Tis the Season?

Hard to believe it, but Christmas is upon us. For some reason this year I just haven't really felt the holiday spirit. Just all of the sudden, here it is, Christmas. I'm not sure if I haven't gotten into the spirit of things because so much time and attention goes to taking care of Aiden that I lose track of the calender, or if it is work (although work is just like last year) or maybe it is the fact that I have not done much holiday shopping at all. I kind of think that last option is the one that does it for me. The holiday's have always provided me a bit of an interesting challenge in trying to make sure I buy something useful and creative for everyone on my list. I hate giving gift cards (although I love getting them.... odd that). Gift cards take no thought. They are quick and easy, which is what most people like about them I suppose, but I guess one of my thought processes is that the gift is as much the thought that went into it as the item itself. I've always had trouble returning gifts I receive for that very same reason. So not shopping this year takes away from the Holiday feelings I suppose.

But I am off work for the first time in something like 9 years on Christmas day, and that will be a nice change for me. It will be Aiden's first Christmas, and although he is not anywhere near old enough to have a clue what is going on, it will be fun to sit in front of the tree with him and open gifts and see how he reacts.

You may have to wait for the Christmas update though... Busy time of the year and all, not sure if I will be able to make the time tomorrow night to upload photos or not. Be patient though, I will get them online for you. :-)

So Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your holiday season brings you everything you desire. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon!

The Photo Edition.

Alright. Since I have been remiss with the photos of late, here is a small collection of photos for your viewing pleasure. :-)

Sleepover results... and the cutest picture ever

So the sleepover last night was a success by all accounts. There was no majr seperation anxiety on either Aiden's or our parts. Although we did not get home till late, so we didn't get a ton more sleep than usual, but it was uninterrupted sleep. So that is a good thing. Aiden did pretty well for the grandparents. So all is well.



Apparently it went so well that mommy thinks it would be a good idea if Aiden spends the night with his grandparents once every week or two. So we'll see how that works out. The grandparents seem willing to oblige in taking care of him, so sleep sounds pretty good to me.



Today Aiden went and got his very first photo taken with Santa. It is just about the cutest Santa photo ever taken.... Of course I am a little biased. Unfortunately, showing you that picture will have to wait for tomorrow, because I am losing the argument with my scanner at the moment.

Sleepover

So tonight Aiden has his very first sleepover and his grandparents house without mommy or daddy. Shocking I know.

Momma's work Christmas party was tonight, and the original plan was to take Aiden over to their house before the party, and then pick him up afterwards. It would mean a late night for her parents, but they would be getting up to give him a bottle anyway. But this afternoon mommy calls me and asks if I am alright with Aiden staying with his grandparents, I'm okay with it... Is she?

So we'll see how it goes, for us and for him. We had a good time at the party, mommy only checked her phone a couple of times for messages. Hopefully he settles down and sleeps alright for them so they don't end up with sleepless nights.

We'll go pick him up at 8am tomorrow, and I will tell you in tomorrow's update how it went... for all parties involved. Until then, we're going to try to get about 6 solid hours of uninterrupted sleep. :-)

The Grandparents

Kim asked in a comment on Belated Update for me to talk a little bit about dealing with the baby’s grandparents. Fortunately for us, all of Aiden’s grandparents have been great (and he has 6 of them.) I think a big part of that is that we kind of all know, they are welcome to give advice, but we reserve the right to not take the advice if we want to do something else. Do we have instances where the grandparents advise us of something that we don’t do and they are a little upset by it? Yeah occasionally. But for the most part we do pretty well.

Lets face it, having grandparents close by can be a great help. They can help with babysitting, getting chores done that just can't be handled with the baby in tow. They add another layer of love and affection to the baby's life that they just wouldn't get from daycare or a sitter.

Now I know that not all new parents are in the same position as we are. Some people just don't like their in-laws. Fortunately for us, we both love our in-laws and that makes things a whole lot easier, because you don't have that barrier of dealing with someone you aren't very fond of.

As for the advice... One of the things that we always need to keep in mind is that a lot has changed in the last 30 years in how doctor’s recommend bringing up your baby. 30 years ago parents were told to let their babies sleep on their stomachs, now sleeping on the stomach is a big no-no. 30 years ago babies didn’t get acid reflux, they just had colic and you dealt with the crying. Does that mean what worked for our parents then won’t work for us now? Not at all. But we have to take into consideration the changes in the medical research on what is best for our babies and then make the best, most educated decision that we can.

