First Visits

My sister came to visit for the first time since Liam was born and met her first nephew! She was a natural with him and dove straight into activity time with funny noises and funny faces. In this photo, Liam shows off his ability to "walk" from mom to aunt. My sister gave Liam a rattle-blanket combo that should prove to be a nice "b'anky" for him. A few of my college friends drove in to town this weekend to visit and meet Liam too. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures while they were here. They gave us two fun toys (they help keep us parents entertained too!) and played with Liam on the activity mat. I actually got him to laugh a couple days ago during activity time. He's been smiling a lot, but this was the first ha-ha-ha I've witnessed. It was extremely rewarding :)
Liam is getting much more settled into his routine over the past month. He gets up between 6 and 6:30 AM, and begins his Eat, Activity, Sleep cycles. At about 7:15 each night, he wants his bath and bedtime ritual. He still gets up every three hours at night for nursing. He's gotten good at going to sleep with minimal help from us. We decided to let him cry for up to two minutes before rushing in to "shush-pat" him. At first, it took a couple rounds of crying and "shush-patting" before he'd go to sleep, but now it usually takes only one, and sometimes he just goes to sleep without any crying. That has freed up a lot of time for us (we used to spend 30-60 minutes each nap-time getting him to sleep).
Liam is also getting better at holding his head up and sitting up as you can see in these photos. He's still a bit of a bobble-head, but he doesn't need the constant support we gave his head just a few weeks ago. As always, he gets more and more alert each day and that's really fun for us as parents.

Addicted

As a follow up to Steve's post about how Liam gets to sleep, I feel the need to tell all of you that I and (if I can be so bold as to speak for him) Liam are addicted to the swaddle. It looks terribly uncomfortable, but it quiets him down almost from the minute you velcro him in (we use the swaddles for dummies). I spoke to the doctor about it, and he thinks it is fine to keep swaddling him. Unfortunately, the pre-made swaddles only go up to 20 lbs, so we have been trying to phase it out. As you can see from the video below, moving to the sleep sack instead of the swaddle has not been an easy transition. He is obviously very tired in the clip, but can't seem to get to sleep because his silly arms keep hitting him in the face. In comparison, the swaddle lets him be as snug as a bug in a rug.

There's Always a Bigger Fish

No matter how little sleep Liam allows us to get (or especially Annika to get), or how little sleep anyone else got while a new parent, we all have/had it better than this poor family in Florida:

http://www.local6.com/health/16276040/detail.html (you might have to scroll down a ways to see the actual article)

Their son was born with a rare problem that caused him to NEVER sleep (no naps, no nighttime sleeping) for 3 years! His parents had to take shifts sleeping so that someone was always awake to watch him. His dad quit his job to take care of him full time while his mom took an extra job to help pay for medical bills. Just this month, he underwent an experimental surgery that seems to have corrected the problem.

2 month check-up

Liam turned 2 months yesterday and the occasion was marked by a trip to the doctor for a check-up and some shots. As was suspected, Liam is doing great. The doctor was very impressed by his weight gain. Since he hadn't been weighed since his last check-up, his parents were also in awe by the 14 lbs 11 oz that was read on the scale. Turns out, he is in the 97th percentile for weight and at 2ft and 1/2 inch, he is in the 93rd percentile for height. He also passed all the tests such as lifting his head up while on his tummy and following an object from the midline.
The shots were not pleasant and seemed to make for a tired Liam and a worried mommy, but he is doing fine today and doesn't even seem to notice the few sticks that he got with the needle.

Below are some pictures of Liam; the first one is of him on St. Patty's day (3 days old) and the other one is of him as he is now. You can see that he has really filled out the outfit that my Aunt Jannie gave to him. In fact, that is the only 0-3 month outfit that still fits him. He has moved into the 3-6 month range. I guess he is an over achiever! Now, if only he could figure out the code on the wall!

Activity Mat

Liam spends some time every day on an "activity mat." This is basically a piece of cloth with two arches crossing above it. From the arches hang various items that might interest a baby like toys and mirrors. In the first picture, we see what Liam looks like on one of the mats from our point of view. In the second, we see Liam's point of view while lying on the same mat and looking up. Of course, he can also look around and see other dangling toys and he always does. We usually put him down on the mat and talk, read and sing to him while he looks around and bats at the toys. After a while, he gets bored and we pull him half-way out so he gets a new view. When he starts getting cranky again, we pick him up and walk or dance around with him as he settles down.

In my last post, I might have given the false impression that Liam is easy to put to sleep. Let me expand on that a little. Sometimes, it takes an hour or more to get Liam to sleep and it might involve a fair amount of crying. However, sometimes (especially after a long period of activity time) it only takes about 30 minutes - 10 minutes of put down, cry, pick up, repeat - 10 minutes of calmly lying there or "dozing" - 10 more minutes of pick up, walk, put down, cry, repeat. After that second round, he tends to really fall asleep for a while (at least 30 minutes). Here's a video of Liam during those middle 10 minutes of calmly lying there.

And we're back

Its been too long since we posted anything here. Liam is still growing and staying awake longer during the day. His bedtime ritual is pretty established and we're getting into the eat-activity-sleep cycle on a fairly regular basis. We can now put him in the crib awake and he can fall asleep on his own. However, he usually needs to be picked up and walked around a few times before that happens. We're slowly phasing him out of the full swaddles and into sleep sacks (though he still gets a full swaddle for night-time sleeping). He tends to nap for about an hour each time except for one long nap usually in the mid afternoon. He's been getting to sleep by around 9 each night and still wakes up around 7am. Don't get me wrong, he still wakes up during the night for nursing, but 6-7am is his real wake up time - he usually sleeps through the midnight nursings. We take him on two walks a day and he loves those. He generally sleeps through them and it gives us a chance to just talk to each other. To protect his little bald head from the sun, we sometimes put a hat on him. Sometimes, the hat makes him look like he's a woman going for a swim in the 1920s like the one in this picture :)

We've read quite a few books to Liam already during his many activity times. He loves to lie on his "activity mat" and look up at the dangling toys and mirrors. This is a picture of Liam on one of those mats. He likes to bat the toys around with his hands and legs and look in the mirrors. We also still do the Elmo chicken dance every time (thanks again Beth!). Sometimes, we hold his feet so he can push himself along the ground by straightening his legs. He enjoys being able to move himself around like that.

He also loves to stand up (with us making sure he doesn't fall over). He's got strong legs. The main thing he's lacking is balance. A close second to standing is sitting up like he is in this picture. He looks so much older to us when he's upright and he looks much taller when he's standing up.