20 weeks!

Happy 20 weeks to our favorite little guy!

Ryan, 20 weeks old!!

This past week has been VERY eventful and we've reached a couple of milestones!  I've been off work this past week (and last week too!  Hooray for trackout and vacation time!) and I'm SO glad that I've been at home to witness and experience these milestones!

Milestone 1--Ryan can now sit up on his own.  Granted, he can't get to this position without assistance, but he can stay in this position for a pretty long time:

These were taken on my phone, so they're kind of blurry.  Ryan is a little unsteady, but he's balancing pretty well overall!  We usually don't let him sit like this after a feeding because he usually ends up spitting up after awhile.  But he's getting close to getting into this position all on his own.  He's always trying to sit up when we hold him like a baby or when we're playing with him on the floor.  He tries so hard!!


Milestone 2--Ryan also got his first taste of rice cereal this past week.  The jury is still out as to whether or not he really likes it.  He eats it, but not without a couple of "ew" faces.  He made such a mess with it though!  The first day, he couldn't figure out what he was supposed to do with it and most of it ended up on his face and on his shirt.  The second day, pretty much the same thing happened.  But on the third day, he began to take it a little better and I think he actually got a couple of spoonfuls down! On the fourth day, we felt we had a process down and he actually began to eat it!  Watch and see!

It was a good feeding--more went into his mouth/belly than ended up on his face and shirt!  Progress!  We have some good pictures of his first few feedings, and I'll upload those soon (hopefully).

Milestone 3--Ryan slept more than 8 hours in a row this past week!  Sleep training has gone pretty well this past week (minus one or two nights).  Ryan has pretty consistently slept from 9pm until 5am without having a middle-of-the-night feeding and with needing only one or two soothings when he wakes up in the middle of the night.  Joe's been very pleased with this as well, because it means uninterrupted sleep for him again!  However, a new problem has emerged.  Once I feed him at around 5am, he will wake up again anywhere between 6:30-7:00 and either 1) want to feed again  or 2) want to be up for the day.  So far, I've mostly been feeding him again--which makes me question whether or not he's getting enough at his 5am feeding--but I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I return to work!  But either way, this is a wonderful wonderful wonderful problem to have, instead of waking up 4, 5, or even 6 times throughout the night to feed Ryan or to soothe him.  We are SO proud of him!! 


We've finally ordered a crib, which should be arriving soon, so our little guy is moving into his first REAL bed!  We've noticed that sometimes when Joe goes in to soothe Ryan, he has completely turned perpendicular in the cosleeper, so his feet are sticking up in the air.  We're excited that we're moving him to a bigger bed!

19 weeks!

Ok, hopefully we're back on track for a little while.

Here's my little guy at 19 weeks:

Ryan, 19 weeks old!

In Ryan news, he loves bouncing and sucking on his lower lip.  No matter how tired he is, he loves to bounce and jump.  He gets the biggest smile on his face and laughs and it's absolutely wonderful! 

Sleep training is going better than we expected.  We're now almost a week into it and he's had a couple of pretty good nights where he's been able to go back to sleep rather easily.  There were two nights where it was pretty difficult to get him to fall back asleep, but we're hoping those were rare.  Overall, he's been able to go about 9pm - 5am without feeding, and has usually woken up twice and needed to be soothed back to sleep both times.  He even went 9pm - 6am one night without feeding.  Either way, Joe and I feel that he's getting better about sleeping.  We went ahead and ordered a crib for him because we've noticed that sometimes when we go in to soothe him (Joe) or feed him (me), he's completely sideways in the cosleeper so his feet are sticking up in the air because he can't stretch out.  Time to move to a bigger bed! 

Ryan is getting VERY close to sitting up on his own!  He needs just a tiny tiny bit of assistance to keep his balance, but otherwise, he's doing a great job.  At Oma's house this week, he sat up without assistance (but kind of sat like a tripod) for about 10 seconds before he leaned all the way forward and faceplanted on the floor.  But this is progress! 

