Twinkling stars and incy spiders

There have been a lot of "Twinkle twinkle little star" and "Incy wincy spider" these past few weeks - all through the night! It really is exhausting. I am slowly (or maybe not so slowly) loosing my mind.
I've stopped giving him solids for a few days now because he has been super gassy (boy does he do some stinkers), and some of his night wakings appear as though he is uncomfortable. we've given him paracetamol and that has helped somewhat. But in general he is still waking a number of times during the night; at least 3 times for his feeds, and then some other random number of times.

We've booked in to see a pediatrician next week. Hopefully she has some answers. We need some reprieve!

Things that make you go yum...

What a fun week it has been with starting Kien on eating solids...if you call a bit of rice cereal and some mashed banana solid food. He seems to really enjoying it though, and I count it as playtime rather than eating time. Other things he likes to munch on are his hands, feet, the dangling cow, duvet edge, and the ears/paws of his lovey. I'm looking forward to giving him some stewed apple today.

Here is a video of Kien having his first meal. He has gummed some banana a few days prior but this is the first time I mixed up some rice cereal and actually fed it to him as an event.

The "magic" number at the moment is 2 hours 17 minutes. If I get my timing right and from eyes open to eyes closed hits exactly 2h17 Kien will give me a long nap. Amazingly enough I've managed to get it on the dot 6 times in the last 3 days - now that's a record!

But just to make sure we are kept on our toes he has decided 4:30am is the new wakeup time. Yesterday after he screamed the place down for what seemed like an eternity Jef got him up, and we all watched the final space shuttle Atlantis launch.

We've also been experiencing a number of night wakings; last night it was 4 times, plus 3 times for feeds. It is a bit rough when he is waking so often. I have read that around this age there is a major growth spurt, and also the beginning of the teething process, so things are moving under the gums and making it uncomfortable.

The IR camera broke last night :-0 so I am flying blind today. I am so reliant on technology it's ridiculous!

My first Mothers' day

I've slept maybe 7 hours (give and take a few awakenings from hearing Kien cry) and feel pretty good. I've been very productive, and my son has managed a 1h23 nap all by himself - this makes me very happy! I am so grateful that Jef looked after Kien last night to give me some sleep. Kien had his second lot of vaccinations on Friday, and he has been grizzly. He woke up a few times during the night and needed help to resettle.

Today Kien is back to being the happy smiling little boy. He must have known it was Mothers day :-) His dad is now at the Viaduct for the NZ rally celebrations.

Mum and Rod came over on Friday, and we all went up the road to Ponsonby for lunch - a little Japanese place called Zipangu. It was very nice to have them over and for all of us to go out somewhere. This will definitely be a more regular occurrence.

Kien can now roll back and forth from his back onto his tummy very well. We also discovered that he doesn't like looking at himself in the mirror when he is grumpy.

Baby whispering vacation

Just when I think I've cracked it we regress. Its been a week of short naps, night wakings and refusal of milk. I've read that at 4 months there is quite a bit of developmental changes, and short naps are notorious. Wow, I had a luxurious 2 weeks where I only needed to give him 3 naps (most of the time), and now I'm back to 5 nap days. Not that I was great at fixing his wonky nap days before, but now it seems impossible - and he is cranky only half way through his awake time.

I sought advice from the Baby Whisperer forum, and they suggested I take a baby whispering vacation for a couple of days; to recharge my batteries and to hopefully hit the reset button for Kien. He is probably in an over tired cycle, so he needs to have some decent naps to catch up. They said to do whatever it takes to give him those long naps. Unfortunately the only way he will have a long sleep is if I hold him in my arms and rock him - even then it doesn't always work. So this weekend I have been doing just that, and now my arms are aching already. He is only 5.48kg (weighed on Monday when we went to the solids talk at Plunket family room).

Last night we went to Linda's birthday dinner. It was great fun! Michelle came over to watch him. Michelle, I thought these parts of your notes pretty much sums up what he is like; "...Attempted to re-wrap him and rock him to sleep, he screamed and thrashed and arched his back. We watched tv in the dark while he giggled and blew bubbles. He started to rub his eyes and grizzle and yawn. Put him in bed, he smiled(!!!) then quietly and promptly drifted off".

Kien loves his daddy so much, as evidenced in the pics I post on this blog.