Our sweet boy is Alex is growing and growing. He is now interacting more – cooing, tracking with his eyes and granting us the occasional smile. Although he is still sporting his diminutive chin, he also is growing his “Windemuth” cheeks, and is getting rounder by the day. Our informal weight check on him today measured well over 12 pounds! This weight gain is evidenced by his constant eating – and lack of long stretches of sleep. He is typically up at least every 3 hours at night to eat, and eats far more often than that in the day.
May 18 marked two momentous occasions – Alex’s first smile (intentional and non-gas induced) AND Alex’s first “sleeping through the night”. Although it wasn’t all night, it was a great, long stretch, lasting from 9pm to 4:30am. Wow! I was thrilled (and desperate to nurse him to ease my growing discomfort). But alas, it was not to be anything to count on – the next night he was up every 2 to 3 hours again.
May 21, 22, 23 – Alex has been VERY fussy all day. He simply cries if he is awake. We’ve dealt with this before, but normally is was in the evening and we assumed it was a colicky period. This crying-all-day thing is not only emotionally draining, but physically exhausting. The only thing that makes him stop crying is to nurse him. He ate almost non-stop on May 22 (Sunday) and I was absolutely drained. Decided today that I wasn’t doing that again. I’d feed him only when he began rooting, but otherwise I would deal with the crying and try other avenues to sooth him. He does find sucking to be soothing, so he spent quite a bit of time with a binkie. Today was better, overall, than yesterday was.
We are heading to Walla Walla this weekend to see that clan. Hope we survive!