4 month appt & sleep training

Life happened and the blog got pushed to the side....but we're up and running again!

Ryan on 4/14/12

Ryan had his 4 month well visit on Monday, April 9th (I say it all the time--but I really can't believe he's 4 months already!!).  I was excited to know how much he's grown and to talk with the doctor about Ryan's sleep habits and to discuss some general "4 month" stuff. 

Ryan weighs in at 15lbs, 5 oz and 24 inches long (mismeasurement again, I THINK) which put him at about the 50th and 30th percentiles respectively.  I've forgotten his head measurement, but he was at the 80th percentile with head circumference.  Either way, the doctor was pleased with his measurements.  The nurse failed to wait until Ryan was done wiggling around to take his length measurement, so that's why I think the 24 inches is definitely off.  Our very accurate measuring at home puts Ryan at about 25 inches.  Anyway....

Ryan cried for almost the entire appointment, which is very out of character for him.  Ryan's usually a very smiley, very happy baby and only gets fussy when he's hungry or tired (sounds very familiar!).  So, through his wails and tears, I had a conversation with the doctor about Ryan's sleep habits.  The doctor said that Ryan definitely should be giving me chunks of sleep at night upwards of 6-7 hours.  I told the doctor that since his 3 month growth spurt, Ryan majorly regressed and is only giving me 3-4 hours max.  Dr. Wilson said that sleep issues at 4 months are NOT uncommon (I'm glad I'm not alone in this!) and encouraged us to start sleep training him, which at first I was very opposed to.  I am REALLY not a fan of any method of parenting or self-soothing that requires a baby to cry profusely for hours on end.  However, Dr. Wilson said that he tried this particular method of sleep training on his own children and it doesn't involve much crying--it instead is more like periodic help from us to teach Ryan how to soothe on his own.  According to Dr. Wilson, Ryan is waking up at night for hugs and cuddles.  NOTHING wrong with that--but when Ryan is waking up 3, 4, 5, even 6 times at night for hugs and cuddles, it's not very much fun on the receiving end.  So, Dr. Wilson suggested to me that when Ryan wakes up at night to have Joe go in and soothe him for a minute, walk out for 2 minutes, go back in to soothe Ryan for 1-2 minutes if Ryan's still upset, walk out for 3 minutes, go back in to soothe, and so on.  He said that we can play around with the time increments/intervals to best suit us.  Anyway, we tried this on Saturday night....and after Joe trying to soothe Ryan for about 45 minutes (in which Ryan WOULD calm down for a couple of minutes, but then get fussy and cry again), I went ahead and fed Ryan--but it was MUCH later than when he has been waking up lately.  Then, something magical happened on Sunday night.  Ryan was able to go back to sleep rather easily the two times that he woke up between 9pm and 5am.  This was the FIRST time since Ryan's been born that I haven't fed him for 8 straight hours.  I decided to feed him when he woke up a little after 5am because that's when I usually feed him in the mornings.  Ryan did pretty well this past Monday night as well, but not as good as Sunday night.  Keeping my fingers crossed for another good night tonight!!

Dr. Wilson was impressed with Ryan's head control and his general progression in motor skills.  I love that Ryan is so interactive now and it's amazing to know that he's learned all of this in 4 short months--I can't wait to see what he'll be doing in another 4 months!

Ryan has become such a bouncy baby, too!  ALL he wants to do is stand up and bounce bounce bounce on our legs/laps/beds/anything!  He just wants to move all the time!  He's also started sucking his lower lip this past week which is ADORABLE.  He's really trying hard to start crawling--when he's on his tummy, he "swims" his back legs and begins to scoot forward just a little bit.  Not enough to really call it moving by all means, but he's well on his way! 

Sucking on his lower lip!  Adorable!

Hopefully I won't be slack and will get back to regular posting on Thursdays!

4 months!! Happy Easter!

Our baby turned 4 months old today!

Ryan, 4 months old!

