Hungry Bear

Trying a post with the blogger app. It doesn't work great with photos since it lumps all the photos at the end but it's decent for posting text.

I'm super behind on posts now because I've been busy packing up our place in preparation for our move. Yes for something 2+ years in the making, I guess this is considered last minute packing. :) Ah well, nothing like a deadline to motivate me doing one of the things I hate most.

We've been giving Nathan a bottle before he goes to sleep every night so that he doesn't forget how to take the bottle. On good days, the bottle gets taken without much protest. On bad days, there is crying, and the feeding takes a long time. He's been so-do these days. So after dinner tonight, we drove home first so that Steve can feed the bottle while I go grocery shopping. I figured Nathan would take a while to finish his 4oz bottle so I have time to quickly shop and then feed him more if he is still hungry after the bottle.

Yes, he is a hungry bear at night. Usually finishing a bottle and then still nursing off me some more afterwards. Sometimes I am afraid his stomach will burst.

Anyway, while I was shopping, I get my Baby Connect alert.

I guess someone was super hungry! Needless to say, I didn't make it home to feed him.

I'm glad you are taking the bottle better Nathan! Please keep up the good work. :)

Oh, speaking of bottles, he started trying to hold the bottle himself last Wednesday. A skill not yet mastered, but he gets an A for effort. :) Daddy Steve was saying if only he could also learn to change his own diapers. Such high expectations! :P

Nathan's first fine dining experience

Yesterday, we went out with Nathan for Winterlicious. We actually haven't done Winterlicious in years since the restaurants are usually too crowded but since we were meeting up with Steve's classmates who we haven't seen in ages, Winterlicious it was. We actually booked pretty late as a group but Tundra was able to accomodate our big group of 7 and a stroller!

The restaurant itself was not croweded at all, probably because their regular menu and their Winterlicious menu are similar. This is the first time I actually went out for "fine dining" and didn't take any pictures of the food. Other than my entree of shrimp salad, I didn't like the rest of my food that much. The dessert in particular, was not tasty at all to put it in a nice way. Steve's food was much better so I guess I just picked the wrong options. I was mainly there for the company, so mediocre food aside, it was a great dinner.

We got to the restaurant early (yes early!) and I fed Nathan before our friends arrived. Nathan was all dressed up for the occassion and was actually really good throughout the night. We had to take him out of the car seat and take turns holding him during the entree and desserts but he was happy and did not disturb the other diners at all. He got tired around 8:30pm when his usual bedtime rolled around and I was able to put him to sleep in the car seat while Steve caught up with his classmates. He slept for the duration of our after dinner chat and woke up just as we were leaving. All in all, a great first fine dining experience I must say.

Steve was even suggesting that we try to venture out and do this again. I don't know about that. We might be pushing our luck to do this again but the reality is probably not many nice restaurants can accomodate a baby. I think it will be harder when Nathan is older too. I'm sure the other diners must have wondered why we even brought Nathan. :P I was actually quite relieved that what they might have dreaded when they saw a baby didn't happen. No crying at all. Thank you for being so good Nathan!

All dressed up!

N: Wait, everyone in this picture is a doctor. Does that mean I have to be a doctor now? So much pressure!

Kinda, sorta, worry

Nathan slept 10 hours last night! Well, he did cry for 5 minutes at 12:30pm or so just like the night before but went back to sleep. That's two long stretches of sleep in a row, and not because he just had needles (those will come tomorrow). Not that this is a cause for celebration, since I know that unless something happens for at least a week, it's not really a habit. In any case, I quite enjoyed my longer sleeps and not feeling so zombie like when I wake up in the mornings.

You know what they say about new parents, they always worry. And in some ways, I do find that to be true. It's not necessarily a can't-fall-asleep-worry, as much as it's a I-wonder-if-this-is-normal-worry. Like yesterday, when I saw his sleep count, I had that I-wonder-if-this-is-normal-worry. I know one should never complain that their baby sleeps too much, but when you see 20 hours...good thing it's only 16.5. :)

Nathan seems to have also gotten his Daddy's cough. It started with a few coughs a few days ago, and now it's more frequent. :( There's probably nothing that I need to give him or else Steve would have said something already but you know, it's still something you think about. Luckily, there's a doctor's appointment tomorrow so he can get checked out. I know, technically there's one at home too but haha, some independent investigation doesn't hurt.

But it is true that he's eating, he's sleeping, he's pooping, so everything is okay. :) Yay, he's up from his nap, let me see if he'll be more playful today.

Sleepy bear

UPDATE: So it turns out that we double counted one of his sleeps since Steve and I both stopped the sleep timer separately. So his actual sleep count yesterday was 16h38m. Whew!

Take a look at the total sleep count for today. 20h20m and counting...REALLY!?!?

