 every morning, then I get him back to sleep until 6-ish. I think he just needs to get used to the new schedule still; I'm really not interested in doing three feedings at night - he's big enough that he shouldn't still need that many.
Other sleep issues that we have recently come up against deal with where Gabriel sleeps. Since we first brought him home, he has slept in the bassinet top of our pack'n'play, right next to the bed. When he was diagnosed with reflux, we were given this sleeping wedge for him. I finally took some pictures of him in it. I really wish I would have done so when we first got it, just to compare how much he's grown. As you can see, being swaddled while in the wedge is a pretty funny sight. (A friend of mine said he looks like Frankenstein's monster on the table.) He's pretty much grown out of it, and while they can make me one that he will fit in until he's six months old, I decided we were just going to end it. So for the past two days he's slept with the mattress raised, and two little bumpers on either side of him, so that it feels similar to the wedge. So far this seems to be working great.
And now for some fun, still sort of sleep-related news! We have started Gabriel on solid foods! Sunday night was the first time. As you can see, he had a great time. It was very entertaining, and I think he even swallowed some. Last night I fed him again, and he actually "ate" all that I made for him. This was only a couple of tablespoons, but still. He definitely got some inside his tummy! He really seems to enjoy eating, and we've had no bad reactions to the rice cereal. I'll be sticking with rice cereal until he's six months old. I'm going to take it really slow with introducing new foods because of all of my own food allergies. Hopefully he'll be like his daddy, and have no food allergies at all! (I mentioned that this was sleep-related because hopefully having solid food in him will help him stay asleep better.)
I will do my best to post weekly from now on. There's always something new going on. Besides everything else, Gabriel managed to get a big toe in his mouth last night! I'll be working on getting a picture of that this week.

Pictures!

Okay, so here is the picture post that was promised. Blogger sometimes does funny things, so I am apologizing in advance if this post looks goofy. Sometimes it displays fine on my computer, but looks all screwy on other people's. Hopefully it won't be too bad.
So first we have pictures taken when all of Gabriel's West relatives visited. This was at the very end of March, so Gabriel is almost three months old in these pictures.
Here's Gabriel with Uncle Alex.
Next is Gabriel with all the West boys: Alex, Jacob, Robert, and Grandpa Jim.
Next is a picture of Aunt Katie with a sleeping Gabriel.
Then we have two pictures of Gabriel in his baby carrier - one with Robert at Pike's Place, one with me at the dog park.
The next four pictures were all taken of Gabriel during the month of April. We have him sucking his thumb, rocking tummy time, hanging out in his swing (which he will no longer do), and sitting in his baby chair with George.
So there you have it. I'll try to post more often from now on, maybe even weekly!!

developing

Gabriel has done a whole lot of developing since he was five weeks old. He's been talking a bunch since he was under two months old, I don't remember exactly when he started babbling. He just continues to talk to us, and he loves conversing. He's been smiling a bunch since about six weeks. He laughs now, and giggles. He loves when Daddy plays with him, he gets the biggest smiles and laughs when he gets tickled. He also enjoys being sung to, and occasionally seems to want to sing along. He definitely has a good amount of cranky time, in addition to his happy times. Teething is bothering him, in addition to his gassiness and reflux. He's pretty difficult when he's cranky, he's hard to make happy. Handing him off sometimes helps, as does sleep, but not always. Gabriel kind of goes back and forth between being happy and cranky.
As far as physical development goes, Gabriel is sort of going out of order. He does really well at holding his head up when he's on his tummy, but he has yet to roll over. He's rolled over a few times from his back to his tummy, but only when he's on a foam wedge that props him up on his back. So that doesn't really count. But he is sitting up. I'm not kidding. The "normal" age for sitting up unsupported is six and a half months. He just started doing this last week. And it was only a week or so that he spent sitting up in the "tripod" position, where he holds himself up with his arms. He still does that, but he also totally sits up on his own. Its crazy. I took this video when he started doing it the other day. It was so completely unexpected that I think I sound kind of surprised in the video.
So we are all on target for development, and a little bit ahead in some areas. The no rolling over thing is a little off, but often babies are slower on that stuff these days, since they don't sleep on their stomachs.
Also, we went to the doctor last week for Gabriel's four-month check up. He weighs 15 lbs, 11 oz, and is a little over 25 inches long. Both of those values are just above average. His head circumference is quite a bit higher though. So proportionally, his head is a bit bigger than normal for his age. The doctor says he looks great. We talked about starting solid foods, but I've been a little bit resistant. I may start sometime soon anyway. It's supposed to help with reflux, and he's been struggling with that more lately (rather than growing out of it, like he should be). So we may be trying out some rice cereal soon.

