So, so thankful…
A visit from the BFF
We had a fantastic weekend because my best friend in the world, Hannah, came to visit from Arkansas!! This was her first time to meet Maxwell and they instantly got along like best buds. I expected nothing less.
Since Hannah is mom to super cutie 18 month old Joshua, she was full of tips and helpful advice for us. It’s always good to get a fresh perspective on how to do things! She recommended the football hold when Maxwell is acting like his tummy hurts. Let’s just say he’s a big fan of it and I’ve been doing it constantly for the past 2 days!!
Happy little guy getting carried around on his belly…
We’ve had a few rough nights in a row with Maxwell not sleeping much. Unfortunately, Hannah got to witness one of Maxwell’s roughest nights yet. I don’t know if it was being overtired, a hurting tummy due to reflux or what, but our little guy SCREAMED and WAILED for basically 3 hours straight Friday night. Hannah didn’t know what she was getting into! We tried everything, including a drive around town with Dad, and finally got him to sleep around 9:30 (partly thanks to a little baby Tylenol!) and he slept on me all night in the chair in his nursery. Not the most comfortable night of sleep for me but I was more than happy to do it to get him to stay snoozing.
Not wanting a repeat performance of Friday night, we tried a few new things on Saturday and had HUGE success. We got Maxwell to sleep at 8:00 with only 10 minutes of crying and he only woke up at 1:00 am to eat and then at 6:00 am! WOOHOO!! We are definitely going to be doing everything exactly the same tonight to try and replicate the success! What did we do? Well, we…
- Made sure he took really good naps during the day so he wasn’t overtired.
- Gave him some gripe water (I’m still skeptical on that but, hey, you never know!).
- Elevated part of his crib to help with the reflux.
- Most importantly, at Hannah’s suggestion, we swaddled him with his arms in like I did when we first brought him home from the hospital. I had gotten into the habit of wrapping him up with his arms out because I thought he liked to have them free. I really think those free-flailing arms were keeping him awake though. When I swaddled him up super tight in one of the velcro swaddle blankets, he instantly seemed soothed and, when he did stir in the night, would just go right back to sleep. Hannah swore by swaddling Joshua up super tight and I think she’s right! We’ll be swaddling with arms in every day from now on!
We even swaddled him up for a nap today and got him to sleep in his swing for the first time ever. Up until now, he’s taken all of his naps in the sling attached to me. Here’s my little mummy all swaddled up for a nap.
Funny, right? Robert likes to call it a straight jacket…but I think it might be the only thing keeping him and me out of straight jackets in the psych ward due to exhaustion!
I used this swaddle blanket if you’re curious.
We also got a fun new toy out of the closet while Hannah was here. Maxwell had a great time exploring his little farmyard fun play mat!
Reaching for the birdie…
and getting a little cross-eyed again! 🙂
Maxwell also rolled over on his play mat today…I think it was more like he fell over but still, he was on his back and then he was on his tummy! A first!
Hannah – we’re so glad you got to come visit and hope you get to come back soon! Thanks for all the mom advice and for reminding me that “he won’t go to kindergarten in a sling!” 🙂
Jet Setter!
Maxwell and I had quite a big adventure last weekend. Even though I’m still on maternity leave, I decided to attend a conference for work in Dallas. My mom (because she’s a saint) agreed to tag along to keep Maxwell in the hotel while I went off and acted like a grown-up for 2 days. Considering all of the stuff a little baby needs for a full weekend (stroller, bouncy seat, bassinet, etc.) we debated back and forth a lot about how to actually get to Dallas. We finally came up with a good plan…my mom flew to Birmingham on Wednesday, we loaded up the car with all the baby essentials and she drove the 10 hours to Dallas on Thursday (did I mention she’s a saint?). I then got up early Friday morning and took a direct flight to Dallas with Maxwell. It was great because I could literally get on the plane with only the baby and my diaper bag.
I was very nervous about the flight but Maxwell did great. He slept the whole way down and was a happy little camper when we arrived in Dallas.
Here we are getting onto Maxwell’s first plane ride! (the nice Southwest folks let Robert come to the gate with me)
They say everything is bigger in Texas and that includes Maxwell’s screams and cries. It was quite a long weekend as he simply did NOT want to sleep in the hotel room. He woke up several times Friday night and I think he literally only slept for an hour at a time on Saturday night. This was not helped by the fact that a car alarm kept going off in front of the hotel every single hour from midnight to 6am on Saturday…and it was parked right in front of our 3rd floor window.
HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK!
That darn alarm would honk 75 times every single time it went off…I counted. My mom and I had planned to stick around Dallas on Sunday so I could see some friends and we could do some shopping but, at 4am on Sunday morning, we made the executive decision to get back to Alabama. I called Southwest and booked a 7:30am flight and we loaded up the car so my mom could hit the road after dropping me off at the airport (again, she’s a saint). Maxwell did great on the flight back and I had never been so happy to be home in my life! Thankfully he slept MUCH better Sunday night when he was back in his own bed.
Snoozing on the flight home…
Bummed we didn’t get to see these great friends in Dallas…
But very happy to be home…
I’m glad we made the trip so I know that I can handle a plane ride with my little guy. We’re looking forward to our next flying adventure at Christmas!
Boo!
Happy day after Halloween! Maxwell had a great first Halloween and got all dressed up as a cute little monkey…or maybe I should say a chunky monkey! I bought this costume a few weeks ago and he’s definitely grown quite a bit since then! I put it on him last week to see if it would fit. We got it on but the hood was a liiiitle tight! He was clearly very excited about this monkey business…
Luckily the costume still fit this past weekend for Halloween! Unfortunately, Maxwell seemed just as excited about it as he was the week before…
But, he perked up a bit when I picked him up…
and then Dad got to show off Maxwell’s cute little monkey tail…
Hope you all had a great Halloween with lots of treats and no tricks!
Boys and their toys
Thanks to so many of you for commenting yesterday! I LOVE comments!! I agree that they both look good either way but think I like #1 in color and #2 in black and white best. Think I might order some prints!
Up until now, Maxwell really hasn’t shown an interest in toys. He’d much rather just look at the lights or the ceiling fan. However, this past week he started to at least notice some of the toys in front of him, such as these on his vibrating seat, and reach out for them…
It’s so fun to see him interacting more and more each day!