Monday, October 18, 2010

7 Months

Seven months old today and 11lbs 4oz.
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Since getting his 6 month shots, Samuel has been tired and fussy. He took a 4 hour nap the day of his shots and a 6 hour nap the following day. I was worried. I know that babies can be a bit lethargic after their shots, but Samuel doesn't nap more than half an hour at a time. 6 hours is quite a bit longer than half an hour. He also didn't want to eat a few of his bottles - which gave me flashbacks of when we first came home from the hospital and I practically had to force feed him his bottle. Thankfully, he seems to be feeling a little better.

Samuel actually slept for 5 hours last night! We were really excited....that is, until we found out that he hasn't been gaining weight well the last 5 days. Back to setting the alarm for every 3 hours. Really, it's not the getting up in the middle of the night that's troublesome....this lack of sleep is making me emotionally unstable. I find myself crying over the craziest things. Like cheesy commercials. I also seem to be extraordinarily clumsy when sleep deprived. I've never been so bruised in my life.

I'm not sure what prompted him, but he has been using is right arm splendidly the last week or so. I'm thrilled. He seems to use both arms equally now.

I've been writing about how we are giving Samuel a lot of tummy time - but now we've gone hard-core. He's three and a half months old and he's not holding his head up at a 90 degree angle yet. Most of the time he can lift it just above 45 degrees. On the rare occasion, he shows us his full 90 degree tilt for a few seconds. It's not THAT big of a deal - he's able to push all the way up and pick his chest off the floor - but that head is just too heavy! I wish he would learn that he can push up on his forearms (we've been trying to show him how to do that) but he insists on pushing all the way up. Oh well. At least he rolls occasionally because of it. :) I'm doing my best to cut the kid some slack....after all, he DID spend a month after his due date in the hospital, he's still little, and he's a boy.
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So all of this talk of tummy time (and the fact that he moves his legs like he's going to crawl when he's on his stomach) makes me think to the future and wonder 'What on earth are we going to do when he starts crawling!'......nearly every room in our house is hardwood or tiled. Will he just crawl on the hard floor??? Anyone have some suggestions?

He is officially into size 1 diapers and nearly out of newborn clothes. He's really too big for them, but he's too little for most of the 0-3 month clothes. I'm ready to fully transition because the 0-3 month clothes that we have for him are far cuter than anything he's been wearing.
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size 1, newborn, and micropreemie diapers

A month or so ago, Samuel's monitor stopped working and we had to have someone come work on it at midnight one night. A few days ago the monitor died it's final death and we were given a replacement. Michael and I are about to destroy the stupid thing. It alarms far more often than the other monitor did - I guess it's more sensitive to Samuel's movements - so our sleep has been more interrupted than we like. I'm sure we will adjust to it soon.

The jumparoo has made it out of his closet. After putting it together, I realized that Samuel is still just too small. He does have good head control, and he is nearly 4 months old (adjusted age) but apparently size is everything. It cracked me up to see his little feet dangling under the jumper.
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6 comments:

  1. I don't have any kids yet, but I've heard some people get knee pads or leg warmers to protect their little knees while crawling. I just googled and here are a couple I found.

    http://www.amazon.com/Snazzy-Baby-Knee-Seafoam-Green/dp/B000ML34KK

    http://www.lilmelon.com/

    - Andrea Morelock

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  2. We had hardwood floors and Wyatt did a weird kind of crawl scoot thing with one leg turned for traction. It's neat how they adapt to get where they want to go.

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  3. Sarah, his picture made me chuckle. He looks quite a bit like you. Can't wait to meet him!

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  4. For the hard floors we liked baby legs. They're baby sized leg warmers. They come in boy colors, and target carries some cute target-brand ones. Another alternative is to get a pair of old-fashioned guys athletic socks and cut them off to make knee pads. Honestly, Madeline didn't mind the hard floors much anyway.

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  5. My daughters and I paid no attention to what the flooring was. For crawling I usually had them in overalls anyway no matter the surface. I found a few pairs with padded knees that were wonderful. At almost 12 pounds and size 1 diapers I'd have a baby in 3 month clothes. Many people don't buy anything smaller than that. It's great that you pay attention to the developmental milestones and insure Samuel is getting the opportunity for tummy time and to work on his large motor skills.

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  6. All my kids learned to crawl on hardwood floors. They all crawled normally. One or two may have walked earlier because of knee pain ;). He is adorable.

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