Since Kim put out the example of the Christmas party and the whole family being around, I will use that example. I don't exactly disagree with Kim’s decision to keep the baby in the bedroom and allow only the occasional visitors with lots of washed hands, but we made a different decision. Yes, hand washing is important, and we try to make sure everyone cleans up before they handle Aiden. But from our reading, the first 2 months or so aren’t really an issue for sicknesses picked up from being around other people. The baby has just spent 10 months being exposed to everything that momma has been exposed to and their immunity is at one of the strongest points it will be at for a long time. Of course this rule does not hold true for preemies and in other instances. But for us, Aiden was just about 8 weeks old when he was Baptized and he was in a room with about 25 other people all holding him and playing with him, and he did not suffer any ill effects. But that was our choice with our child, based on the information we had. Kim's decision is just as valid.

Now new parents should never be ridiculed for any decision they make. The only time they should be chastised is if their decision could directly cause harm to their children. Let’s face it, raising a child is an effort in trial and error, and is different for every set of parents. What was true 30 years ago certainly is not true today, but what is true for me and my baby doesn’t necessarily hold true for you and yours either. If there were one sure way to bring up your baby, there would be one definitive rule book and we would all have perfect children.

So take the advice for what it is, the concerned words of wisdom from someone who has been there before. But then make your own decision and stand behind that decision. If someone gives you grief for the decision you make, stand up and let them know you appreciate their input but you are going to raise your child the way you see fit. And you would appreciate if they would respect your choices and stand behind you rather than giving you a hard time for trying to be a good parent. Because, at the end of the day, that is the new main focus of our lives, to be the best parents we can. The grandparents advice can be useful, sometimes it can counter everything your doctor says, sometimes it might be downright comic, but take it as their good intentions, then decide what YOU are going to do. They will have to respect your decisions in the long run.

Belated Update

To Sleep or not to sleep. Mommy and I got a little freaked out this weekend. Aiden actually slept. He took several naps through the day Sunday, and then he slept from about 10:30p-4am. Wow. We’re thankful to get the break. Maybe he is finally turning the corner and ready to sleep a bit more through the night? Then he slept a lot Monday throughout the day, and we start wondering… Why is he sleeping so much? He never sleeps like this. We got ourselves busy with asking what was going on, when, hopefully, he was finally doing what a baby is supposed to be doing at his age.

Well flip the page to Monday night. Not so much luck there. He got his schedule pretty funky and only took about half a bottle between 10-11. He did settle down for a bit, but then he was up at 2. Full bottle at 2, and then he was sleeping but grumpy from about 3:30 on. Oops. It seems we get a lot of these, a good night followed by a really bad one. Not sure why we get these little spurts, but that is sort of the trend we are following.

Aiden’s still smiling and having a good time when he is awake. The hydro cortisone does not seem to be helping the itch on his head a whole lot, and particularly last night I think that was the issue with his sleep, as long as I was rubbing his head he was fine, but as soon as I stopped and tried to go to sleep he would start fussing and itching at his head again. So We’re supposed to try a couple of different shampoos on him and see if that helps. Trial and Error… Trial and Error.

Seems like 3 months ago I was writing about how we couldn’t continue doing this with the sleep issues and needed some definitive answers. 3 months have gone by, and still no solid answers. But we keep trying, and we keep plugging along.

So, I’ve been a little busy for updates of late, and those of you who come daily looking for news, I apologize. Tis the season you know. Although we are not doing much for Christmas, I am hard at work making sure everyone on my list gets a little something from us, and that is taking a lot of my time right now. Of course with it being the Holidays at work, I am also pulling a few more hours than I had been when I started the blog. But after the start of the year we should return to business as usual, and I will try to get more updates in as well as get the newbiedaddy.com website up and running.

Life of the Party

LAst night Aiden went to his first Christmas Party. Our Sunday School group got together at one of the member's houses and had dinner together. The host's baby went to bed at about 7pm, so that left Aiden to be the life of the party the rest of the evening. He didn't disappoint. He was playing and thrashing around, looking at everyone he could get eyes on. He had a pretty good time.

It takes about an hour each night for me to get Aiden settled down to sleep, and I wish I knew exactly what works in the end to settle him down. We rock in the glider for awhile, I put his lotion on his head, give him prune juice, rock some more. In the end, he just konks out somewhere along the line. It isn't that I mind spending quality time with my infant, but I would really like to get to sleep myself. And in fact a few times I have found myself dozing in the glider while I try to rock him to sleep. Maybe eventually we'll figure out what the key ingredient is to going to sleep, but until then, the trial of errors continues.

