02.16.2011 Evan laughing

02.15.2011 Happy V-Day, Evan sitting tall

We had a quiet Valentines day yesterday.  With Evan, he's our Valentine everyday!  Last night he slept fairly well from about 10:30 to 2:30.  I fed (4.5 oz) and changed him and he was back asleep at about 2:50 am.  But he woke up at about 5:45 am and could not fall back asleep.  He let out some cries and farted a few times, apparently the gas was keeping him up or at least uncomfortable.  I tried to feed him at  6:40 am after changing and soothing him all sorts of ways.  He would only take down about 2.5 oz and very reluctantly as well, but finally went back to sleep at 7am.  He has not slept more than 5 hrs straight for quite a few days... but he was in pretty good spirits last night, unless the previous two weeks where he was crying a lot before sleeping.  We continue to try to understand him, as he tries to understand himself.  The last two days he's had a bit of a stuffy nose.  According to some articles, that might give him a choking sensation and thus very irritated and uncomfortable.  If that's true, then that might explain why he was fussy two nights ago and kept rubbing his nose and keeping his mouth open.  He seemed to be much better yesterday... we had turned on the humidifier and that seemed to help a lot.  Let's see what happens tonight.

Here are some recent photos of Evan:

 

 

02.11.2011 Hail to the prune juice!

So.... Evan isn't completely fuss-free now, but it appears his bowel movement is largely back to a regular schedule (once/day).  After pooing yesterday morning, he pooed again later in the afternoon - also very watery.  In the evening, we gave him a little bit of oatmeal cereal to restart him on his solid foods quest!

Last night we put him to bed at about 10pm, after a feeding.  He woke up at 2am with moderate cries.  It was more a 'I'm annoyed' cry rather than "I'm in a lot of pain, help me daddy!" cry, so I sang (mostly gibberish) to him for 30 minutes till he fell asleep again. He woke up again around 3:50 am, and this time, I fed him and he quickly went back to sleep.  He next wakeup was at 7:15 am or so.  I suspect it was his diaper, and it was.  It was extremely full so that's probably what woke him up.  After changing him, he fell back asleep again quickly.  He stirred a little around 8:15am so i tried to feed him before leaving for work, but he only drank about 1.5 oz.  I put him back to bed and he drifted to sleep again.  Never the same pattern two days in a row :)

On a lighter note, here's a video of him triumphantly rolling over on his own, without any assistance whatsoever!

02.10.2011 Prune juice to the rescue (almost)

We got some regular prune juice from the supermarket and mixed 1 oz juice with 3 oz water and gave it to Evan early yesterday evening.  He was surprised at the taste of the cocktail but did not reject it and finished the 4 oz drink in about 7 minutes.  We put him to sleep a little earlier last night (9'ish) hoping that he would wake up just once and get more sleep overall.  He struggled a bit to fall asleep and then woke up crying just before 1am, having slept for less than 4 hrs.  In the past, if he slept at 10, he would not wake until at least 3, sometimes 4 or 5 am, for a total of 5 to 7 hrs straight, so asking him to sleep earlier had an opposite effect (at least this one time) - he slept less and fussed more. 

He could not/would not go back to sleep last night at 1 am, he cried loudly and arched his back.  Finally we used the backdoor method to get him to sleep - by feeding him.  Technically, he did not need to eat, despite it being 4 hrs - he usually goes 5 to 9 hrs without a feeding at night.  But this time, it was the only way to soothe (more like trick) him back to sleep.  So he finally fell asleep a quarter before 2.  But by the way he behaved, I was afraid he would not sleep long, and he didn't.  He woke up again at 5 am, batting the mattress with his arms at first, and then crying in discomfort and displeasure.  I tried to pat him on the chest/tummy and massaging his thighs to get him to fall asleep again.  He almost did fall asleep several times but kept waking up and crying with displeasure.  After a half hour, even I gave in and gave him milk to eat.  After about 3.5 oz (he usually consumes 4.5 to 6 oz), he stopped. I held him still in a sitting position and waited.  He started to poo and I urged him on by imitating the uuugh sound you might hear when someone tries hard to discharge stool.  I'm not sure but I think he appreciates that and feels less shy about making the sounds himself.  Each time he stopped, I urged him on in case he was not finished.  And he would go again after a half minute pause.  After some 10 minutes, he had pretty much finished and started to struggle a bit as he started to feel uncomfortable with the poo in his diaper.