 For his four month birthday, we let him play in the exersaucer:

So, as a four month old, Ryan:

• Smiles at people, particularly his parents :)
• Cries when we stop playing with him
• Pushes up on his hands when on his belly
• Stand on his legs (assisted, of course)
• Rolls from back to belly and belly to back
• Giggles
• Reaches for toys, the cats, brings things (everything!) to his mouth
• Tries to sit up on his own!!!

Today was also Easter, and the Easter Bunny was VERY good to Ryan!

Look at all the loot the Easter Bunny left for Ryan!

 Overall, I'd say it was a pretty eventful day for Ryan!  We went over to Oma and Opa's house for a quick dinner and had an Easter egg hunt, too!  Ryan needed a little assistance with finding the eggs though :)  Either way, he was very pleased with his accomplishments! 

Happy four months to my favorite little guy!!

The Glider

We finally decided to get a glider.  We had been debating about getting one for quite some time, and now that Ryan is at the point where he needs to be soothed in the middle of the night instead of always being fed (or so we thought), having a glider sure beats having to sway back and forth with Ryan in the middle of the night.

We had done some searching for a glider, but there are SO many kinds out there.  We knew of the good durable brands versus the cheap brands, but we didn't know if we wanted to invest a lot of money into a glider, regardless of how often we would use it (because we honestly didn't know how much we would use it).

The glider arrived on Friday during the day and required some assembly.  Who knew!  So, here is the photo play-by-play.

Joe, checking out the directions

Still not quite sure what the directions say

Viola!  Our glider

Happy baby and happy daddy!

And now that we have the glider, we probably should have bought one sooner!

17 weeks!

My baby is 17 weeks!  I know I say this a lot, but I honestly can't believe it!!

Ryan, taking a small nap at 17 weeks

Ryan is still really cute, adorable, and smart.  He's coming up on 4 months (again, I can't believe it!)--on Easter, specifically--and it's amazing to think about all that he's accomplished in the past 4 months.  When I think about when he was a newborn, it's almost as if he's a completely different child now and it's so awesome and amazing to know that I've witnessed his transformation.  I love comparing before and after pictures, so here you go!

Ryan, 1 day old

Ryan, 17 weeks old

I can't believe that my little baby has grown so much in such a short period of time!  Sometimes it feels a lot longer than it has been, but when I think back to how much he has learned, how much Joe and I have learned, how much Ryan has accomplished, it's amazing.

I know I've said this time and time again, but I really do think we are going to have an early mover on our hands.  The past couple of days, Ryan has rolled from his back to his belly and gotten up on his knees and elbows a couple of times and held himself up!  When he's laying like a seal (you know what I mean), he'll pump his legs (like a frog) and actually scoot forward a little bit.  It's only a matter of time before we're having to start baby proofing the house!

April Fools!

Happy April Fools Day!  I LOVE springtime (minus the pollen because it makes me feel dirty) because the trees are finally getting their leaves, the days are getting longer (THANK GOD!), weather is warming up, flowers are blooming, and I know that summer is just around the corner! We've had some beautiful weather this past week!  I know Oma has taken full advantage of all of the sunny days and Ryan has gotten in some quality outside time during the week.  I just need to make sure we have the SPF50 on hand as Ryan definitely inherited our fair skin (big shocker!).  Anyway, Sunday was a beautiful day, so Joe, Ryan, and I went for a walk.

Our cool little guy, 4/1/12

As you can see, Ryan is getting into the "big boy" territory, because he's sitting like a big boy in his stroller now.  No more carseat click-in for him!  I'm hoping that he'll enjoy walks even more because he might not get as hot.  The carseat would make him all sweaty!

So, this past week held two very special dates for me and Joe--the day I found out I was pregnant (3/29/11) and the day I told Joe I was pregnant (3/31/11).  It's amazing the difference a year makes.  And it's so cool to think back to that time and when I knew I was pregnant and to know that Ryan was who I was pregnant with (if that makes sense).  It's so amazing and so special and makes me so thankful that I had a very easy pregnancy and that Ryan is a very happy, healthy, wonderful, perfect baby.  All three of us are very lucky to have each other.  AWWWWWWWW! :)