Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Sleep changes, more play, and getting bigger

Well, it seems like the baby has decided that he's moving towards just waking up 3 times a night (not always but it's starting to change) and changing 5 naps into 3 or 4. He is awake for longer periods and needs to be more active. He's actually a lot of fun and Carolina and he are starting to play together. I enjoy not having to carry him all the time.

The new sleep times are a little tricky as they are in between when I have to bring or pick-up Carolina from school, or after her nap. So if I'm not clever enough to get Carolina to go take her nap when her brother takes his 2nd or 3rd nap of the day (depending on what time it is), then I have one or both of them awake ALL DAY. And that is a long, tiring day for mommy.

Since he can sit up really well (although he still needs pillows around him for the occasional toppling over) Carolina likes to hug him and laugh with him and give him things to hold (as well as quickly take them away or put them just out of arm's reach).

And as he can play by himself for a while, I've started to ignore him. Now, I'm not leaving the room for an hour and not checking on him. I'm in the room, back turned to him and checking on him every few minutes. And whenever I leave, he's either in his jungle play thing or in his walker. Limited damage can be done in a few minutes while he's a bit contained and entertained. (It's that Evenflo Exersaucer Jungle toy. It's probably the best $100 we spent since we get to use it for both kids and they both seem to enjoy it equally, although differently. It's this one if you want to know: http://www.amazon.com/Evenflo-ExerSaucer-Triple-Fun-Jungle/dp/B001H0GF10/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354117670&sr=8-1&keywords=evenflo+jungle+exersaucer We've recommended it to anyone with a new baby who asks.)

I remember doing this with Carolina when she was about this age. She would be in her jungle and I'd be cleaning up or reading something or writing an email or having a snack or just anything else. By the time she was 9 months old I remember realizing that she was able to play by herself for a good period of time, often looking at books for 10 minutes or so. I truly think that has more to do with her ability to play by herself and focus on her own thing than what I did but I am sure ignoring her for periods of time helped encourage her to play alone. So, as I have things to do while Carolina is at school, I let the baby play by himself. There are mornings where I feel a bit guilty for not paying total attention to him, and then he gets annoyed that I'm interfering. I mean, yes, he smiles and loves that I'm there but he wants to handle things into his mouth and touch things on his own. So, I let him.

Besides, once he starts crawling, and man, that's going to be soon, I won't be able to ignore him for long. He's a grabber. I remember the boys in Carolina's play group being more grabby and strong than she and the other girls. And it's true! He can grab things from shelves and handle them much more than she did. I'm going to have play referee between him and our bookshelves.

This week we started making Christmas decorations. We took down the turkey paper plates we put up on the front door and put up Christmas-theme paper plates. Trees, snowmen, wreaths, and bows. Plus lots of confetti of different colors. As always, black needs to play a part in the color scheme. Because, really, what is a holiday without black confetti?

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