The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Sleeping

Hope you all had an eventful weekend.  We had a good one with lots of sleep! Thankfully, Maxwell has really become a great sleeper. This is how our days typically go:

6:30 to 7:00 – wake up
9:00 to 11:00 – nap 1
1:00 to 3:00 – nap 2
4:45 to 5:30 – nap 3
6:30 to 7:00 – bath and bed

Yes, he really does take two 2 hour naps!  I love having him on such a reliable schedule – it makes life much easier!  He’s still taking all of his naps in his swing.  Is that good?  bad?  don’t know but it’s working for us.  We don’t even have to rock him to sleep anymore – we just put him in his swing and, after a few minutes of fussing, he’ll fall asleep on his own.  Hooray!  This past week we stopped swaddling him for his naps because we needed to be able to buckle him into his swing.  You can’t buckle him in if he’s wrapped up in the swaddle blanket and, after seeing how much he was moving around in the swing, we knew we needed to strap him in!

For nighttime sleep we usually rock him for about 10 minutes and then lay him in his crib still awake (we stopped swaddling him at night about a month ago).  He’ll cry anywhere from 3 minutes to 30 minutes (those 30 minute nights are not fun) but then will fall asleep.  About 50% of the time he’ll wake up around 2:00 am to eat and the other 50% he’ll sleep all night through to the morning.  I know he doesn’t really need that middle of the night feeding anymore so we’re working on cutting that out completely soon.  Overall, he’s doing fantastic.  He’s such a happy little guy and I really think that is because he’s so well rested.  I’m a big believer in following a good nap schedule…he benefits and mom benefits!  A win win for everyone!

Sorry if that info was boring…I just want to keep a record for myself of what he’s doing at this age.  I know it will all be changing soon!

Here’s a couple of pics of Maxwell dreaming away in his swing…

All buckled in so he won’t go anywhere!  🙂

4 months old!

Maxwell turned 4 months old last Thursday.  I really feel like, just last week, he turned this corner and has become a much more manageable baby.  It’s hard to explain but I just feel like I “get” him more now.  Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t know what I’m doing a lot, but he’s not a complete mystery to me anymore.  We’re getting the BEST smiles, some hilarious laughs and giggles and the cutest noises you have ever heard.  Recently he has just been talking up a storm…babbling on and on.  He rolls over almost every time we put him on his tummy and he’s now a big fan of the bumbo!  He LOVES to put absolutely anything in his mouth, especially his hands.  He’s exploring his world and it’s so fun to see him discover things.  He’s doing pretty good sleeping through the night.  We rock him to sleep for just about 5 minutes and then lay him in his crib drowsy but still awake.  He’ll still cry a bit every night – anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes usually – but then he’s out!  He’s still getting up to eat once in the night but will go right back to sleep after his tummy his full.  We’re working on getting him to sleep a bit later in the morning.  His current 5:30 am wake-up time is just too early for mom and dad!  🙂  He’s quite the charmer and will willingly show friendly strangers his dimples…but then will usually get shy and turn his head into me.  He melts my heart daily.  I can’t believe this perfect little chubbo baby is mine.  I love him soooo much!

Ok, as usual with the monthly photos, there are a TON.  I just can’t narrow them down so here we go…

Happy to be 4 months old!

He’s obviously still a very good eater!  🙂

Mom:  “Hey Maxwell, can you show me how many months old you are?”

Maxwell:  “ummm…this many?”

Mom:  “4!  that’s right!”

Maxwell:  “Yay for me!”

Mom:  “You know what else is pretty funny, Maxwell?”

Maxwell:  “Ummm…What Momma?”

Mom:  “You’ve had your hand resting on your diaper in all these pictures!  You kinda look like Michael Jackson…he he!”

Maxwell:  “hahahahaha!  oops!  I’m so funny and I didn’t even know it!”

My baby, just being cute…

The next four photos are proof that his very favorite thing to do right now is chew on his hands!

Just hanging out…one of my favorites.

Another favorite.

Maxwell:  “Hey Momma, remember when I used to only be this tall…”

“Well look how tall I am now compared to Little Al!  I’m a big boy!”

I know I’m biased but I even think he’s got the cutest feet around…

When he’s not chewing on his hands, he’s always holding them together up near his face like this…

Cute, huh?  And this is one of my very favorite expressions of his…

Happy 4 months sweet boy!!  I don’t think you can get any better and really kind of wish you’d stay this size forever!  🙂

Three month photos here:  3 months

Two month photos here:  2 months

One month photos here:  1 month

Mr. Sandman

Hallelujah!  We had a GREAT weekend of sleeping.  On Friday night, Maxwell went to bed at 8:00 and only woke up once at 1am and then back asleep until 5am!  On Saturday, he went to bed at 8:00 and didn’t wake up until 2:45am!!  Woohoo!!  In the morning, we finally went into his room at 6:30am and there he was, just lying awake in his crib smiling at the world!  I really hope this pattern is here to stay for a little while because, up until this weekend, we had a rough week….or few weeks.  Month 3 has been challenging to say the least.  Maxwell has not been a great sleeper, Robert has had to travel quite a bit, and the sleep deprivation is really building up on me.  Besides the lack of zzz’s, just the act of getting him to sleep every day and night is physically exhausting – the rocking, the sssh’ing, the holding him tight and fighting against his squirming body.  It wears me out.  I’m trying everything – good naps during the day, swaddling, etc. – but I think he’s still just learning how to sleep.  I know we’ll get there eventually and weekends like this are super encouraging!

Still, regardless of how hard the night is, every morning the sun comes up and Maxwell gives me one of these…

or one of these…

or these…

or even this…

or this…

…and I quickly forget how tired I am….almost.  🙂

You’re worth all the sleepless nights, little man!

Update:  Sunday night was another great night of sleep!  We’re on a roll!  woohoo!

More visitors!

Another successful night of sleep last night.  My new mantra is swaddle, swaddle, swaddle!  Another favorite saying is “sleep begets sleep.”  The better and longer Maxwell sleeps during the day, the better and longer he sleeps at night.  I’ve learned that he can have about one hour of “wakefulness” and then he needs to go back to sleep.  I know these periods of staying awake will get longer and longer the older he gets, but, as of now, an hour is about the max for Max!  🙂  If I can get him to sleep for some good naps during the day, we have much better nights!

On to other topics!  Last week Maxwell got to meet some more of his family on Robert’s side.  Lou Lou’s cousin, Nancy Ellis and her husband Charlie came over from Huntsville for a quick visit along with their daughter Melissa and her two boys, Nate and Yohannes.  We’re so glad they were able to stop by!

Meeting Nancy Ellis…

Hannie just being cute…

and Nate just being cute…with a tight grip on Charlie’s finger!

It was a great day.  Maxwell got lots of attention…

and loved getting to meet his “cousins”!  Nate wasn’t quite so sure about this baby thing…

but Hannie couldn’t get enough of Maxwell!

Robert and Hannie had a good talk about how Santa gets down that chimney…

and cheese balls were enjoyed by (almost) all!

A good day all around!

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!”  🙂