Back to reading Dr. Sears

This little face has me constantly torn between feeling so blessed to have my magical little rainbow, and so stressed because he's SO different from what I was used to with Katie. Katie was such an easy baby. I've been saying Will is high needs for months now, and it's only continuing to grow.

Will is the absolute happiest baby you'll ever meet. He's the definition of sunshine and rainbows. 

 That is, as long as he's being held and if you don't deny him being outside, or ever make him go to sleep. No, not just like a normal baby. He can not sit down in anything, be it a swing, exersaucer, or highchair for more than two minutes without instantly screaming so hard he breaks out in a rash within seconds. He hates naps. He can't sit still ever - he needs to be held and moving at the same time at all times. He will not be distracted or self soothed. He will not stay asleep during nap times for more than 20 minutes without waking, and he fights sleep with everything he has. I honestly thought his "high needs" was just in my head. Maybe it was just because he's a baby combined with me taking care of a toddler, but Katie didn't do ANY of these things. She was so easy. 

Someone posted an article by Dr. Sears today. He was describing his high-needs child Hayden, who I remember reading about years ago. It was eye opening. While I have called Will high needs, I sort of assumed that he was just high needs in my mind. Turns out, he fit EVERY SINGLE thing Dr. Sears says. (Which is a baby being hyperactive and needing to be in motion at all times, fiercely resisting naps, being very intense, draining parents from needing SO much attention,  feeds frequently (Hah! Will has fed at least once an hour since he was born!) being very demanding and loudly doing so, awakens frequently, quickly frustrated, super sensitive (he actually states that babies can't handle things like blenders - just yesterday we discovered that Will was so upset with the blender noise when I made applesauce that he spent the rest of the day growling and screaming if we even got close the the blender! He's also terrified of the vacuum, something he normally loves, if I'm not holding him while it's on) can't put baby down, and separation sensitive, which Will super duper has. 

So, it looks like I'll be digging out my Dr. Sears books to find his "Fussy Baby" book (I'm hoping that's one that I have!) to figure out the best way to handle Will. I'm hoping there are ways to calm him down easier in there and make things smoother, and for me to understand him better. Katie was such an easy going baby, she'd go to anyone, sleep like an angel, be fine sitting by herself to play, etc. This is all so new to me!

I may be on my second time around, but reading Dr. Sears is still a need for me, apparently!

My Sweet Seven Month-er

Will is just over a week away from turning 8 months already! 

In the last few weeks, he's been doing lots of crazy things. He picks up on everything we do and mirrors it. These last few days I've had a cold. Every time I went to blow my nose, he would put him hand up to his mouth and nose and then make a blowing noise to mimic me. I couldn't figure out what he was doing for a while until I realized he always did it whenever I was blowing my nose. He cracks himself up with it too!

He is obsessed with belly farts. Or, as he now does them, anywhere on my skin farts. When he's on my hip, he'll attack my shoulder in slobber as he blows to make the little fart noise. If he's sitting in my lap, he'll lean over to do it on my thigh. Pretty much anywhere he can reach, he quick does it. Whenever he's successful at it, he lets out a little giggle. He's such a little boy! lol. 

He's starting to fully crawl now, instead of his army crawl that is super fast. He's been getting on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. I have him do it on the sofa as he usually tries to make a move and falls on his face, but he's getting there!

His top teeth are poking through now. He has four big teeth before Katie even had one, I believe. He's a little teething monster. Thankfully he's learned to not bite while nursing.  I was so worried with him being so young (his first two popped out at 5 months) that he wouldn't understand to not bite, but he actually did figure it out just by me yelping and taking it away quickly. He didn't like me in pain (which is totally opposite of how Katie was, she'd giggle when I yelped!) so he stopped quickly. 

