Kaden at 4 Months

Getting behind on the blog is rough.  Because then it becomes overwhelming to try and catch up.  And because some of the things that were occupying my mind are things I would like to have blogged about, but if I wait two weeks oftentimes those things are not as prevalent in our lives anymore.  The stressful part has passed.  Perhaps it’s better to let the smaller stuff go and not bother blogging about it.  Maybe I should only blog about things that stress me out for long periods of time.  But I’m not so sure.  It’s nice to see the struggles and see that they only lasted a short time.  Here’s to trying to catch up…

Kaden is 5 months tomorrow, so I suppose I had better post his 4 month pictures and write a little about him.  We did these pictures in the spur of the moment on a somewhat warmer day, though it was still chilly in the shade and his little fingers were pretty cold when we were done.  Luckily it only took us a few minutes.  Sadie tried to help me get him to smile.  She really, really tries to help with Kaden especially when he cries.  It’s really great when he calms down for her, but most of the time she gets sad because he is still fussy.  It’s not her fault, though.  The kid is a mama’s boy.  And slightly spoiled.

The bumbo isn't his favorite, but he does better with it lately.  It's exhausting holding up that big noggin'!

However he does like his little play mat!

For a little while he sucked his thumb.  I was sure that he would be a thumb-sucker from then on.  I found him sucking it in his crib in the morning when he was still sleeping.  Also in his swing during his nap.  It was adorable and I was happy to have him have something to comfort him.  But it didn’t stick.  He chews on his fingers a lot, but he doesn’t often suck on his thumb.  It’s weird, right?  Every once in awhile he will stumble on his thumb and suck it for a bit, but not often.

You gotta love the pool of spit up.  I was looking at his eyes and didn't notice it until Dylan pointed it out.

Awhile ago I took Kaden and Sadie on a bike ride.  He's not quite big enough for me to feel super comfortable with him sitting in the trailer.  Sadie kept her arm around him and he was pretty content while we were moving, but cried when we stopped.

I love when babies study your face.  When they get old enough to really interact with you.  Like when I'm holding him but looking somewhere else, and then I look down at him and he smiles big at me because he finally got my attention.  He loves the attention of the kids.  He loves to grab their faces, and it makes the kids laugh and laugh.

I asked Ryan to bathe Kaden.  This only happens on Sundays, and only on the Sundays when Ryan doesn't have a bunch of meetings, so not too often.  This is how Ryan preferred to get him clean.  Too cute.

Kaden was a really great sleeper.  Then he started waking a little.  Then he started waking earlier, like 3 instead of 5.  Then one night it was 1 am.  I was thinking there is no way that he really needs to eat after just three hours when he used to go 9-10 hours, even if he is having a growth spurt.  I started stressing out just a bit because that is exactly what Dylan did.  He was sleeping well from 2-4 months and then he just stopped sleeping.  He would fuss and fuss and wake up wanting to eat every 2-3 hours at night.  The whole thing with Dylan was a nightmare, but Kaden does not have the same personality as Dylan so I kept telling myself it won’t be as bad. 

That only lasted a week or so.  But it was miserable.  Then he started sleeping until 6 or 7 most mornings, which is great for me.  But then I got sick and I wasn’t able to sleep much so when he woke at 6 I ended up bringing him to my bed to nurse him so I could keep sleeping.  And then he got his shots and he wasn’t sleeping as well either.  I didn’t think the 6 am feeding in my bed was a big deal, but I think that might be the reason he is such a stinker now.

