Monday

To play or not to play

E woke early and grumpy, if you can call it waking at all after such a fitful night of crying.  He settled after his 9am feed for his long sleep.  We were going out for lunch so while E slept M mounted military like manoeuvres to get everything ready and the car packed so that we could move the sleeping man into the car and get to Narrabeen without E noticing.  It didn't work.  As soon as we tried to put him in the car seat he woke up screaming.

E was like a gold star at the H’s house.  He slept quietly while everyone fussed around him.  He stayed in his car seat and was sleepily oblivious to his surroundings.  During lunch, given it was his “allocated feeding time”, he woke up and lay in my arms while I finished.  He slept lazily like this for about half an hour and I am sure that anyone who heard me say that he can be a monster at night or during feeds must have thought I was a liar.  After lunch I fed him and he ate well. He did the compulsory scream during nappy change but then had a big sleep in M’s arms and all in all was the best behaved baby at party.  I am seriously considering moving to Narrabeen.

The other babies spent a lot more awake time than E so on the way home M and I decided that E needs more time to play. No, we are not competitive and we are not neurotic and neither are we sheep.  I think. I know that this is completely counter to what Dr Con says but now we are worried that the child is not being stimulated enough – oh the joy that is the roller coaster ride of parenthood.  We just think that his life is so much eat, sleep, eat, sleep that maybe sometimes he cries because he is bored.  It is not that he does not spend any other time awake it just seems like we are constantly trying to get him to go to sleep rather than just actively playing with him after a feed.  That will be corrected tomorrow! We have decided that while he can play during the day night time is strictly reserved for eating and SLEEPING.

We drove home in the pouring rain and when we got home fed E and put him to bed  with much fuss.  After dinner I decided to go to sleep because I was exhausted and this is E’s best sleep time.  When he woke me at 10pm we had a terrible feed.  It seems that every feed time is a bit of a mission.  He gets really angry and he seems to go red in the face and really screams, the next thing he farts or burps and I am sure that he is in pain when passing wind.  I wish that there was something that I could do for him.  I am sure that Dr C would put it down to “over-stimulation” but I can tell by his down turned, pouting lip, by his scream and his general demeanour that he is not just putting it on – he seriously gets sore.  It does not last long though and mostly he settles down well after his feed. I must admit though that some of these feeds are really quite trying and frustrating.

Just to make me feel really bad at myself for complaining about his behaviour E was like a gem.  He ate 3 hourly almost to the minute and at 4am he was the cutest, gurgly baby that I have ever seen, he was most definitely in a good mood.  He did not even fuss when I changed his nappy!!! I love him to bits and pieces.

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