A Photo That Warms My Heart

This is what I get to wake up to every morning, how lovely. I even captured the "I got your nose" thumb that Ollie loves to do with his hands.

Motherhood: Week 13: Sleeping.

Things around here have been pretty great. Oliver has as much of a routine as a three month old can have. He stays up pretty late usually until midnight and we nurse two or three times throughout the night (with one diaper change thanks to the larger size cloth diapers) until 10:30 when we emerge mid morning. I just wish we could shift this a few hours back and life would be close to normal. I love waking up with Ollie, our night time nursing we do in the glider next to the bed, I find that he nurses longer and then sleeps at longer stretches (usually three or four hours) when we nurse sitting up and semi alert. In the morning to extend our bed time lounging I'll nurse side lying, we'll doze for a little while and then he'll wake up somewhat fed (ie not screaming). We usually lay around and coo at each other, and I just can't say how much I love this time with my baby. He smiles with his whole face, he eyes light up and I am just totally over the moon. Plus who doesn't like lying around in bed and cuddling, it is an extra bonus on the weekends when Ron is home and we can all cuddle together.

The downfall of night time routine is that he wakes up absolutely screaming with little to no warning - I call it the zero to sixty effect. This screaming persists until he nurses, when we change him he screams (less for Ron, more for me), the red face, semi choking scream that makes me feel like a bad mama, oh the horror! The second is that he still sleeps on my chest. I can usually put him down onto the bed in the morning, but during the night when I want/need good solid sleep he stays on my chest. Otherwise he'll squirm and flail his arms around, keeping me awake and sleeping only about two hours. I don't mind this arrangement and most nights I really like cuddling with him like this, but I know it is not ideal as he gets older and heavier. We'll work on getting him to sleep on the bed at some point, but for now I am enjoying somewhat regular sleep (I'd say every third or forth night we have a tough night for whatever reason). Let's hope this post doesn't jinx our night tonight!