Surviving Jacob

Jacob is a.dor.a.ble. Seriously. This kid has the cutest smile and can charm even the most grumpy of people. His brother adore him. Like really adore him. They run in every morning to see him, fight over who gets to sit by him at breakfast, and run to give him hugs and kisses after school. They give him his pacifier when he's fussing and play with him when he's in his bouncer chair. And Rix and Jake are best buds - no one can get Jake laughing like Rix can!

But things have not been easy with this kid. I feel like he's my first child! Did I forget everything I learned raising three other kids? To start things out, he is a picky eater. And when I say that, I mean I have a list of things I can't or shouldn't eat while nursing him. If I eat dairy he cries and cries for hours. Remember my tale from Friday Harbor? I had a blond moment and ate a garlic butter sauce on pasta (forgetting that butter is dairy) and Jake was up literally - literally - all night long, fussing and crying and squirming. It was horrible. So good-bye milk, hot chocolate, cream cheese, cheesecake, cheese, and sour cream. I've learned to like soy milk and I actually prefer my pizza cheese-less now, but when I'm done nursing I'm getting the biggest plate of cheesy nachos and a large slab of cheesecake!! I also can't have garlic, caffeine (so do-able, really, I know most of you don't believe it, but it hasn't been hard) and chocolate (that one is killing me). If I abstain from most of these things, he does pretty good.

He also is the worst sleeper. The worst. My other kids were sleeping soundly through the night by two or three months. Or getting up around 4am or so, and then sleeping until a glorious 8am. Jake? Not so much. He had a few weeks where he would sleep three or four hours and then want to eat. With Jake being my first nursed baby I thought this was normal, even at four months old I thought it was normal for breastfed babies to get up every three hours to eat. Then my friend Tessa, who had Jake's future wife like a month after Jake was born, said her daughter was sleeping from like 7pm to 6am without getting up to eat. Uh...really? I totally got screwed in the "my baby sleeps" department.

Around three months Jake would start waking up like every hour. I would feed him, rock him, bounce him, and swaddle him, and he'd finally sleep for an hour or two, and then wake up screaming again. I would nudge (or kick) Bryan who would then bounce, rock, and sing to Jacob to calm him down. He did this for over a month. We felt so bad for Jacob because we knew something was wrong, but we didn't know how to fix it. Bryan and I would dread night time because we never knew what it held in store for us. We got Jake on baby Zantac because he had reflux, and that helped a lot with the screaming fits he would have at night, but he still didn't sleep well.

Finally, about a week ago we put him in the playroom and had the other three boys sleep in the same room (which is so not working out for them, but that's another blog post). He sleeps in this bassinet that is for babies with reflux (click here for picture) and it's been nice because it keeps him elevated. Now I only hear him when he is seriously mad and crying. I think before, being in my room, he would fuss a little and cry, but could have put himself back to sleep, but I didn't know that so I would pick him up and maybe that made him mad because he was still so tired. Being in his own room he was waking up just once at night to eat, and last night (insert angels singing here) he slept all night long. He didn't wake up until 7:30am. It was awesome! I hadn't had a good night's sleep in 5 months!!

He is getting better at taking naps too. He usually sleeps for an hour or so, but little by little his naps are getting longer too. When he was in our room we would have him sleep in the swing because he slept twice as long if he was swinging, and we quickly burned out the motor! But I still have him sleep in the swing (even though it's not swinging) because it keeps him elevated and he can snuggle his face into his blankie. He is getting so big too! He is starting to love his jumper and exersaucer and he has opinions too - he lets us know when he is mad or tired or irritated or happy. We are loving this little guy to pieces and wish everyone lived closer so you could watch him grow!