Nathan looked sleepy yesterday all day too. I figured it's because he's trying to catch up sleep from our roadtrip. He usually sleeps around 15 hours, and was hovering between 13/14 on the trip. His sleep count yesterday was 15h52m, so I figured he should be less sleepy today. Nope. Still sleepy, if not more. At least he's still eating. That's the only thing he's been doing really, sleep & eat. We tried to play with him but he gets tired quickly. I'm hoping this is his way of gaining some chubbs in preparation for his 4 month weigh in but I highly doubt it.

I have this theory that Nathan is thoughtful only to his Daddy. There's been 2 or 3 times where Steve agrees to give him the bottle so I can sleep earlier or not have to wake up at night and ALL of these times, he has long sleeps. Now, considering that he usually wakes up every 2-3 hours, if not 4, how is it possible that he just "happens" to sleep longer when Daddy is going to feed? Last night, Steve was going to feed him since I was tired from the night before. Nathan slept at 8pm until 12:40am. While the bottle was being prepared (I woke up from him waking up), he went back to sleep....for another 4.5 hours! I guess he's being good and knows that Daddy has to work so decides to not wake Daddy up. I say, Daddy should give a bottle every night. ;)

Still need to back post a few entries missing photos, but will do that later. Going to get ready for bed while he's still sleeping.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Our first road trip!

Nathan went out of the country for the first time yesterday, to the not so far city of Buffalo. :) Steve had this week off and we decided to see what it would be like to travel with Nathan by taking a short road trip with him. We will be spending 3 nights here and another night at the grandparents' on the way home. Long enough to mimic what a longer vacation would be like. Short enough for a good experiment. But most importantly, close enough to home so that if anything were to happen, we could always just change our plans and go home.

The Car Ride
This actually was pretty easy since we stopped off to lunch with Grandma on the way to Buffalo. Nathan napped in the car on the way. Mommy, Daddy and baby were fed before we completed the rest of our journey. Considering that the trip from the grandparents' to the hotel was only one hour, we did not drive far at all. We synced up our car journey to when Nathan's naps were so that made things much easier too and he pretty much slept the entire time we were driving. We will try to do this again on our way back.

Sleep
We try to make sure he still gets enough sleep and gets his naps but of course, we threw off his schedule a bit with us going out. Yesterday, we decided to not go out for dinner and just order in pizza (not that that is a compromise by any means since Steve was looking forward to eating Papa John's pizza). We already went out and about to do some shopping after we got here so he was already sleeping later than usual. Going out for dinner was just asking for trouble. We purposely chose a one bedroom suite hotel for our stay complete with a full kitchen. The two areas are separated by a door so we were able to put him in his pack & play to sleep in the bedroom while we ate dinner and watched TV in the sitting area. When he woke up for his feed, we pushed the pack & play back out to the main area so we could prepare for bed without disturbing him. This has worked really well so far. Overall his first night sleeping was okay, waking up every 3 hours to feed just like at home. He cried a bit to go back to sleep each time but at least he was okay falling asleep by himself.

Now that we are traveling with a little one, we also made adjustments to our schedule during the day so as not to disturb his sleep too much. Like right now, he's napping and we're just chilling in the hotel until he wakes up. We plan on going out for the rest of the day until after dinner, so we might as well let him get his total sleep count somewhat decent first. :)

Gear
It's a good thing we have an SUV, because we had so much of Nathan's gear to bring along. I already tried to pack light, but light only meant everything fit and we had a little room to buy stuff. We found out the morning we left that the hotel we were staying at also offers pack & plays for guests, but we already brought our own, which I think I still prefer since they said that they weren't a guarantee. The stroller and the pack & play already take up a good chunk of cargo space. We also brought along Nathan's portable rocking chair so he'd have somewhere to sit instead of just lying in the playpen all day or need to be held by us. Nathan had his own little bag of clothes, a big bag with a pack of his diapers, toys, blanket, playpen sheets, wipes, and a few extra things like paper towels, tissues, garbage bags for the stay and car ride. All this stuff, and we haven't even gotten to our own stuff. When we pushed our luggage into the hotel on those luggage carts, it seemed like we were moving in! But in reality, it really wasn't that much once you take it off the cart and use the stuff.

I brought one long sleeve onesie, one short sleeve onesie, and one sleeper for each day we were gone, with the usual backups in the diaper bag. He also had 2 pairs of pants, a thicker sweater, a thin sweater, and a snowsuit. I thought it might have been a bit of an overkill but I didn't really want to risk him leaking onto this clothes and us not having clothes for him or needing to do laundry. It was a good thing I brought enough clothes, he's already on his 3rd sleeper of the day!

Nathan's up! Will write more later.

