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| None of you will even believe how naughty he's been this month...that smile is just ridiculous. :) |
Month five to six has probably been Mav's worst. He's been kind of a jerk, actually. Unpredictable, fussy, opinionated...an all around crab from the hours of 5:00pm to 6:00am. With the first five months being as perfect as they were, I'm thinking we probably kind of deserved this. I *think* we're past the worst of it for now, so I'll attempt to explain everything that happened in Maverick's little life for the past month.
We started off month five pretty normal...Mav was sleeping fairly consistently from 9pm to 5/6am. I was fine with this...I was in no hurry to get to the 12-hour mark, but sort of felt like it was coming based on the fact that some days Maverick would sleep until 7 or 7:30 (also not in a hurry because that early-morning breakfast is Mav's cuddliest time so I totally don't mind it). I planned to gradually move up his bedtime and morning wake-up call to be 8pm to 8am. A nice, normal schedule...I felt like this is what *should* and would naturally happen next.
...and then this little peanut decided to ignore everything my Babywise book and friends have taught me and be a real
Maverick started waking up around 10/11/midnight every night, after only being in bed for a couple of hours. Which is something he's never, ever done! He wasn't hungry, he was just mad. Annoyed. Acting like a teenager on us already. So we turned up the TV and let him cry it out. Usually he was done in an hour, but sometimes it lasted longer and I'd give in, feeding him at midnight or 1. That would usually get us to at least 4 or 5am, but still made for one tired mama (This boy has never in his little life been up THREE times in the night. I was prepared for that at the newborn stage...I was not at all prepared for that to happen at five months). Other nights he would be up at 1 or 2...mad and crying and hungry. I started the month making him cry that one out, and ended the month giving in and feeding him every time because I was starting to wonder if he WAS actually hungry. And also because I'm exhausted and JUST WANT TO SLEEP.
I tweaked everything in his schedule and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his wakings. We have more happy-awake time during the day, cut the catnap, tried offering a few extra ounces every time after he eats to get more day-calories in...no dice. I tried giving him four extra ounces after he ate at 9:00...chugged it...fell right asleep, and was STILL up at 11:30. Unswaddled one arm, recently unswaddled both arms...he had good naps/nights about 50% of the time. Even though it's never been an issue in the previous five months, I stopped drinking wine, eating cabbage/broccoli, or anything super spicy for a week...he was still up in the night. I added gas drops to our nightly routine, he was up an hour later. When he's been SUPER upset, I'll occasionally pick him up in an attempt to calm him down and rock him back to sleep out of desperation (in which I feel like I'm ruining everything I've worked for) and he is downright furious with me. He actually gave me a face that said, "Dude, what are you doing. This is NOT how we do it." And I was all like, "OK YOU'RE RIGHT! FINE!"
There was one particular night from Hades where he woke up at 2:30, I immediately went in to feed him...he ate, finished, burped, fell right asleep when I put him back in his crib...then proceeded to cry until 5:30 am. FOR NO REASON. When I say cry it varies from a whine to a fuss to loud yelling to actual crying to smiling like a maniac when we go in every 30 minutes to pat him. Again...something he's NEVER done before in his life! What. A. Weirdo. I was starting to get used to being up in the night two or three times, as much as I hated it, but being up for three hours straight? PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER MAVERICK.
And pull himself together he finally did. Last night he slept from 8:30pm-6am. The night before he was up at 1:30 pretty ticked, but...full disclosure, I'm pretty sure it's because I forgot to turn on his space heater before I left his room and his hands were kind of frozen when I came in to feed him. Oops. Sorry dude. The night before it was 9pm-5:30am...and the night before that another 8:30pm-6am. PRAISEALLULIA.
But last month wasn't all bad! I'm just trying to be honest in recalling everything the past month and 'everything' includes the good, the bad, and the 2am parties.
Maverick continues to show us more of personality every day...he's getting good at rolling from his back to his tummy. He likes spending his morning in the Bumbo while I make breakfast, clean up the kitchen, etc. It really is time to bring up the high chair, but I'm still holding out on putting the swing away before we bring more clutter up here. For now it works to let him do some eating in the Bumbo anyway. He's had tastes and bites of more things this month...more avocado, banana, grapes, apple, carrot, red pepper, spinach. My haul of Baby Led Weaning books arrived in the mail and I'm power-reading them before I start anything more than just letting him experiment when we're in the kitchen.
