Baby Leu

Figuring out my Baby and Potty Training

This post will be extremely boring to pretty much everyone other than myself.  It will also be choppy because it’s 11:30 at night, and I’m thinking about sleep, not grammar or eloquence. It’s mostly here for me.  Read if you so desire, but don’t read it and wonder if I actually thought that would be interesting reading to someone. : )

I cannot figure out my baby.  The majority of the time he needs a little assistance falling asleep.  Sometimes I rock him, sometimes nurse, and sometimes I put him in the crib and pat his bottom.  Not usually any big deal.  But when he gets overtired it can be a real task getting him to sleep.  Easter, for example.  Overstimulation pretty much sums it up.  A hundred people in his face and wanting to hold him.  Not a happy baby at all.  Getting him to sleep that evening was a two hour job.  I have discovered a few tricks to use in such situations.  The first is that there is an art to “the bounce.”  If I know he needs to get to sleep and someone else is holding him, it pains me to watch their attempts at accomplishing this.  There is a special bounce…they have to be smooth big bounces best done barefoot and Malachi has to be held upright, not sideways.  If you hold him sideways, there is a different bounce. I can’t describe it, only demonstrate. Another trick that I use if all else fails is his Magic Sleep Suit.  Actually its just a super padded winter outfit with bear ears on the hood and enclosed hands and feet.  Put him in that and he’s usually out within 30 seconds.

But here’s what gets me.  Occasionally, he will put himself to sleep.  I love it when he does this.  But tonight was weird.  We went to a banquet with about 600 people.  He was the only baby there.  600 people, probably somewhere around 300 women, and ONE baby.  What does that spell?  OVERSTIMULATION for baby.  So about half way home he starts crying.  Screaming is more like it.  So I’m expecting a repeat of Easter.  And I can’t use the sleep suit because its 75 degrees and he would roast.  So we get home (he has stopped crying now), I get his wet diaper off and put him in the bedside crib on his tummy. (Yes, I let him sleep on his tummy).  No crying.  He has his head up looking around a bit, but looking very sleepy.  I straighten up the bedroom.  He’s still looking around.  I straighten up some things in the living room and come back in to check on him.  Still looking around.  A few minutes pass and I check on him again.  This time his head is down, but his eyes are still open and he is just staring ahead.  I want to pick him up so bad!!!  He looks so sad, so forsaken.  I’m worried because I think he should be crying.  Why isn’t he crying? I simply cannot figure out why he will sometimes go to sleep like this, but most of the time wants arms to get him there.

He’s the same way with a bottle.  I had given up on giving him a bottle because he refused it so many times.  Then out of the blue, he takes it from my mom the other night.  I thought he had forgotten how and she said he didn’t even hesitate.  So the next day I give it a try.  Sure enough, he CHUGS three ounces without hesitation!  I couldn’t believe it.  I try it again later that afternoon.  Refusal. So I’m thinking perhaps I’m just pushing it too much in one day.  So I waited a couple days and tried it again.  He drinks one  ounce and then refuses to take any more.  Stinker!

In potty news, Malachi has managed to acquire a fungal infection and I have been unable to get rid of it.  The cloth diapers seemed to making it worse, so we temporarily went to disposables until we could nip it in the bud.  It seemed to be gone, and when we went back to cloth, it was back that same day.  So, back to disposables.  Anyway, the point is,  it has motivated me to experiment with the whole EC thing I posted about previously, so he’s been diaperless a lot too.  The amazing thing to me is that when I hold him on his baby potty, he goes about 80% of the time.  That whole theory that babies don’t have bladder control has been blown out of the water for me.  It can’t possibly be coincidence.  I set him over his potty and he will immediately start to pee or poo.  Sometime I have to wait 10 or 20 seconds but still.  So why don’t I just always do this you ask?  Because even though he goes on the potty, he will still go 20 or 30 minutes later when he isn’t on his potty.  It’s all very interesting and I’m really looking forward to seeing if it’s possible to do potty training as early as one year old.

That’s it.  Going to bed.