Feeding
Trying to feed himself
The Nutramigen didn’t seem to be helping, so after a week on it, we switched to Similac Alimentum, and noticed a difference rather immediately. He began eating better, and his mood seemed to improve. He’s still spitting up a good bit (back to wearing bibs…..ugghh), but I’m still playing with the thickness levels and am hoping to get the right thickness so it will stay down. One thing to note --- this stuff STINKS! And the smell is even worse when he spits it back up. And I checked with insurance – they won’t pay for the formula unless he requires tube feeding. So it’s $50+ a week here on out….
Also – we started him on solids yesterday (rice cereal combo he gets via bottle…..just practicing with using a spoon now). I’ll post on that experience soon!
Talking
Jackson has always been fairly “vocal” from early on (like his early days of “talking to the dinosaurs” in the artwork above his changing table). His favorite things to say now are “mamamamamama” and “babababababa” and sometimes he mixes the two into “mamabamabababa” or the like. The other day though, he started making a new sound --- I can only really describe it as a happy shrieking. Here’s a short video of it:
Sad / Crying
He has also started developing object permanence, and he gets upset sometimes when we leave the room or are not in his sight. For several nights, he began to cry when I left the room at bed / nap times. Now, he doesn’t always cry when I leave, but sometimes if he’s in a fussy mood (like last night) he’ll cry as soon as I step away from the crib (seemingly, he’s “learned” that me stepping away means I’m leaving). We’ve been having to let him cry-it-out somewhat at bed and nap times. Once he’s asleep, he’s usually that way for good (at least at night), and we don’t have to get up with him at all in the night. But going to sleep has become a bit more difficult with him being upset at us leaving the room. So sometimes he just fusses for a few minutes; sometimes he cries heartily (how sad!) and after 5 minutes I go in to comfort him a bit, then leave again. The next step is waiting 10 more minutes before I’ll go back in, but it usually doesn’t get to that point, because he finally goes to sleep. So I’m hoping this is a good mix of not setting up bad sleep behaviors but also not going 100% cry-it-out and possibly undermine the sense of security he should be developing in these early months. The saddest part is that he now cries actual tears, so sometimes when you go in to check on him his face is all wet [UPDATE] I wrote this blog earlier, but at bedtime tonight, he didn’t cry at all! So we’ve either turned a corner, or he was just too tired to be upset…
Mobility / Motor Skills
The one thing Jackson is “behind” (relatively speaking --- since the experts all say these things are on a wide timing scale) on developmentally is mobility-related. He’s only flipped over the few times in White Lake (on the cushy bed). We can’t recreate it at home on the floor, as much as we coax him. He just hates tummy time, so it’s usually a countdown to some major crying when we lay him on his stomach. So I have a feeling crawling might be delayed as well…. But he does love sitting and standing! ….which leads me to the notion that he might be an early walker. I wonder if he’ll just skip crawling and walk first?! Crawling or walking, either way, I’m not looking forward to baby-proofing the house!
Music Class
Jackson absolutely loves his Music Together class! It’s the only guaranteed 45 minutes of no / minimal crying during the day. He loves watching the other kids, and seems somewhat mesmerized by them (many of them are mobile, and are crawling and walking all over the room). And I think he really likes the singing too. When I sing the songs at home, he gets really smiley (especially the Hello Everybody song). And --- he may have started to recognize his name, which was evident in class! Stephanie was with me at the last class, and she said Jackson smiled really big when they said his name in the “Hello” song (I can’t see him because he sits on my lap facing out). He seems to be recognizing his name at home too.
