Time’s just flying by, days are busy and Conrad seems to be growing taller and become more of a little boy than a baby every day. He plays quite happily sitting by himself on the floor now, though I put two flat cushions behind him just in case he topples: although we’ve got carpet with a fairly soft wooden floor underneath in our living room, the bump when he falls on his back still makes him cry unless there’s some extra cushioning. When he lands on the cushions it’s quite funny to watch, actually – he falls very slowly and then looks a bit puzzled, and slightly awkward like a cute little turtle on its back. (I tend to sit him up again as soon as I can – he’s not keen on lying down nowadays.)
He seems the happiest when Jessica’s around though: he watches her constantly and often giggles at most things she’s up to. And she in turn giggles when he giggles. Earlier in the week, Jessica was bouncing on her trampoline and I was sitting by it holding Conrad and let him bounce up and down on my lap whilst watching her. The two kids were laughing so much it was fantastic, and in the end Jessica got so excited she had to stop bouncing to shriek happily and pat Conrad on his cheek and head. It’s so lovely to see the little signs of affection between them. Sometimes Conrad looks at Jessica with what looks like such intense admiration that it almost breaks my heart; it’s so lovely to see her appreciate him in return.
Conrad’s weaning hasn’t taken any significant leaps since last, really, apart from me trying to make his food a little lumpier and a bit thicker. I have been mashing cooked apple and banana, for example, with a fork for a while now, rather than running them through the blender. I still try to cook as much as possible and am proud to say I’ve only resorted to giving him a jar once in the last couple of weeks (when I’d mixed some quinoa into the food I’d just cooked for him and then realised that it was probably a bit too old – better safe than sorry). I’m keen to move on to beans and other pulses than red lentils and peas to vary his diet more, but have to remind myself to not rush things – beans aren’t recommended until 8 months of age and Conrad’s only 7 months old yet (today in fact!). During the last few days I have given Conrad a couple of rice cakes and a piece of cracker bread (knäckebröd) to chomp on, just to give him a bit of experience of finger foods, but not knowing when he’ll get his first teeth (theres a sharpish lump in his gums at the back on the right hand side of his bottom jaw, but that could mean nothing, especially since first teeth tend to appear at the very front) I won’t worry about carrot sticks or anything harder just yet.
Conrad has eaten everything I’ve offered him so far – apart from a kiwi fruit, which probably was a bit too tart and made him cry. He doesn’t quite get on with his hard plastic bibs, so has grumbled at that and I’ve reverted back to soft plastic bibs for now, and at times when he has been a bit too tired and hungry he’s been a bit cranky, but on the whole feeding seems to be going well. The only thing is the night feeds… He still has one or two bottles of milk at night, because I can’t find any other way of resettling him when he wakes up and cries. He does resettle himself every so often and I usually leave him to it a bit to see if he will. But when he gets more upset and it’s time to pick him up, cuddling, rocking or singing won’t help. Putting him back down in his cot just makes him cry worse. So I’m carrying on feeding him at that point, hoping that he’ll learn to resettle without milk – somehow – eventually.
Another issue with the night feeds is that, in effect, Conrad is having too much milk at the moment. He’s meant to have 600 ml of milk/dairy in every 24 hours (so any cheese, cream or milk that I put in his food counts too). I put no more than 200ml in each bottle, of which he’s meant to have three each day: mid-morning, mid-afternoon and before bed. And more often than not Conrad sleeps through his mid-morning bottle to wake up sometime around 12 or 1 o’clock, so I feed him lunch straight away. But with the night feeds he still often has 800ml of formula per 24 hours. As long as the night feeds still happen, all I can think to do is to maybe water his formula down a little bit and maybe also give him some fruit in-between meals so that he fills up on that instead of quite as much milk during the day.
Regarding sleeping, Conrad still more often that not sleeps for 3-4 hours during the morning, and sometimes has a half hour in the afternoon too. It can work out so that in effect Jessica has me all to herself during the morning, and then when she settles for a nap around 1.30-2pm, Conrad has me to himself for the 2-3 hours that his sister sleeps. It’s so good to be able to spend a bit of quality time each with the kids, to give them my full attention for a little while.
Gabriella