This last week or two he has struggled.  He will fall asleep easily while nursing or rocking, but when I set him down he wakes up.  Every time.  Even though he’s dead asleep in my arms, so much so that I can jostle him and switch positions and he stays asleep, but the second his head touches his crib sheet, he squirms and squawks and then gets really mad.  I’ve spent hours late at night trying to get him to go down to bed, until midnight or 1 some nights.  Either that or I will spend 2+ hours in the middle of the night trying to get him to go back down and stay down.  I have tried letting him fuss, but he doesn’t calm down even after 30 minutes or so.  I really would prefer to not have to let him cry.  I never had to let Sadie cry.  But it’s gotten out of control.  In the middle of one night I got him to sleep and attempted to set him down SEVEN times!  I tried nursing, rocking, his crib, his swing, turning on his swing, letting him cry for awhile, more nursing, more rocking.  Eventually I was beaten and begged Ryan to cuddle with the kdi so I could please get some sleep.  When you don’t get more than two hours of sleep at a time, your body does not function well.  So he’s cried a few times.  The first time was after I had tried really hard to get him to go down and I decided I had done all I could do so I walked away.  He cried for over an hour before I couldn’t take it anymore.  So yeah, failed attempt.  The next night he went down after some effort, but woke at 1.  I fed him and rocked him but when he wouldn’t stay down after a couple tries I walked away.  And this time he did fall asleep on his own, and slept the rest of the night just fine.

I wish I knew what was bothering him and why he doesn’t want to sleep alone.  There’s no obvious answer.  There’s not even a pool of spit-up under his head like I’ve found in the past.  He has no signs of illness.  Sure he had shots, but it’s been a couple weeks now so they can’t still be bothering him.  The doctor did say that his gums are very swollen because of teething, and I can feel teeth close to the surface.  And he’s very slobbery, so I know that must bother him some.  I don’t know.  Like I said, this struggle will probably end up being a short one and it will be no big deal in a couple weeks.  I can hope at least.

We were late getting him into the Dr because I had an appointment for Sadie and him together but then Sadie got the stomach bug and so I cancelled it.  Nobody wants shots when they are already sick.  Plus, it’s not good for your system to be overloaded with so much illness.  I had shots.  A necessary evil, I know.  I just hate them and how they make my children miserable and the idea of these bad diseases floating through my baby’s body while he tries to fight them off.  I know most of them are not live vaccines, but still.  Not to mention the link between shots and diseases like autism.  I’m not saying that’s the cause, I’m not saying I didn’t vaccinate him, I’m just saying that there’s been enough cases where the child has an adverse reaction that I always get a little nervous.  I pray a lot.  Anyway, here's his bandaged little legs.  And Sadie's matching ones.

I think she was trying to imitate his hands or something.  Who knows what she's doing.

Ryan was helping get his attention.  Kaden was examining his hat.  I love the things that peek his curiosity.

I'm obsessed with his toes.  I could kiss them all day.  Something about the way he curls his toes around my fingers when I'm holding him, and he has done that from very early on.  And when he puts his little feet flat together, I could just eat them up.

Anyway, here are his stats for when we did get in.  14 lbs 2 oz (15%) and 25 ½ inches (50%) and his head was 17 ¼ inches (93%).  His head doesn’t look disproportionately large compared to his body so it’s weird to me that his percentages are so different.  He is small.  I mean, he doesn’t LOOK small, especially to me.  I would prefer him to stay smaller longer.  But the scale says he’s a bit small.  But the Dr looked at his weight from two months before and did some calculations out loud in his head and said that he should be gaining ½ an ounce to 1 ounce a day and he had averaged ¾ a day so he was good.  I wasn’t actually worried.  He eats plenty.  It seems like nursing babies always drop in the charts at 4-6 months.

The biggest thing the Dr looked for at this visit was to see if he made eye contact and smiled, which he did.  And he checked his strength for his neck and torso and Kaden is doing just fine.  I’m sure he will be sitting on his own in no time.  The Dr also pointed out that his gums are very swollen, meaning he is in fact teething.  He's been so slobbery and constantly has his hands in his mouth, and also likes to chew on his sleeves or his burp cloths.  Poor kid.  Hopefully they will pop through soon and he can have some relief!  But then again, he's already started biting me while nursing and it's painful enough without the teeth!

He is sure very loved in our household.  Even if he is a mama's boy.  Seriously, he whimpers and starts jumping in Ryan's arms when he sees or hears me.  It's adorable.  And exhausting.  Love him to death.