Owen is still following the same sleep pattern that he established a few weeks ago. He is starting to smile for longer stretches, and he just lights up when he catches sight of me or his Dad (especially me). He'll go on smiling for a couple of minutes if I get in close to his face and talk to him. It is super cute. Tummy time has started to produce smiles too, as he looks at himself in the mirror and lifts his head to gaze around the room. Noah even got a few smiles and laughs in the bathtub last night.
He's also starting to grab onto things--especially the edge of his toy mirror and his nunu. There have been a few times when he grabbed his plastic keyring and shook it around. Anything that approaches his mouth is greeted with an inquisitive lick and sometimes a much more thorough gumming. Squirming is becoming a full on sport and he can hold his head steady and turn back and forth when he's propped upright. He can stay propped up in a sitting position on the couch or on my lap.
The big breakthroughs this week have been the leaving-behind of two of the 5 "S's". Dr. Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby On the Block technique for soothing fussy babies involves swaddling, swinging/shaking (gently), shushing, sucking, and side-lying. Owen has required 4 of the 5 to get to sleep (side-lying never did him much good) since we learned about the 5 S's when he was 5 weeks old. In the last two weeks, he gradually stopped needing to be shimmied and rocked to sleep. Then this week, he quite suddenly stopped napping in the swing. He just wold not go to sleep while swinging one day, and ever since then he's been napping on his bed.
This past week saw the end of swaddling as well. Although he still occasionally startles himself out of a light sleep by jerking his arms, he is very very resistant to being swaddled now, and can fall asleep easily without the wrap. I just sit nearby and hold his hands gently down until he has passed into a light sleep, and he's fine for the rest of the night.
However, he still absolutely needs his pacifier and the loud white noise to calm down when he is overtired at the end of the day. The white noise has advantages besides calming him down. It prevents him from hearing outside noises that might wake him up. And, they say going to sleep with a pacifier is actually good for preventing SIDS. We won't push for the abandonment of the last two S's any time soon.
This week has been a very busy one for all of us. Fitting our work schedules in with our baby's schedule has been getting the best of us. Noah is at work 5 days per week, and although this is mostly a good thing, he misses Owen terribly. I am doing my best to squeeze in 10-12 hours of work each week as well. Our friend Chris has become our occasional nanny for days that I need to be on campus for meetings, and Noah is at home with Owen all day on Sundays while I try to do a full week's worth of work. This is a full schedule already, but with exponentially increased administrative duties (read: how many f*%!ing times am I going to have to call the insurance company about this?!?!), increased chores around the house, and the usual social calendar of people wanting to see/meet Owen and we're spreading ourselves pretty thin indeed. We're doing our best to adapt.
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