08.24.07
Growing Teeth
Well, Che has been drooling a lot lately, and gnawing on his little fists. Wednesday night, my husband thought he saw a bit of tooth developing below Che’s gums. Yesterday morning, that tooth had broken through! For you dentists out there, it is tooth 81 using the FDI two-digit notation; tooth O using the Universal system.
Fortunately, I had purchased a few teething rings on sale at Target last month, so I’ve been helping him chew on them for the past two days. Normally, babies are around 6 months when their teeth start coming in, and they can hold their own teething rings. Che started grabbing and holding on to things this week, too. But, he can’t manage the teething ring yet, so I have to hold it for him. However, he generally prefers his fists anyway.
I’m a little perplexed by the speed with which Che is developing. I had hoped he would stay a little baby for a while, but he seems determined to grow up fast.
He has even started pushing himself with crawling motions. He’s not strong enough to actually lift his tummy and his head off the ground yet, but at the rate he is progressing, he’ll probably be crawling in a few weeks.
I’m glad I made the choice to hold him as much as possible during the first three months while I was home with him, because soon he’s not going to let me hold him very much. He’s going to be too busy exploring everything there is to explore.
08.21.07
Harvard Square
I meet a friend in Harvard Square this morning for breakfast. She took the adorable pictures below. Yes, Che is eating his carrier. I think he’s started teething. It’s a little early for that, but he’s been early on everything else too. Che was also fascinated by all the trucks and cars that drove by. He would literally focus on one, and his head would rotate right as he watched it for as long as it was in sight. Then he would snap his head back to the left to watch another one.
His day care provider says that the “truck book” is his favorite. I thought she was just applying gender bias, but after this morning, I believe it.
08.14.07
The Trouble with Car Seats
When my husband and I purchased a car seat for our baby, we intentionally a convertible car seat. For those who haven’t looked at car seats lately, there are four kinds of car seats:
Infant Car Seats–These are the kind you see everyone carrying their baby in these days. I hate these because the babies are always in them. Doesn’t anyone hold their babies anymore? I realize that these seats are much more convienent, but seriously, they are only babies for so long. I want to hold my baby while he is a baby, not lug around an extra 20 lbs of car seat.
Convertible Car Seats–This is the kind we got. It can be used both rear facing (required by law for the first year of a babies life) and forward facing. Our convertible car seat can be used from birth until Che reaches 50 lbs, which is when he can officially stop using a car seat. That is, if he turns 5 before he reaches 50 lbs. But if he weighs 50 lbs before he turns 5 we’ll have more problems than needing a new car seat.
Forward-Facing Car Seats–These are like a convertible seat but they can only be used forward facing.
Booster Seats–These are used once a baby is big enough to not need a 5-point harness (the kind that attaches at both shoulders, both hips, and the crotch). They are generally used until the child reaches about 70 lbs or gets old enough to be embarassed by having to ride in a car seat. However, most babies can’t go into a booster seat right after the infant seat, so parents end up getting a convertible or forward-facing seat anyway.
I love the convertible car seats because they are build much sturdier than the infant car seats, and they prevent the temptation to leave a baby in the car seat for hours on end. Of course this means that when we go places, I have to hold Che. The good thing is, I love holding my baby. I waited a long time to have a baby in the right circumstances (married with income), so I am going to hold my baby every chance I get.
I’ve received complements at church, which I attend for three hours each Sunday, for holding my baby rather than leaving him in a seat, and those compliments make me feel good. Don’t get me wrong. I pass no judgment on those who swear by infant car seats. I completely understand the rationale of not wanting to wake up a baby who just fell asleep as you park in the grocery store lot. And if you’ve got more than one child under the age of 5, being able to strap one in and know he is safe is an incredible help.
But for now, for me, I want to hold my baby, and having a convertible car seat was one way to insure that I wouldn’t give in to the temptation not to hold him.
And if you want a recommendation, I love the Britax Roundabout we got. It costs more than the others, but since I won’t have to buy an infant car seat and a forward-facing one, I was able to justify the cost. We also like the Evenflow Triumph we got for my husband’s car. The Britax is much easier to use and install, but the Triumph was a lot cheaper.
When we go to a restaurant (which is hardly ever) we take my car and the Britax. That way we can take the whole car seat into the restaurant so Che has a place to sit. It looks a little weird, but works great. And it is so easy to get in and out with the Latch system, that I don’t complain. But my husband does. He’s the one that has to carry it, and it definitely weighs more than one of those infant seats.