Speaking of nursing, it's so different this time. Which means I'm having different problems. Not that I can complain much. With Katie, I got stuck in a thrush cycle with her for months. I had bleeding, cracked, sore nipples that made me actually cry when she'd latch on. I had problems with clogged ducts about once a month. It was rough for months. With Will, I never had any problems nursing. No thrush, no bleeding or cracked nipples, no latch issues, no clogged ducts at all. My problem with Will is that he prefers one side. He'll nurse out of both, but greatly prefers my left. If I want to get him to sleep, it has to be on the left. If I want him to nurse to calm down, it has to be on the left. This has created a big size difference in my boobs! My left is at least a DD, my right is more like a C. I'm working to make him take the right side more and whenever I need breastmilk for his food, I use the right. It's not enough to fix it though. I'm probably going to have to start pumping during the little time he gives me during his nap if I want to make that side more even. I need to do something though, it looks crazy weird and it's all I see now!

Will is also now only wanting to sleep on his belly. Which I know is totally normal (though I'm not used to it - Katie still won't sleep on her belly!) but I dislike it, especially in bed. He nurses less at night now, and I'm introducing more solids into his diet, so I'm considering trying to move him into his crib. He loves to cuddle though, so I'm not sure if he'll go for it, but he's slowly been becoming more independent. There are definitely times of the night when he just rolls away from me and sleeps on his own anyway. He knows the difference between our mattress and the crib mattress though. If I can manage it, I'm definitely going to try to make it a thing. Especially because I'd love to move him out in the nursery with Katie once he turns a year old. I'm going to set up a toddler bed for him (a race car bed!) and put it next to Katie's.

Here's Mr. Adorable:

He says mama!

Will is 7 months old now and he's exploding with new things he can do. He now sits and chats with me, mostly with conversations that consists of "mama" and "hi". He recognizes words. If I ask him to nurse, he knows what to do. If I ask him where Katie is, he finds her. If I ask "where's mommy?" he'll find me. He's now able to associate words I say with who or what they belong with.

He's still not doing 'real' crawling, but this kid moves so fast. If I put him down at one end of the sofa, he can do a crazy amount of movement that gets him to the other end in about 20 seconds. He also loves to stand. He won't take a step yet, but he enjoys being tall!

I really enjoy watching his personality grow. I love coddling a tiny baby, but there's something magical when a baby starts to really know who you are, who they are, and starts to put it all together. It's one thing for a tiny baby to want mommy to nurse, it's another for an older baby to seek out your face and just light up in joy just to see you're there.

With that said, Will is miserable right now and ONLY wants his mommy at every moment - including those times when he's finally willing to nap or sleep. His two big top teeth are coming through now, and they're causing him a lot of grief. He's always gnawing angrily, or sometimes he quick sticks his hand in his mouth and screams. I can't wait for those teeth to be out! Of course, that means it'll be pain for me as he bites me (every time a new tooth comes in, he has to get a 'feel' for it and bites down while nursing) but that's better than hearing him cry in pain with his big crocodile tears.

Roughly, about 90% of the women on my facebook are now currently pregnant. I expected it would happen, as every year I'm not pregnant, everyone I know is. I seem to ALWAYS miss that tiny window where everyone is getting pregnant. I get pregnant when everyone I know has newborns! lol. But of course, all the pregnancy posts makes me think about what our future plans are. After all, we started TTC when Katie was only 7 months old, which Will is now.

However, I have no plans to be TTC any time soon, even though baby fever already flares now and then. I really enjoy just focusing on Katie and Will for a while longer. I'm hoping to keep my cycles away until at least next January, and would like to NTNP, or maybe TTC, starting around May. That would skip all the winter baby months and start me out in early spring due dates. Will would be around 17 months by then, which is just short of what Katie was when we got pregnant with Will. Hopefully by then we can have a better grip on our finances too so that it'll be easier to afford another one. Especially because I keep thinking that Katie is my Disney Princess, but Mattie will be my Juicy Couture Baby. I feel like throughout my pregnancy, I'm going to have to tuck some money away in case it's a girl so I could buy a few little Juicy things for her. It actually makes me hope a bit that the next one would be a boy, because my boy plans are much cheaper! lol

But anyway, I'm really enjoying the feeling of not being pregnant at the moment. If I could have another baby without the pregnancy, then I could probably manage handling that. But the pregnancy? I'm willing to hold off a while to not go through that again right now! Thinking of my pregnancies is the perfect damper to a baby fever. It puts that fire right out!

Here's Will at 7 months: