The Best Thing

Henry has been doing great with going to bed.

We do our little routine, which now inlcudes brushing his teeth (he loves it).
I sing to him and put him now.
When I lay him down on his back, he looks up at me and smiles.
I rub his cheek, he smiles again,
then I leave.

What could be better.
-Laura

Happy Baby

Aaron checking in...Things are great in the life of HWS right now. He's been wonderfully happy for quite some time, and is developing like crazy. He gets around with ease, moving between crawling, sitting, pulling up and scooting like a pro. He's stood without support for a few seconds a couple of times.

Nights are going well I think - Laura pretty much deals with the nights on her own now, so I don't always know how they go, but I'm pretty sure he's just waking up once to feed, and only after having been asleep for 6-8 hours. He did have a solid week where he wasn't waking up at all during the night, but he's gone back to wanting one feeding.

He had his 9-month checkup a week ago, so we got to check his growth progress. He's still a big boy: 24lb 10oz, which puts him around the 95th percentile. I can't remember what his height was, but he jumped from the 50th to 70th percentile since his 6-month checkup.

Grandma Val has been visiting for a whole week, and Grandpa Dean came down for last weekend. It's been a great time; Henry loves having a full house. Grandma & Grandpa seem to like being around Henry OK too.

Henry vs. Sleeping

Hello everybody,

Just to let you know, two big things happened last night. I did my usual bedtime routine with Henry and then laid him down, and guess what, no crying! He was awake, but just not crying. Then, he slept through the night! He cried off and on, but never enough to get Aaron and I up or for him to wake fully up. It was very nice, especially since I worked over 100 hours this week.

Other news is that Henry took his 9 month pictures yesterday. They didn't go as well as previously. When we sat him down, he started crying and saying "mama." We got a few shots, but nothing like before where he just sat and smiled. We haven't officially ordered any, but I expect we'll show you all them sometime.

-L

News

First off, we'd like to thank all of you who actually voted in the little quiz. The right answer is that he liked all of them. He was ok with beets and he really loved Zucchini and Nectarines.

Henry has been doing great things. First of. He says "Da Da." I'm pretty sure Aaron likes this fact. Last night the whole family went to Aaron's roller hockey game and when sweaty old Aaron came back Henry put his hand out and gave a little wave. At first we weren't sure if it was an acutal wave, but he repeated it. It's amazing watching all of his firsts.

Henry is cruising like a crazy man. We'll post a video soon. If we would allow it, he would walk all the time. When he has to crawl he'll do it, but he'll whine as he does it. It's pretty comical.

I'm sure there is more, but I can't think of it.
All in all he is a pretty happy guy and I'm enjoying him more than ever!

Phase Two

Hello everyone,

It's been a while, sorry about that. My work at home and beyond is very encapsulating. For an update, the sleep issue is getting better. We've been giving him a consistent night time routine (at least when I'm home). I read to him and then sing to him. When we start walking to his room he already starts to cry because he knows what is going to happen. Usually he'll cry for about 10-15 minutes and then sleep. I wish that were a lot less, but I guess for now I'll take it. He is only waking up one time at night. If he wakes up another time I'll ignore it and he'll fall back to sleep. Now, when he wakes up, instead of crying, he is yelling "mama." I guess I should feel happy that he knows my name and he knows what he wants, but it makes it a little harder to ignore him. All in all, it's an improvement.

Today I had a day off to spend with Henry. We went for a nice walk in the park and then I bought some new fruits and vegetables for him. These are apricots, plums, nectarines, zucchini and beets. My mom would say that beets are not a good idea, but I decided to go for it. I'm curious to see how he'll react with these. I'm going to try to set up a quiz for everyone to guess if he'll like them all or not. We'll see if it works.

First Word! and Sleep Update

I can't believe he's already talking, but he's definitely started saying "Mama" in reference to Laura! I don't really know when the various milestones are to come, and I had no idea he'd have a word so early. He's just a baby! Babies don't talk! But apparently Laura had her first word (also Mama) at the same age as Henry (8 months). My dad always says I was talking when I was born, but I don' actually know when my first word was.


The great sleep struggle continues...we're still doing "phase one," in which Laura will feed him on demand during the night, but put him down immediately after. Happily, he has quickly adjusted to this, and really doesn't fuss at all anymore when she puts him down. BUT, he's getting up three times a night! It makes things pretty easy for me, because he doesn't keep me up crying and I don't have to take turns trying to sooth him. But Laura just cannot get rested between all the night feedings and the 60-80 hour work weeks. So it needs to move on to phase two (only allowing him one feeding per night) soon. Maybe even tonight (I'm on duty while Laura is at the hospital overnight).

I don't know if it is related to us putting him down during the night or not, but he has stopped going to sleep in our arms. He'll be obviously tired, and I'll try to sooth him to sleep like we've always done, but he just can't settle all the way down. So we're putting him down while he's still awake but tired now, which is just going okay - he cries between 5-15 minutes before going to sleep usually (sometimes more), which isn't very fun to listen to. We've been doing this for probably a week now, and it doesn't seem like he's getting any quicker at it. I'm sure he will though.

Overall though, things are great, and he just gets more and more enjoyable as time goes on.