Slept Through the Night

Caden slept through the night last night (7 weeks 2 days old)! Praise the Lord!!! I don't know if he will continue doing this or if it is just a one time thing for now, but I needed that night of full rest so much! The previous night Caden cried for 2 hours before he fell asleep, and then when he finally fell asleep, I was awakened by a big thunderstorm. All in all I only got 4 hours of sleep so I was thrilled when he slept for 8 hours the next night!!!!

I must say that if this continues, I attribute it to following the Babywise plan. Since birth I have had him on a flexible schedule. I feed him every 2.5 - 3 hours during the day. If he needs to eat sooner, then of course I feed him. However, he usually doesn't need to eat before the 2.5 hour mark because I make sure he stays awake to take a full feeding when he does eat. I also selected a set bedtime and I have implemented a bedtime routine. No matter when his last feeding was, I wake him up and bathe him at 9:15 every night. Then I feed him and put him down for the night by about 10:00 or 10:30. Almost immediately after starting this he stopped waking up every 3-4 hours at night and started sleeping until 2:30am! It was wonderful having a pretty predictable schedule at night. He would wake up again at 6:30am and we would start our day. I really think it was because of the feeding schedule and bedtime routine that he was able to establish his own sleeping schedule.

First Real Smiles

Caden seems to be such a serious little baby. He always has these looks on his face like he is deep in thought, pondering something. He will furrow his brow and give you these curious looks like he is trying to figure something out. John teases that he is a worrier. We have seen him smile his first "dreamy" smiles while he is sleeping, but he has finally started to smile at me! The first time it happened I took him on the back patio and was talking to him and he gave me this huge grin with a little coo! It was adorable. I spent the next 15 minutes video taping him hoping he'd do it again..... no luck.

A few days later he smiled at me again, this time there was no coo. After that a week went by and no smiles. I started to doubt that he had really smiled at me the other two times and thought maybe he was just gassy. But then yesterday he melted my heart! He had just finished being in his bouncy chair and started to fuss to let me know he wanted out. I picked him up and gave him his paci and started working on the computer while holding him. He cooed a few times so I looked at him and started to sing a little made up song to him. Behind his paci I saw the biggest toothless grin so I flicked his paci out of the way so I could see it better! He was so cute! He cooed at him and grinned again and then suddenly realized his paci was gone and started to pout. Oh, and boy does he have the pout mastered. It's almost as cute as his grin! He will curl and stick that bottom lip out and his little chin will get all wrinkled. It's adorable.

Today he smiled at me again while I was getting him dressed for the day. Now that is a major milestone because he usually HATES being changed. He was laying on the changing table while I was putting his arms in his onesie and I was talking to him and he just started smiling. It was wonderful!! I hope there will be many many more!!!! I really hope to capture it on camera for Daddy one day soon!

First Road Trip

I took Caden on his first road trip all by myself, and I must say I am very proud that I (we) made it! I loaded him up and we drove an hour and a half away to Florence, AL for Emily Walker's baby shower. Caden loved being in the car, for the first 45 minutes. He was just so happy and quiet in the backseat looking around and I think he spent a good bit of time discovering his hands as well. After about 45 minutes, he started to get sleepy and started to whine a little. The whine turned in to a full out scream and it continued for the remaining 45 minutes of the trip. He finally fell asleep as I was pulling up to the shower, and I managed to wake him up trying to get him out of the car. After the shower, he repeated the same thing on the way home. Happy for the first 45 minutes of the trip, cried for the last 45 minutes. I'm going to have to figure out a way to teach him to fall asleep when we are traveling. He used to always sleep in the car but he can't (or won't) do it anymore...

Reflux 5 Weeks Old

When Caden was about 3 weeks old he started crying ALL the time. After several days of inconsolable crying I started doing a little reading online and talking to a friend who had a baby with reflux. Caden showed a LOT of the symptoms of a reflux baby: spitting up large amounts sometimes even hours after eating, hiccuping several times a day even when eating, poor sleeping habits, squirming when eating, etc....

I made an appointment to visit the doctor and she prescribed Zantac for Caden to take for his reflux. I heard it can take up to two weeks for the medicine to get in his system, but after about 5 days I started to see a big difference. Before, if Caden was awake he was either eating, or crying. But now he is starting to have relaxed, alert waketimes. He loves to stare at things and especially likes his vibrating/bouncy chair. He's also just barely started to coo every not and then. I'm anxiously awaiting that first "real" smile!!

Now that he isn't crying in pain all the time I am learning his cries. The "I'm sleepy" cry was very easy to pick out. I started putting him down when he is sleepy to work on training him to put himself to sleep. We've already made great progress and he's learning to entertain himself and not need to be rocked to sleep.

He has started sleeping better at night as well. For the last week and a half we've been on a pretty predictable schedule: He eats between 8-9pm, again between 1-2am, and again between 5-6am. Those long stretches of sleep have been wonderful for me!

I can't believe he will be 6 weeks old on Thursday! We've come so far over the past few weeks. It was so hard at first, but at about 4 1/2 weeks things started to turn around. I love watching him grow and discover things!