Yes, despite all reports to the contrary, I am still alive.
I've just been... occupied. Occupied with recovery, and occupied with precious baby boy.
Turns out in many ways mini-Chris is, well, mini-Chris. Almost a carbon copy from head to toe, and in many ways in personality as well.
Baby boy is very, very precocious. We knew he'd be more physically mature than normal (early ultrasounds showed more bone development earlier than normal, and he was VERY physically active in the womb) and we knew he'd have a higher metabolism than normal due to how much I had to eat just to stop losing weight.
We didn't expect him to come out with far more head control than normal. We didn't expect him to almost be able to support his weight on his legs already. We didn't expect him to almost be able to roll over from birth. He's very physically precocious.
He's also mentally precocious; when he's awake he's fully awake and alert and he spends all of his time focused on what's going on around him. And make no mistake, he is focused and taking it all in. He's also extremely calm while he's doing it.
He's an extremely calm baby overall. He only cries when there's a reason; he's either hungry or there's some other easy-to-determine discomfort.
He also fusses and cries when he's not being suitably engaged. He wants to look around, he wants to move around, he wants to examine everything in and out of his field of view.
Therein lies the problem. He knows for a fact there's a lot of stuff in the world that he can't see or interact with, and he can't keep his head upright and still, sit, stand, crawl, or walk yet. He needs someone to hold him upright while he looks at the world and make sure he doesn't hurt his neck. If he's awake and not being fed, he wants to be upright, moving, and taking in the world. He can stand the bouncy seat for about 20 minutes, the swing for a little longer, but they don't move and he wants to be moving.
This would be mostly fine and manageable, if it weren't for another trait he inherited from his father: baby boy doesn't seem to believe in sleep.
Most 1-month-olds sleep for 15-16 hours a day. He sleeps for 11. Blessedly 8 of those hours are in 2 4-hour intervals at night. However, the other 3 hours consist of very short daytime naps.
It's not that he doesn't need the sleep. He's overtired and cranky by the end of the day. The problem is that he's intentionally keeping himself awake. If he's being held or cuddled he'll stay asleep longer but if we keep that up too long that causes its own issues.
So we're working on sleep training, and getting him into a sleep and nap schedule of sorts. Right now he's fussing and letting me know I had no right to put him down for a nap instead of either cuddling him or keeping him occupied. He's a bit opinionated and stubborn.
Just like someone else we know.
And we shall call him mini-Chris...
Mel
