Eli turned one month old this past Sunday and it's crazy to think that a month has already passed. I'm not sure where that time has gone and I'm not sure if I really want it to slow down at this point. Joel and I have realized that we aren't really "newborn people"; we're more like "6 month old people". Things are a lot better than they were in the beginning around week two. We are now better at recognizing his patterns, cries, noises, grunts etc and knowing what we should do for him. We also are getting better at being able to soothe him; though we still have times when he's crying and we can't do anything for him! (Those are frustrating times.) Overall, I'm not sure if we have a "colicky" baby or just a fussy baby. From what I've been told, if you have to ask that question you don't have a colicky baby!
Eli is starting to have some greater periods of alertness where he is not crying and that has been so rewarding. We were at a play group the other day at Happy Bambino and he spent almost an hour just looking around the room. He was quiet, inquisitive and then calmly fell asleep in my arms. I sometimes wonder what he is thinking when he sees new sights or hears new sounds. Today, I was even able to put him down for a morning nap while he was "drowsy but awake" (that's what the books call it) and he didn't cry as he fell asleep. It may have been a fluke, but it was nice to get dressed without a crying babe.
And so this leads into the question we get about Eli's sleeping habits and patterns. It's interesting that people in our culture relate how "good" a baby is by how they go to sleep and sleep for their parents. Part of me feels that it's okay to have a baby that takes more soothing to get to sleep and that doesn't mean they are a "difficult/bad" baby or that the parents aren't doing a good job. (Granted it may be nicer for the parents if a baby doesn't require tons of soothing, but is that really the point? Babies depend on parents, that's the design.) Anyways, at this point in his life he developmentally doesn't have the circadian rhythms or the resources to fall asleep completely unassisted. Who cares if I want to rock my baby to sleep, I'm not harming him in any way. (Can you tell I'm a little annoyed by what some of the "sleep experts" say out there). Alright, I'll get back on track here...back to sleep. Eli is starting to have a longer stretch of sleep for the first part of the night which is really nice for me. Generally he nurses between 9-10 and then sleeps until about 2-3 am which gives me almost 4 hours of sleep. We are starting to approach the mark of sleeping through the night. Sadly, the definition of "sleeping through the night" is sleeping a 6 hour stretch at a time (who decided that?). But that could be from 8 pm until 2 am; there's a lot of night left after 2 am! Overall, I think I either am getting more sleep or my body has adjusted to the lack of sleep at this point!
We are also fully in the world of cloth diapering as we have made the final transition to 24 hour cloth diapers. Initially we were using disposables at night but I splurged and got us some more diapers so we could use cloth at night and not have to wash diapers everyday. That's right folks, we are also washing are own diapers even though there is an awesome diaper service in town. Actually, washing are own diapers is not that bad at all, we tend to wash every 2-3 days and have experienced the wonderful bleaching power of our very own sun! Last weekend I dried the diapers partially in the sun and they literally were as white as the day we got them from the store. I was amazed and will not poo-poo bleaching whites in the sun any more! It's great not to be using a harsh bleach to get the diapers white as snow.
So I bet you would like to know what I like about cloth diapers. Well, first of all, they don't really smell (at least yet, we are only dealing with breastmilk poo, not solids yet). I have found I hate the way the disposables smell. I'm not sure what it is in the diapers but it turns his mild urine in to a foul smelling mess. Second of all, I am glad that we're not clogging up a landfill with diapers that take 500 years to degrade. I understand that some would argue that we are wasting more energy with washing them but I just don't buy it. Third of all, I love cloth diapers because my babe hasn't had any diaper rash since we switched to all cloth, all the time. It's nice to know that when I wipe his heiny that I'm not causing him pain. Well I could go on but am realizing that this post is getting quite long!
Thanks for reading, there are many more reflections I have and will try and find some time to post later this weekend.
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