Swinging at Gabe and Julie’s house

Nathan is 4 months old tomorrow….already! Julie weighed him on her bathroom scales on Sunday and he came in at 6.8 kg fully clothed and holding his taggy blanket, so I guess he’s around 6.5 kg. He is an absolute delight, although there are always moments…usually late at night…when I might think differently for just that moment. He is quite strong in his back, neck and legs now so that he sits well in the Bumbo and even sat well for a gentle swing on the weekend. He is so very interested in everything that goes on around him, just as you can see the concentration in his face in the photo below. Old MacDonald is a regular at bath time, which is great except I’m sure that Nathan will grow up thinking that sheep are blue with bright pink faces. lol.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E I E I O. And on his farm had had a pig, sheep, chicken, horse, cow and duck. E I E I O.

Nathan is quite happy to play by himself for lengthening periods of time. We set up a corner of the flat for his play mat and toys, and we got a baby gym so that he could play with toys hanging above instead of always having toys beside him. It takes a lot of effort and concentration to grasp the catterpillar hanging from the baby gym, but dissapointingly (as far as Nathan is concerned) it just won’t go in his mouth! The baby gym itself has become a toy…he lifts it and pushes it around. Nathan also wriggles and rolls around on his rug.

Nathan is very vocal when he plays with one toy in particular. We call it his ‘squishy’ since it has elastic and you can pull or squash it however you like and it goes back to it’s original shape in an instant. Every end of the toy has to go in Nathan’s mouth. The only thing I worry about is that when one end is in his mouth, some of the other ends are very close to his eyes, and often hits his eyes with the toy. Still, he talks and talks to it, for the entire time he plays with it. I can’t work out if he’s grumpy with the toy or not! Andrew says he’s having philosophical discussions with his Squishy.

Playing with ‘Squishy’

Nathan is still not a great sleeper during the day. I’ve spent many hours walking while he slept in the Ergo carrier, or sitting on the couch holding him. So many people shake their heads and tell me I should just put him in his cot and shut the door and let him cry to sleep, but both Andrew and I think that’s an awful thing to do….it is essentially deliberately upsetting him and then not going to sooth him. Personally, I would hate to be so upset that I cried myself to sleep and had noone to give me a hug to make me feel better. So, in an attempt to find a way to get Nathan to sleep without being held and without leaving him to cry, we bought him a hammock. It’s not the total solution to these sleep issues, but I think it’s fantastic. When Nathan is tired I pop him in the hammock and bounce it (really hard) for 10 – 15 minutes and he’s alseep. I do need to keep it bouncing for quite a while, so I can’t leave the hammock for really long periods of time, but it gives me a sort of freedom to do things other than hold the baby. The Ergo carrier is still the best way to get Nathan to sleep….when I go shopping he puts himself to sleep when he needs to with no effort from me (except I have to carry him), and he sleeps best there, but the hammock is certainly working well. Nathan still has about a 30 minute sleep cycle and he often wakes and won’t go back to sleep after 30 minutes, and he also has violent ‘starts’ that will often wake him as well. I hope he grows out of them soon, as I find them very frustrating.

Nathan asleep in his hammock

So all in all we are just loving parenthood, and Nathan gets more fun to be around every day. And even though I was never planning to co-sleep with Nathan, I love that I can feed him without getting out of bed (sometimes, doesn’t always work) and I simply adore Nathan’s smiles when he wakes in the morning and we spend 5 minutes (with Daddy as well) smiling and chatting before getting up for breakfast.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Nathan's first year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.