Right now we are busy blowing raspberries at each other, which he thinks is the funniest thing in the world. I have to admit, I find it pretty entertaining myself. :-)

Videos

Well.. last night we had another rough night... no known reason for it, Aiden just was really grumpy all night long, didn't want to sleep for more than about 20 minutes at a stretch.

But we're not going to dwell on that because we are going to share a couple of videos today! We finally caught Aiden rolling from his stomach to his back. The first one is about 40 seconds of him being cute trying unsuccessfully to roll over. The second is a short 13 second clip taken moments later when he does manage to roll over. :-)

Two weeks to Santa Day

So it is officially two weeks to Christmas. Seems like the year has flown by. We have not done any shopping for the few presents we are going to be buying this year, and that includes buying anything for Aiden. Not that he will need much with all the aunts, uncles, and grandparents spoiling the little guy. But still you want to go back and say "This is what e got him for his first Christmas". We've got less than 2 weeks to figure it out now.

Aiden continues to frustrate me with the rolling over thing. He rolled over twice today, but when the camera was there, nothing. Think the kid is camera shy or something.

The nights have been better with the Oatmeal Cereal. Last night he did get active between 5-6am, but when I moved him from his crib to our room in his bouncer he settled back down just fine. In fact he was sleeping peacefully when I woke up about 7:05 and realized mommy hadn't gotten up yet either. Her alarm failed to go off this morning, so she was a little rushed getting to work this morning. Oops.

Took awhile to get him to settle in to sleep tonight. In the end I left him awake in his bouncer with his little musical aquarium playing and by the time the 5 minutes of music had played out he was asleep, so that was good.

on course?

Alrighty then.

So Aiden has now been on the Oatmeal Cereal instead of Rice Cereal for 3 days. He seems to be taking to it very well. No constipation so far. Rice Cereal we would have some hard painful bowel movements every couple of days regardless of how much prune juice we gave him. With the Oatmeal Cereal we have not given him any prune juice at all and he seems much more comfortable. His sleep has not been terrific, but it has been okay. No sleepless nights since we made the change. Saturday night was probably a downright GOOD night for him. Last night was okay, but mommy said she was up with him several times between 4am-7. I never heard him.

We have him sleeping in his bouncer so that he is upright a little bit and that seems to be helping his tummy out quite a bit. Last night we put the bouncer inside his crib (prior to that he had been set up right next to our bed) he did okay in the bouncer in the crib from 11:30-3:45. At some point between 4 – 7 mommy brought him out of the crib back to our room.

He does make some noises in his sleep… not fussy noises, just kind of little baby sleeping noises. I don’t know if momma is so keyed up to the sounds he makes that these noises woke her up, or if he was actually fussy. She wasn’t really sure if he was fussy or not, just that she was up several times.

I need to reiterate that Aiden is a very happy baby. It has been awhile since I talked about much other than the sleeping problems and the tummy problems and the skin irritants. But during the day, when he is awake, he is a very happy, active baby. We get lots of smiles and giggles. He thinks Daddy and mommy are the funniest things on the planet. I think if momma and I were getting decent amounts of sleep we would have no complaints at all.

We watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition every Sunday, and watching that program and others like it, just make us realize exactly how lucky we are that Aiden is as healthy as he is. There is so much more that could have gone wrong. So many families out there who have such stories of struggle and hardship, just keeping their little ones alive. In the meantime, Aiden is thriving and we complain about lack of sleep. Every night I thank God that Aiden is as healthy as he is. I also ask that he take away the skin irritation and let the Acid reflux fade out so that Aiden will sleep, but primarily I am thankful that we have a healthy happy little boy.

A couple of pictures I can share with you this evening… and I am going to try to link in a video from my mother’s picasaweb site that she took while here over the weekend. We took more pictures over the last couple of days, but I am not allowed to share because they are for the Christmas Card. I guess after Christmas I can share that one.

That’s gonna about do it for tonight. I’m working on a little fun entry for somewhere in the next few days. 10 rules to live by for new dads. Just a fun little list of things to expect. That should be fun!

Sunday Update

Tomorrow I will try to make some time for a full fledged update for you, as well as bring in some photos that were taken over the weekend.

My mom and Danny came in for the night Saturday, and we had a good visit. Aiden has had a couple of decent nights. Not great nights, but acceptable. At least he is sleeping.

We've had a few more instances of him rolling over, but have still failed to capture it on film. He gets shy around the camera I guess.

I am still fighting with the computer to one degree or another. I will get it all sorted, but Vista seems to have a lot of compatibility problems with already in existence software. Almost makes one consider buying a mac.

