Mama Tried

5 Months Old

Baby James, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

Baby James is five months old today. (At some point I am going to have to stop calling him 'Baby' James but I am not sure when that will be. Not any time soon. Maybe he will grow up to be an athlete or a rap musician so I can call him that his whole life.)

Apart from the fact that he is so totally over sleeping more than two or three hour chunks at night, he is delightful. I do not know if he is a cuter baby than Nathan was, but he definitely gets a lot more attention from strangers. It cracks me up when I see someone pointing him out to their friend, all, "Look! Look at that cute baby!" He is DEFINITELY happier than Nathan was at five months. He pretty much loves everyone and everything (except as I said sleeping at night). But he usually takes at least one good nap and is so cheerful I can forgive him. People who know him say, "That is the BEST baby." No one ever said that about Baby Nathan. They are right, though, he is the best baby.

(Nathan, if you ever read this, it's because he has the best big brother. I should also say that today we were at story time at the bookstore and the salesclerk passed out cookies and Nathan's eyes got big and he turned to me and said, "Cookie? Please?" The author reading the story was absolutely stunned that he knew to ask permission and told him what a good boy he was. I did not tell about how a few weeks ago I tried to bring Nathan to story time and had to drag him out of the store kicking and screaming instead. I'm just going to pretend he's Mr. 'Cookie? Please?' all the time.)

Sleep

A while back a blogger I read mentioned she was considering letting her daughter cry it out. She got a bunch of supportive comments and various suggestions and then one comment about how if she did that her daughter would never love or trust anyone again (or something along those lines.) I went kind of cuckoo bananas and commented back, calling the other commenter a doodyhead (or something along those lines) and pointing out for the bitrillionth time how letting Nathan cry it out was the greatest thing we ever did and how wonderful he is (clearly as a direct result).
James has been having some sleep issues, and last week he had one night where he got up every hour. I made a (lame-ish) joke about Ferberizing on Facebook and a friend got all "I would never do it! You'll ruin his attachment!" in the comments and I said we did it with Nathan, and then just kind of thought, "Huh." No indignation, no calling anyone a doodyhead, no defensiveness came up as it usually does in me when the topic arises. 
Because honestly, I have no qualms about sleep training James if it's necessary. But I also finally have a little bit of trust in my parenting instincst, and feel confident I'll know if/when it's necessary.  After the up every hour night he went back to a big stretch followed by progressively shorter stretches. I couldn't figure it out. My mother made a comment about teething, which I ruled out since he doesn't seem upset or in pain, but she pointed out he didn't seem that perturbed when he was practically starving. I still didn't think it was teething, but started to think maybe something was bothering him. Then it hit me, this morning- lately his diaper has been SOAKED in the mornings. I stopped changing him overnight back when he was sleeping all the way or nearly all the way through, and then figured he was fine without a mid-night change.  But he's been eating more, and while Nathan will sleep even if he's soaked a diaper all the way through and is wet head to toe, James is a little more sensitive to being wet during the day so it makes sense that it is bothering him at night. And it makes sense that he'd be waking up more and more frequently as the night goes on and he gets wetter and wetter. (I put him down sometimes with his eyes wide open and he puts himself to sleep, so I knew he was able to put himself back to sleep- but not if he was waking up annoyed and wet.)
Anyway. We will test this theory tonight. I'll keep you posted.
___
Last night:
"I want yogurt pretzels!"
"No, yogurt pretzels are a snack. This is what we are having for supper."
"Yes yogurt pretzels!"
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"YES!"
"No."
"YES!"
"No."
"YES!!!!!!"
"No."
"No?"
He really thought he was going to get me to say yes that way. Tricky toddler.

This and That

Just a few weeks ago, whenever I'd go get Nathan after my shower he'd say, "Mama, hair wet!"  This morning he said, "Mama, you hair all clean? You all done shower? I like your hair all clean. Can I touch? You hair soft!" His verbal leaps never fail to amaze me.  
He also has started to wear socks again since it's almost the end of sandal season around here, and they are a big novelty. Everytime he goes down for his nap he asks "I honk-shoo in my socks?" (Honk-shoo is Nathan's word for sleep.)  Except yesterday, when he said, "I no want honk-shoo my socks. I honk-shoo my TOES."
______
James' four month sleep regression has hit and I am going to start telling him he is now four and a half months in hopes that will end it. It is awful. When he wakes up he's so freaking HAPPY, too. He'll be up for two hours at 2 in the morning just smiling the whole time. Smiling and being REALLY LOUD.
_____
Nathan's 6 PM bedtime has been a source of amusement among all my friends for, oh, the past two years.  Three days ago I tried moving it to 6:30 in hopes of getting him to sleep past five. (He slept from 6-6 more or less and then a few months ago started waking at 5.)  So far it has not worked- he is up between 4:30 and 5 now and will just talk in his crib until I get him at 6. I am really hoping the fourth day is the charm- by 5 I have usually gotten James back down and he will sometimes do a two hour stretch then, so if Nathan could sleep til 6 I'd get a whole hour of sleep from 5-6 at least.
_____
Nathan's fish passed away a few weeks ago and last night when he was on the potty he suddenly realized it. "WHERE MY FISH GO? I WANT MY FISH!!!" I told him that his fish was visiting some other fishes. "I WANT MY FISH BACK!" I explained the fish was sleeping. This morning the first thing he said when he saw me was, "My fish awake??" We told him the fish was at a fish party at the pet store and we'd get him back this afternoon. "Fish have cake at fish party? Fish play baseball?" Sure. The fish is playing baseball. With Manny.

Poor James

I don't really know if the first thing he wants to see when he wakes up is Nathan leaning over the side of his crib shouting, "Hi Baby James! You awake? You happy?? See my car??" but that's what he's getting. As soon as Nathan hears James on the "baby phone" he goes racing to the stairs and is at James' door when I open it and he always beats me to the crib.
I usually get to see the look on James' face, which is priceless- he seems so perplexed.  And then I get to see what happens when James sees me- he stops looking confused and breaks out into a huge smile. I still think he loves Nathan most, but I love those smiles.