Holy Cow time flies by

Yes I know! I can hardly believe I'm posting either!! But here we are . . .
So last time I posted was about three months ago. And sleep was such an issue. Ah, sleep, ever the issue. It's amazing, once night time sleep became less of an issue, napping was all I talked about. I'm obsessed. We're still working on the napping/sleeping stuff, but more on that later.
First, updates and stuff! I think I'll be skimpy on the pictures right now, and do a whole picture post later (the first picture is from around six weeks, I think, and the last is the most recent one, from just a few days ago!). So . . .
When we hit six weeks, which as I mentioned is supposed to be when things settle down, we ended up taking Gabriel for his first Emergency Room visit. On Valentine's Day! We went to the wonderful Seattle Children's Hospital because our poor baby boy was unable to eat. Skipping all the drama, we found out he had Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disorder. Otherwise known as baby acid reflux. So he's been on medication for that ever since then, and its been a fun experiment with keeping him upright as much as possible. He's been sleeping on a giant foam wedge ever since then, but I think all the propping up made him able to sit up earlier, and actually helped strengthen his little neck muscles. He should start growing out of the reflux soon, and I'm already cutting down on the medicine, trying to slowly phase it out. He's practically grown out of the wedge, so we'll be seeing what sleep is like out of that soon.
Speaking of sleep, we now get nice long chunks of sleep, or we were, until I recently decided to mess with it. My friend Merrie, from my You and Your New Baby class, recommended giving swaddling another try. That did the trick, and we got to where Gabriel was only waking up once during the night to eat, around 3 or 4 in the morning. Well I decided I wanted to put him to bed earlier (he wanted it too), so now he goes to bed at 7pm or so. This means he's hungry earlier, more like midnight or 1am. Then he sleeps (theoretically) until 7am or so. Robert has been taking that late feeding, with the idea that I could sort of sleep through it. But Gabriel is having a really hard time adjusting, so he has a very hard time falling back asleep after the midnight feeding. Hopefully we'll get it all straightened out, because being awake for two hours in the middle of the night again is not what I had in mind!
I've been breastfeeding exclusively since Gabriel was about eight weeks old. He didn't really need the supplemental formula after his first month or so, but we kept it up anyway. Then I decided that it was unnecessary, and I now breastfeed in public and pump to supply bottles. He still eats every two to three hours during the day, but he's gotten much more efficient. We may start rice cereal soon, we'll be seeing the doctor on Thursday to discuss it.
As far as napping goes, we've got a pretty good routine down. However Gabriel has been super cranky the past few days, and I think its due to lack of sleep. He's also periodically cranky from teething (early) and really bad gas (which also took us to the hospital, twice), but this is different. So normally I let him nap for as long as he wants to, which is usually only 45 min to an hour at the most. But right before I began this post, he woke up from a 45 minute nap, and I said, "Nope, you are going back to sleep mister." And he did! One habit that we'll have to break soon is the rocking back to sleep thing. He needs to be able to fall asleep on his own, not being rocked all the time. But right now I just want him to sleep.
There's all sorts of fun developmental stuff going on too, but I'll update that later as well. Really I will!