As I said, I will give a longer update tomorrow, but I told myself I couldn't go to bed tonight without at least posting something, so there you go!

Stupid Windows

It has been a busy couple of days around the house here. Aiden had a grumpy day today. I tried him on solids again, and he did better, since I mixed the rice in with his apple juice it probably tasted better, but about 5pm he got really grumpy, and grumped all the way until momma put him to bed a little after 11. He is now sleeping soundly, which may be a result of all the energy he exerted grumping for 6 hours.

This update is a little late in coming as my computer has continued to act up on me since we had the little issue with the firewall a month ago. Windows Live Messenger along with several other programs boot up and then stop working. It tells me it is looking for a solution, but no solution is ever available. So tonight I decided to try reinstalling Vista to see if that takes care of the problem. Well it takes about 4 hours to reinstall Vista, and once that process was completed, the same problem still occurs. I find it slightly amusing that the main program I need that fails to work is a Microsoft product. But anyway.... I don't think this would be a really big issue, except that it crashes Windows Explorer whenever I try to launch the Control Panel. That is a problem.

So I think tomorrow, or sometime over the weekend when I have some time, I will be downgrading back to Windows XP. That should be a load of fun. Hopefully not too much of a nightmare.

So I may miss a day or two of updates if the computer is busy loading files and getting right with Microsoft. But I will be back soon!

What is he doing?!

Okay all you bright people out there. Or people with more time to explore than I have. Aiden is doing something for which I cannot find any sort of reasoning. I am going with it being a part of the teething process, but go out there and show me something to back it up...

Aiden has started to roll his tongue around his gums. Basically massaging his gums with his tongue. I have tried to look this up as baby licking gums to no avail. If you can find something on this, it would be welcome.

After our first night of Aiden rolling over from his tummy to his back 3 times, he has not done it since. I don't know what the magic was that cause him to roll over so easily on Saturday night. Maybe it was all the football on TV, but no successes since then.

We'll keep on trying. And trying to catch it on video!

A Different Night

One of the new things I have been trying the last few nights is giving Aiden a little extra formula in between his 7 and 11pm bottles. He seems to get fussy right around the 9 o'clock hour, so I gave him an extra 3 ounces the other night and that settled him right down, so I have continued to do it.

Last night, after finishing his extra bottle and his 11pm bottle, Aiden slept until 2:45, when he started grumping. I got up, gave him his pacifier and went and got his bottle ready. I sat down at the computer to wait for him to grump again. He didn't until almost 3:30. I got him up and tried to feed him, but he was not even remotely interested. Over the next 45 minutes, every time he fussed a little I offered the bottle, he would take a couple of sips and then go back to sleep. Between 3:30 and 4:15 he drank 2 ounces. Then I decided to put him back down. He got back up a little after 5 and Raquel gave him a little more. But he did not have a full fledged bottle between 11pm and 9am. Is this progress? We'll have to wait and see... But tonight when he fusses I am going to try the pacifier and go back to bed instead of assuming he is hungry and getting ready to feed him.

We'll see how that works out for us. :-)

Pictures

So it has been awhile since we had any pictures of Aiden posted. So tonight instead of posting much of an update, I am going to post a few pictures from the last couple of days for your enjoyment.

FLIP!

It was an eventful day for Aiden today. We had another very rough night last night, just hoping tonight will be better. I'm not entirely convinced the problem isn't that he is still hungry. By the 2.5-3 ounces per pound he should be getting anywhere between 38-45 ounces of formula a day. We are giving him a little over 30 ounces a day. Now the Rice Cereal should make up some of that difference, but how much? Who knows.

I gave him a little extra formula between his 6 and 10 o'clock bottles tonight and (for now) he is sleeping. We'll see how it goes.

Grandad and Nana came to town today to visit. This is the first time they have been able to make it down since Aiden left the hospital. It was nice to spend the late afternoon and evening with them, and grandad and I spent the evening cheering on Pitt and Oklahoma as they took on the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the land. Can you say welcome to the Championship Game Ohio State?!?!

And then.... after grandad left, I decided just to give Aiden a little tummy time, since he was pretty awake and active. Well what should I see, but he flips over from his belly to his back. I put him back on his belly and he does it again! I had to wake up momma and have her come downstairs and see, and he did flip again for her, but we didn't catch it on video. We'll be trying tomorrow to get that one.

We did take several pictures today that I will get posted tomorrow, the camera isn't convenient for me to grab right now, so it will just have to wait. hehe.

Here's hoping we get some sleep tonight!