Oh...and happy 4 months Nathan! We will celebrate with a good dinner tonight. ;)

3 Months(ish) Update

Nathan didn't have a 3 month visit to the doctor's so there were no stats to do any updates until now. We weighed him on Christmas at Steve's parents. My little guy is still a lightweight but he continues to grow steadily in length. I realized this week that while I had gone shopping to get him 3-6 months "going out" clothes, I don't really have any 3-6 month sleepers for him to wear at home. He's outgrowing his current sleepers and they just fit. Luckily, there's 20% off sale at Carter's this week so I was able to get some sleepers for him. I find Carter's clothes fit Nathan really well. Long and slim. :)

Height: 60cm (+2cm)
Weight: 11lbs 8oz (+1lb 6oz)
No head circumference data.

He can probably gain more weight but since I can't really force him to eat more than he already does, I guess he'll just continue to be a lightweight for now. My arms are quite happy with that.

We started to keep track of Nathan's schedule a few days after he turned 2 months using this app called Baby Connect. It's a $4.99 app from the App Store, which in the app world in quite expensive, but I've been extremely happy with it. The main reason I chose this one is because it also has a web interface so you don't necessarily need a smart phone to log events. So why bother logging everything you ask?

I bought it originally to log his sleep so I could better understand his schedule and see if he is getting enough sleep. Many books recommend keeping a sleep log to see if the things you're doing for sleep training is working. Pencil and paper logging wasn't really appealing so naturally I searched for an app to do this for me. :) I get a timeline view of Nathan's day so that I can easily see what his natural pattern is. I honestly never thought I'd be one of those moms who log everything, but it does have cool, geeky benefits.

For example, I can get random stats like:

December Totals
460h26m of sleep
202 diapers (136 poopy)
28h38m of total feeds excluding bottles
I also use it to keep track of the weight, height, and head size and it automatically computes the percentile for me and plots it on the curve. :) We also use it to track milestones and vaccines for future reference purposes. The best part though, is that multiple people can do updates. Both Steve and I have the app on our phones and my dad who's been the person who helps me most, also logs the events on the computer. When Steve and I are out on a date, I no longer have to call home to see how Nathan is doing. Yay push notifications. :) It really makes going out much less worrisome. My dad tells me he intends to continue to track Nathan's progress after he returns to Hong Kong. :) They're in Ottawa right now, and I'm sure he logs on everyday to see whether Nathan is sleeping well. :P I get no commisions or perks for singing this app praises, but I do think it's a good app to use if you're looking for something to log events for sleep training, etc.

UPDATE: As Relgar made me realize, I guess it is easier to understand what the app does with some screen shots. :)

Now of course, having the app doesn't make the baby sleep well. Despite my efforts in getting Nathan to sleep better, we have still have good days and quite a few bad days. Some days he doesn't nap well, other nights he still wakes frequently. But at the very least, I know when he's low on his total sleep count from a previous day and I try to get him to sleep more to catch up the next day. Overall though, Nathan is a much more smiley baby this month. He's still super happy in the morning and loves it when you talk to him.

He also started showing that he has preference. We have been feeding him a bottle a day since he was about 3 weeks old in the hopes that he won't reject the bottle when he's older. Despite all that, he started making a fuss whenever we give him the bottle. He definitely prefers me but if he refuses the bottle, he goes hungry until he accepts the bottle. Mommy still wins eventually but ah, the battle of the wills has begun. This month, I had to start paying more attention to the things that I do to make a conscious effort to develop a good routine for him.

Nathan is still not a big fan of toys. If there are people around, he'd much rather stare at faces than play with any of his toys. Most of the time, the toys I've taken out for him just sit on the sidelines. He does however, like this one toy that Auntie Amy bought him. He can grab it easily with his hands and has gotten really good with grabbing onto it for prolonged periods of time. He can bat at all the toys hanging from his play gym now and even use both his hands and legs to try to hit all the hanging objects at once! He also got much better at tummy time and we stopped having to support his neck when we carry him around. We tried sitting him in the bumbo but he's still a bit short for it. He still rolls from tummy to back off and on, but not necessarily every day. He stares at his hands often before he falls asleep and on his bouncy chair, and recently also at his feet.

Staring at his feet. He looks chubby in this picture (Carter's clothes :P).

Hand in mouth default position on the change table.

Lounging on the bumbo.

Happy 100 Days Nathan!

Nathan turned 100 days on Tuesday. We also had our first big snow storm of the season on Tuesday. We didn't do much to celebrate since I wanted Nathan to catch up on his sleep but we did trek out to check out washers and dryers for our new house since the Boxing Day sales were on this week. We ate an early dinner at Congee Queen and came home before it got too crazy out there. We did our night time routine and Nathan was sleeping by 7pm.

To make up for the lack of cake on Tuesday, we had cake the next day. Nathan was actually sleepy by the time Daddy got home so we had to quickly take a picture with him and put him to bed. :P It's a coconut cream cake to commemorate the big snow storm on Nathan's 100 Day Birthday.

I'm so glad you're sleeping better again little guy and back to your happy self! Despite the lack of sleep and a few days with lots of crying, your smile and seeing you grow everyday makes us forget all of that. Thank you for 100 wonderful days sweetie. We love you!