When i undressed him to change the diaper, the poo had leaked out and stained a small patch of his outfit.  Reason: the poo's consistency was like that of rather thin gravy.  So, the prune had done its job, it had softened (maybe too much so) the stool.  After cleaning him up and dressing him in a clean outfit, I put him back in the crib and he was as content as can be and fell asleep rightaway, it was 6am now.  I hoped he would be able to sleep until 8:30 am now that he had a nice release, but he did not.  He woke up around 7:15 am and was again showing signs of discomfort.  Clearly he didn't need to eat again so I tried to be hands off and let him find his fingers and fall back asleep himself.  But he didn't do that very well, and continued to cry on and off for 45 minutes.  We finally decided to put him in the swing where he would usually be able to fall asleep.  He was quiet for a bit but then started to fuss again.  By the time I left at about 8:30, he still hadn't fall back asleep.  I'm ready for another adventure tonight!

02.09.2011 Evan's big sleep

Last night, Evan slept from about 10 pm till 5 am, when I woke him up to feed.  After feeding, I changed his very wet diapers and he continued to sleep for a few more hours until about 8:30.  He had been really fussy the last couple of days and haven't slept well, so it was a relief to see him sleep 7 hrs straight.  I stayed in the room with him the entire night and he didn't cry at all except at the very beginning and just a brief moment after the 5am feeding.  I think he had been fussy because his bowel movements were getting far apart (2-4 days apart) and he wanted to poo but could not.  His poo had become rather dry and I suspect making it more difficult to discharge.  Why had his poo become drier? I think it's because we started feeding him some solids (single grain brown rice cereal).

I just talked with the pediatrician's office, they confirmed that the rice cereal would very likely have been the cause for Evan's stool to become harder (clay-like), it is known to cause the most constipation among the cereals.  So they recommended getting off the rice until he's back to normal bowel movement patterns (once a day), and then feed him oatmeal instead.  And to help him get back to normal, we could give him diluted apple juice (1 oz juice, 3 oz water) as substitute of one feeding.  Or brown sugar water.  We can also (continue) to give him pea and prune to help with the constipation.  And since he's on breast milk (instead of formula), we can even stop all solid foods until 6 months if we wanted to.  Solids are more recommended for babies on formulas in order to introduce more iron in the diet.  

02.09.2011 Second day at Great America

I transferred from the Redwood city office to the Santa Clara (on Great America pkwy) office yesterday.  The movers delivered the boxes by about 10:30 am and I was fully set up by lunchtime.  This new location is closer to home and i no longer have to drive 45 min to 1hr+ each way.  Now my commute is cut to about half what it was before.  My cube at the new location is fairly quiet and next to a window with a fairly nice view. It's the first time I've had natural light in my cube for like 6 years!  Here are a few pics of the cube and the view:

(update 1:19pm - took a walk around the trail outside - a 2 mile loop around the marsh is just right after lunch)

02.01.2011 Spoke too soon!

I was overly optimistic yesterday that Evan had learned to sleep through the night w/o feeding or comfort.  He woke up this morning at about 3:15 am. I was going to let him try to go back to sleep by himself but I saw that he had kicked off his blanket so I got up to put the blanket over him.  He did not go back to sleep, several times it seemed that he did but he kept fussing.  I knew his diaper was probably wet and he didn't like that, but did not initially change it rightaway.  After some 20 minutes, it was clear he wasn't comfortable, I went ahead and changed his diaper.  He was quiet for a good ten minutes after the change, and I thought finally drifted to sleep at 4am.  But then he started to cry again, louder and louder, and by 4:25 am, I resorted to feeding him which quieted him down immediately and put him to sleep by 4:35 am.

He woke up around 7:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep and started soft cries, I changed his diaper again and he still fussed, so I finally fed him at about 7:40.  But he only ate at most 3 oz, he wasn't exactly hungry.  I think his earlier bout of crying had prevented him from sleeping well.  After the small meal, I put him to bed again, he struggled just a bit and then drifted off to sleep, this time more soundly.  I'll try to help him sleep better tonight.  Need to figure out how to keep his diaper drier during the night so it doesn't wake him up (and keep him up).

On a lighter note, here are some video clips of Evan playing with the toy blocks.