We sill love Baby Einstein in the evenings when the crabbiness is at its peak. Mav spent his first night away from us on Valentine's weekend with his G'ma and G'pa and they got a front row seat to his nighttime naughtiness (up at 11:45, fed him at 12:30, up again at 3:00, up again at 6:00...see what I mean?! BAD!) but everyone survived. Mav loves bath time, swim lessons, swimming in the hot tub (now that it's nicer!), walks, his changing pad, being naked, watching his daddy...and he's just started to have an opinion about me leaving the room or putting him down and walking away. Which I secretly like, but will be annoyed by in a few months. ;)
Maverick is such a chatter box. Yelling, jabbering, laughing, 'talking' (we heard 'Dada' this month!)...he wants nothing to do with his paci any more...he takes it right out so he can talk. He pulls away to talk when he's in the middle of eating. He grunts, whines, shouts, and does a funny droning thing in the back of his throat/nose. He still squeals and does the fake cough thing, and he will arch his back when he's super excited about being naked on his changing pad and let out a BIG squeal/squawk. I guess what I'm saying is...we probably have 'talks at inappropriate times' on report cards in our future.
Mav is working on some chubby legs, but we are still stuck in size 1 diapers and 3-6 month clothes. I officially packed a tote of newborn and 0-3 month stuff away yesterday and didn't cry one tear. He doesn't have his six month appointment until next week, so we will see how much he weighs then. I'm not getting my hopes up for too many added pounds...my guess is he's still at the bottom of the charts. ;)
He finally plays with toys, is noticing his surroundings more, and puts everything in his mouth. His favorite toys are tags, our water bottles, paper, and he's real excited when he can get his hands on some plastic bags (yikes)...basically anything that hasn't been purchased for him as a toy. Further proving my theory that THE FEWER TOYS IN THIS HOUSE THE BETTER! Our dining room table was delivered in four giant boxes and Josh and I kept thinking if Maverick was been a couple years older, those would have entertained him for the rest of the winter. They were so big and awesome, we sort of wanted to build forts out of them...
Despite my first couple of paragraphs, Maverick is still pretty easy going. We can go out and about during his awake-time and it's pretty much a guarantee he will be a happy man. Speaking of that, I'll give a quick breakdown of our schedule.
4/5/6am - Eat, back to bed
9:00am - Wake up, diaper change, eat
9:30am - Bumbo, swing/seat/ play mat, errands, walk
11:00am - Diaper, nap
1:00pm - Wake up, diaper change, eat
1:30pm - Bumbo, swing/seat/play mat, errands, walk
3:00pm - Diaper, nap
4:30/5:00pm - Wake up, diaper change, eat
8:00/8:30pm - Start bedtime routine
8:30/9:00pm - Bedtime
We switched to this halfway through last month and it took a few days for him to get used to two whole hours of awake time, but his days have been going REALLY well for the past few weeks, and like I said...his nights have been decent for the past couple days. So we will keep at it with this schedule...until we spring forward in four days and everything goes to crap again. Perfect!
Our 'bedtime routine' consists of diaper, jammies, book, turning on his sound machine, and eating one last time. Every three to four days it includes a bath, and it also varies by about a half hour. If Mav is being particularly crabby, we start the routine and bedtime sooner...risking what time he'll wake up for his early morning breakfast. But there are some days where four hours in the evening is just too much for him and when he's overtired, he doesn't fall asleep as easily. On the days of Bachelor and/of Fixer Upper...I ignore everything about bedtime, feed him in front of the TV while I watch Bachelor Ben, Chip and Jo, and sort of just throw him in his crib with a kiss on a commercial.
His first nap of the day is by far his best. The afternoon nap rarely goes longer than 4:30...but I hope we work up to a full two hours in the afternoon this month because he does so much better in the evenings when he gets more sleep in that second nap. He goes down for naps and nighttime really well, crying for 10 minutes or less, if at all. Now that spring is here and I'd like to have more fun stuff in our schedule, I still try and force myself to be home for one solid nap in his day. I prefer to only have one crazy-throw-the-schedule-out-the-window-day per week because planning around his two hours of awake time, two hours of nap, repeat, and four hours awake, and bed isn't that hard to accommodate since I'm with him all the time.
Our favorite nicknames for the month are:
Little Maverick
Little Mav
Peanut
Little Buddy
Punk
Maverick McCrazy Hairs
Maverick Slobber Hands
And that's more than anyone wanted to know about our favorite little buddy this month!
MmB
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