Another nice feature of car seats is that you can use them to get a perspective of how much a baby has grown. When I get around to taking another picture of him in his car seat, I’ll post it next to the one we took on his first day home. The difference is amazing.
08.09.07
Every New Parent Should Have One
A friend gave me a hand-me-down “excer-saucer” and I’ve decided every parent should have one. I love my son and I try to hold him as much as possible, but there are times when he is awake and I just can’t hold him. (Every parent experiences this.) Most often, it is in the morning when I am trying to get both of us ready to leave the house–me for work and him for daycare. If I put him back in the crib, he understandably gets annoyed. I don’t want to put him on the floor, so I put him in the excer-saucer and he loves it.
He is still young, so I can’t leave him there for too long. But the 5-15 minutes it gives me to pack his bag and my breast pump is precious. I don’t want him to learn that the excer-saucer is a holding pen for when I don’t have time for him, so I make sure I play with him at random variables of time while he is in it. (I seem to recall from some college psych class that random positive reinforcement is the most successful Pavlovian training, but I could be wrong.) I also make it a point to take him out of it as soon as I get the indication that he’s had to much. So far it is working well and he loves it. I have pictures to prove it.
Really. He does love it. He just don’t love smiling for the camera.
08.07.07
Bad Mother
I’ve decided that there are times when I am a bad mother. For example, I intentionally let my son cry for 5 minutes just to get the photo below. Yes, that sound meter reads 101.1 decibels. According to coolmath.com, that is the equivalent of a subway. Che’s father is so proud.
Thanks to Stanley, the environmental manager at my husband’s work, for loaning us the sound meter for the weekend.
For all you parents who have loud babies, I sympathize. Che is not that loud comparative to other babies I’ve heard, and we had to wait two days for him to get mad enough to hit 100 decibels. Most of the time he is only around 50 decibels, and that’s because he’s talking, well trying to talk. Che rarely cries, and his day care provider loves him for that.
08.01.07
3 Months Old
Che is officially 3 months old today, and he celebrated by rolling over! I’ve been casually working on this skill with him during the past week. While laying down, Che would twist and squirm such that he was almost laying on his side. When he would do this, I would gently “help” him roll over. I did this gradually and slowly, rolling him back and forth once or twice during his squirmy periods. Today he did it on his own. It was a nice birthday present for us all and we cheered him on.
As a general observation, Che doesn’t smile much. Instead he as what Feech calls his bewildered look. He just stares at you with his eyes wide and his mouth open in an I-can’t-believe-my-eyes, slack-jawed gape. Fortunately I find this almost as adorable. When I clapped and cheered over his new roll-over trick, he responded with his bewildered look instead of a smile. Maybe the smile will come at his 4-month birthday.
A couple of pictures of Che sporting his bewildered look after a bath. These pictures are old. I need to get on the ball and post some current ones
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07.31.07
Sleeping Through the Night
I was thrilled when Che started sleeping through the night (defined as midnight to 5 in the morning by the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic) at just two months of age. At 10 weeks, he started sleeping 8 to 10 hours a night. Now at three months he will sleep more than 10 hours a night. I still count Che’s ability to sleep so well as a blessing, because his sleep appears to be correlated to his health and happiness. Hey, everyone feels better after a good night’s sleep.
We were fortunate to find a daycare provider that has a 2:1 infant to teacher ratio that we could afford. His daycare provider is able to give him plenty of attention and contact, and she absolutely adores him. In a setting with more children, Che’s good behavior and happy disposition would have left him largely ignored , because attention is always given to the crying babies first.
However, I find myself jealous of the time his daycare teacher spends with him. Che’s propensity to sleep for twelve hours means that I only get one or two waking hours with him on weekdays. He is generally awake for an hour in the morning during which I feed him and then get both him and myself ready to leave by 7:30. When I get home around 6:30, I feed him and have about a half hour of play time before he conks out for the night. I didn’t even get to play with him some evenings because he would fall asleep while I was making dinner. Now I don’t start on dinner for my husband and I until after he has fallen asleep just so I can play with Che more.
Some times in the evenings I just want to pick him and hold him even though he is happily sleeping in his crib. I wake up during the night though he has barely stirred, and immediately want to grab him, but I restrain myself. I know that his healthy sleep is a good thing, and I don’t want to create bad habits. I already find myself missing the time when he would just snuggle with me.
Che is growing so fast that I savor every moment I have with him. And I acknowledge all those mothers out there who’s children are keeping them up at night. May you be able to bear the burden and still love and adore your children through your exhaustion. I wish I could relieve your burdens by giving you a full nights rest.
