Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

What a couple of weeks we have had! Reese is doing a few new things and we've been through a few new things. He has finally become fully aware of his feet! It hilarious to watch him just lay there and hold onto them for dear life for at least half an hour. He tries soooo hard to put them in his mouth and he has come very close a few times. He has this funny grunting noise he makes when he's trying to get something in his mouth and can't quite get it...it's pretty amusing. He also is blowing raspberries all the time now. Especially when he's really concentrating on something he'll take in a huge breath and let out the longest raspberry. He's putting EVERYTHING in his mouth, except his chilled teethers. He always scrunches up his noses and smacks his mouth when I try to put one of those in there, making a completely disgusted face. Speaking of teethers, I do think he is starting to teeth. He chews on whatever he can and constantly has his hands in his mouth. We went from wearing a bib all the time because of spit up, to having a bib on all the time because he slobbers everywhere. His hair is starting to fill out and I can really feel it when I kiss the top of his head. It's so light, though, it's hard to see it.

Sleeping has become a bit of an issue. However, a very large part of that has been due to his forumla. He is on probably 90% formula and 10% breast milk for the past week or so and about 75% formula 25% breast milk for about a week before that. My milk has just plummeted over the past several days to the point where I'm only pumping once a day and it is so slow, he won't even nurse. He's been exclusively on a bottle for about 4 days now. And while that does make me a little sad, we still get our bonding time. We were on Similac Advanced for two weeks (per the doctor's suggestion...give it two weeks) and he was just having such bad tummy issues, mostly with gas. I could just tell his tummy was hurting! So, after two weeks, we switched his formula to Similac Sensitive, which is lactose free. What a difference it has made! His little tummy is so much better and he is much more regular than he was with the other formula. He's not waking up crying out in pain multiple times a night. He's still waking up, but for a different reason. We have fallen into the common new parent trap of rocking the baby completely to sleep. As a result, I believe he has gotten dependent on us to be able to fall back asleep. So, when he wakes up in the middle of the night (and at naptime and at bedtime) he has to be rocked back to sleep. We are going to work on fixing that, ASAP.

Another thing that has contributed to his poor sleep and clingyness for the past day or two is that we think he has gotten his first cold. He is very congested and coughing more than usual. He doesn't have a fever, but he is very snotty and just kinda acts like he doesn't feel good. So, as soon as he's back to his normal self, we are going to start really sleep training him. It's not going to be pretty, but it will be necessary. Oh, and he's worked out of his Miracle Blanket a few times over the past few nights, too. So, I guess we're going to have to start weaning him off the swaddle, which really makes me nervous. We'll see!! Here are some really cute pictures from recently!



Trying to hold his bottle like a big boy!

Still liking his swing.

Mmmm...my bib tastes yummy!

Hee hee, Mommy...I can get out of it!

Yay...my feet!

Practicing sitting up.

Bubbles on my head, hand in my mouth!