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| Ryan, 10 weeks old |
So the biggest news from this past week is that Ryan has started rolling over all by himself!! He rolled over one time the day before he turned 2 months old, but then didn't do it again. But now, he's rolling over a lot!! I think it's a strategy to avoid tummy time. He rolled over when Joe was at the gym Monday afternoon and I was so bummed because Joe had missed the only other time Ryan had rolled over as well. So, when Joe got home, we tried it again. Ryan immediately rolled over. We decided to record any additional attempts, so here is one video of our wonderful, extraordinary, strong, and smart Ryan rolling over at 9 and a half weeks old:
I've made sure every day that Ryan can still roll over, and sure enough, he has the skills!
In other tummy time news, Ryan can obviously now hold himself up at a 45 degree angle all by himself for an extended period of time. All of that tummy time that I've forced him to do is paying off! He's beginning to try to reach for things too and if I put an object, like a rattle or something, in front of him, he'll kind of reach out and bat at it. He's also becoming very skilled in grabbing on to objects. It's a great distraction during tummy time, for sure. He's also not as fussy during tummy time--probably because his face isn't smashed into the floor anymore because he can hold his head up now!
So at our 2 month appointment, I told our doctor that Ryan is not fond of napping. He'll take these cat naps periodically throughout the day--10 minutes here, sometimes 20 or 30 if we're lucky--but he doesn't really take a longer nap. The doctor suggested that I try to put Ryan on some kind of schedule or develop some kind of routine for him to encourage napping. Since the doctor's appointment, we've been trying the sleep-eat-play routine, where Ryan will sleep (sometimes), wake up and eat, and then play for a little bit, before I try to force him to take another nap. The first two days, it worked! Ryan woke up in the morning, I fed him, we played for about 2 hours, and then I forced him to take a nap--and he actually slept for about an hour! So we repeated the sequence and sure enough, those first two days went so smoothly! And then on Sunday, he refused to nap. I pulled all the tricks out--putting him in the swing, walking around the house with him, bouncing on the exercise ball, doing wooshies, etc. and nothing worked. He refused to nap. He still went to sleep at a relatively normal time though and slept decently well overnight. And then on Monday, he again refused to sleep, so during his hour of "sleep" time, he just spent that time swinging back and forth in the swing. The I'm-not-going-to-take-a-nap attitude caught up with him Monday evening. He had a serious serious meltdown. He screamed and cried while Joe tried many many tricks to try to soothe him (I was at the gym during most of this meltdown). Ryan did enjoy having some naked time (as I imagine many boys do), but got really upset after awhile. Eventually after I got home and after many many more attempts, he finally fell asleep, but it took a LOT of effort (and time!) to get him to doze off! So, all in all, I'm not sure if this sleep-eat-play schedule is really working out. I've read online that you shouldn't always nurse a baby to sleep because then they become reliant on nursing in order to fall asleep--and this definitely makes a lot of sense--but that's (of course) the easiest way to get Ryan to sleep. So, we'll keep trying our routine to see how it works. We can't give up after only a few bad days. Things seemed to be somewhat back on schedule (and I say that loosely) on Tuesday. Wednesday he had another meltdown, but not as badly as Monday. And then Wednesday night, he slept "backwards"--he had a 3 hr chunk followed by a 4 hr chunk--very rare for him! Either way, we're still trying out this whole concept of a "routine". Today we're trying napping in the cosleeper. It's all trial and error at this point.
Schedules are so hard.... good luck :) He will get the hang of it!
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