Ahh… Sleep!
December 2, 2009We are pretty much settled into our rental house now. Xander is sleeping in a queen size bed and across the hall Parker is in his crib. For the most part, we’ve been sleeping blissfully well. Parker has been sleeping straight through from 7:30/8:00pm to 6:30/7:00am without a peep! We have never been a “cry-it-out” family. This resulted in Xander sleeping in our bed until well into his second year. Parker has always slept in his crib, but I would often cuddle him to sleep and then put him down. Recently he’s been rather disagreeable about cuddling before sleep. So, a few nights ago I let him cry it out. It took 12 long minutes, but then he fell asleep. We tried this with Xander when he was a baby, but when Xander woke up it would be the middle of the night, and he wouldn’t stop until you picked him up, so we gave up pretty quickly. Last night after we read books, I tried to cuddle Parker for a few minutes but he would have none of it, so after lots of hugs and kisses I put him in his crib, covered him up and walked out. He squeaked maybe twice and then fell silent.
I feel like we’ve finally turned a corner when it comes to sleep in our house. Parker’s been sleeping great for almost 2 weeks now, and Xander has occasionally woken up, but most nights goes back to sleep quickly. Ahh… Sleep – it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing 
A few weeks ago I took Parker in for his 9 month checkup. While he has always been a pound or two smaller than his brother, we had never really worried about his size. Zach is long and lanky, and Parker seemed to have a similar body type. At the 6 month checkup, Parker was in the 36th percentile for weight (65th for height). His weight seemed to be doing a step sort of thing and not really staying on one curve, but there weren’t many plot points to really say that definitively. He seemed to gain quickly, and then level off and then gain quickly again. At 6 months he had leveled off a little, so I expected a bigger gain at his 9 month visit. Instead, he dropped off his curve. He dropped from 36th percentile to 18th! The nurse practitioner suggested that it was probably Parker’s increased activity. He went from being mostly stationary at 6 months to constant motion at 9 months. I hope that she’s right, but there is a little worried mommy part of my brain that can’t stop saying “what if it’s something more?” At this point, we’re just waiting to see how he gains in the next three months. So, we’ve been a little more focused on Parker’s eating habits lately. He’s always seemed to eat fine – 3 meals a day and bottles in between. Finger foods throughout the day as well. So I’ve been trying to convince him to eat a full jar of food (stage 3) at each meal and introducing more table foods than we had been before. Unfortunately, it appears that Parker has recently decided that he is no longer interested in baby food. He’ll eat about 2 bites and then he stops swallowing and letting the food slide out of his mouth. So now we’re trying to come up with foods that don’t come in baby jars but is still chewable and edible for our little guy. And most importantly, making sure that he’s eating nutritious food that helps him grow lots over the next three months!
It’s been almost a month since we “sold” Xander’s binkies. It’s been a good move I think. It was time. We were ready. He was ready. These are the phrases that keep marching through my head every night at bed time. Xander is generally a great kid. He’s positive, upbeat, happy and usually cooperative. Like all kids (let’s be honest, even adults), he doesn’t react well to the word ‘no’, but we can usually move on pretty quickly. Until the dreaded bedtime.
Three years ago today I was admitted to the hospital at 4am. Zach and I had no idea what was in store for us that day. After a long, long day at 6:39pm, we finally met our first born son, Xander. You can read the gory details 
Parker can crawl! Although, the fact that he can doesn’t mean that he always does… During the past two months or so Parker has gotten very good at belly scooting. He can get anywhere he wants to go on his belly, and he’s pretty quick (especially when he’s attempting to tip over the cat’s water bowl, which reminds me, I’ve got to move that out of reach again…) I think his ability to scoot on his belly delayed his desire to crawl. He’s been able to get up on all fours and rock back and forth for months now, be he didn’t get any momentum forward until the past few days. Now he’ll crawl (really crawl) for a few steps before flopping back onto his belly. I’m guessing it’ll only be a matter of time before he discovers that crawling is indeed a faster mode of transportation than belly scooting.