Daniel at 7 Months

This has been the hardest month by far for a few reasons. There have been some very low moments, but I am happy to say that it looks as though things (might?) be improving just in this past week. The main reason it has been tough is due to lack of sleep. At the beginning of the month, there was a solid week where Daniel slept GREAT! He took an hour nap in the morning and a two hour long afternoon nap, and was only getting up once or twice at night. I was relatively well rested and felt great. Then the rest of the month, things took a drastic turn for the worse.

First of all, Daniel's top two teeth came in this month. I think its safe to assume this caused him quite a great deal of discomfort, because not only did his sleep become non-existent, but he also became the world's grouchiest baby. When he wasn't whining, he was crying

and was just miserable 24/7. When he would nap, it would only last 15-30 minutes, twice a day if I was lucky. And at night it wasn't uncommon for him to be up every. Single. Hour. It was BRUTAL. I was a walking zombie.

The worst part was that the sleep deprivation got so intense (I couldn't even nap because he didn't nap during the day either), that I literally started feeling crazy and lost all empathy. He cried incessantly and I never got a break or any sleep and I started to feel like I hated him! I would hand him to Michael the minute he got home and I didn't care to see him again until it was bedtime. And 'bedtime' was a joke as he was up every hour after that anyway.

What exacerbated the tooth situation, and made Daniel's sleep extra bad, was that he got a small cold a few weeks ago. It was basically just a congested nose that made it hard to breathe and nurse. I ran the humidifier with Vicks, any time he was in his room, and I used the nose frida to suck out snot as often as I could. He LOVED that! ;) This kid has the WORST immune system. When the other kids were babies, they never got sick. Basically as long as they were nursing, they were protected and just didn't ever get sick. Even now they only get 3-4 small colds a year, and are always recovered no more than 2-3 days later. Daniel has gotten sick left and right since he was born. There have been several times when he is the only one to get sick too! This time the kids had some slight sniffles for like 2 days, and he was completely stuffed up for TWO WEEKS. Jeesh kid! I didn't catch this bug at all, which begs the question, 'why didn't the antibodies that were clearly in my milk, seem to help him at all?' And its not like I wasn't repeatedly exposed. One of Daniel's favorite things to do is stick his fingers in his mouth, and then while nursing, try to shove his wet hand into my mouth. Lovely.


Whatever the case was though, the end result was that the baby was sick and neither of us slept for three weeks. The teeth are finally through now and the cold seems to be subsiding at last, so I have hope for improvement soon! One thing that has helped a little, is that he has discovered a love for the ikea puppy that has sat in the corner of his crib since he was born. I should have guessed that he would use it as a lovey. Daniel is a sucker for anything really soft and fuzzy on his face. Since he was around a month old, he would fall asleep cuddling fuzzy blankets or sweaters that I was wearing. Now he will grab his puppy and nuzzle his mouth against it and fall asleep. It has been a big help in getting him to put himself back to sleep in the middle of the night, or anytime I lay him back into his crib after feeding him. Its very cute to see him grab the puppy, wrap his arms around it and fall to sleep!

Things weren't ALL bad this month however. Daniel made some great mental and physical strides too. Its clear that he is starting to understand the things that we tell him. We talk to him and he responds in ways that tells me that he gets what we are saying to him at times. At the beginning of the month, he began getting up onto all fours and rocking back and forth. I was sure that crawling would happen any day after that, but so far its been a solid month of him doing that, and though he has clearly gotten stronger, he still hasn't quite figured out crawling. If you stick something within a couple of feet, he can scoot over enough to grab the item, but he certainly can't cross a room yet. I am ok with that! He has also learned to sit unassisted and can now get into a sitting position on his own as well!



We also made the foray into solid foods this month as well. At the beginning of the month, he was disgusted by all things that were not breast milk. The faces he would make! He spit everything out and just looked generally appalled that he should eat that thing. Chunks - even soft chunks like sweet potato - were too much and got spit out immediately. So we started a mixture of baby led weaning (where we give him food from our plates that has been mashed or cut to make it easier for him to try), and feeding him purees, just until he could understand that food was for eating, and could lean to deal with chunks.

Over time he quickly got the hang of this eating thing and showed a fast preference for all things meat. Now we are at the point where he can take down a whole pouch each night and then at dinner, take small bites of meat or soft veggies and bread or whatever else we are eating that he can have. I haven't been as careful this time about introducing foods in order, or singly. The other kids never had any allergies and I guess I am just figuring that he won't either. So far so good! He clearly shows a preference for meat and fruit, but veggies seem to be mostly hit or miss. I will win him over eventually ;)

Lastly, another new change this month was that he developed stranger danger for the first time. Daniel has always been an extremely social child and generally has a smile for everyone. Lately however he has started to cry and get very upset around men that he is unfamiliar with. Just men so far, never women. Eventually over the course of a visit, he does calm down and stop crying, but the first 30 minutes or so he is not a happy camper. He LOVES when Michael comes home however. Its so sweet to see him give his dad the biggest smile and does a happy little wriggle when Michael greets him!

This month was super tough and I'm glad its over. Now that the cold is on the mend and those pesky top teeth are through at last, I have hope that sleep returns to our house. Just in the past few days I have seen signs that this might be the case. Here is hoping anyway! I am a much nicer person and a MUCH better mother when I get even a modicum of sleep! I now know why they use sleep deprivation as a torture technique. It absolutely is torture!