First cold and sleep regression?

Simon and I have both been battling colds since last Thursday.  This is Simon's first cold and I'm pretty sure he got it from one of the people at work when we visited on Monday.  Other than incessant sneezing and a bit of a cough, he has been pretty good overall.  His nose isn't overly stuffed up and he has been eating just as much as ever.  

He has been a bit more fussy than normal and it's led to some pretty rough nights this past week.  I don't know if it is cold related or just the 4 month sleep regression that I've been reading about, but we have now transitioned him to his crib from the bassinet and stopped swaddling all in an effort to reduce the tears at bedtime.  It's almost like he knows it's time to sleep and if I'm not there rocking him or laying down with him, he screams bloody murder.  

It could also be over-tiredness since I took him to my women's group meeting on Wednesday and he was awake that whole time (from 7-10) when he is normally winding down/sleeping.   That same night he got up at 1:30 and was awake until 3:00 screaming.  Nothing helped, not even nursing which is usually my cure-all.  We thought it was his ears bugging him from the cold but I went to the doctor today and he is fine, so we can rule that out.  Teething can cause ear issues and general night time pain so we gave him tylenol last night but he still needed to be rocked to sleep.   Who knows?  All I know is that our good sleeper is no longer and it's kept me on my toes trying to figure out tricks to keep him calm and get him to sleep.

That being said, I thought that not swaddling was going to be a challenge to keep him from waking himself up either from the startle relex or just scratching his face, but to our surprise, our first night not swaddling, he did a 6 hour stretch and a 4 hour stretch.  It can be done.  Last night wasn't too bad either.  He was rocked to sleep, put down at 8:30 and slept until 2, nursed, put back down at 3 and slept until 7.  Can't ask for much better at this point.

Baby shower at grandma's house

This weekend, we traveled up to grandma's house, a 4 hour drive and hour and a half boat ride away, because she was throwing us a baby shower!

Our trip started at 4 am when Simon woke up for his next feed. After I fed and changed him, we got him packed in the carseat and got all our gear loaded in the car and decided since we didn't know how many times we would have to stop along the way, we decided to leave and try to catch the 10 am ferry. We were on our way at 5 am and drove almost halfway before Simon needed a change and to eat. It was pretty comical watching PP change Simon's diaper in the front seat of our car, with me waiting in the back seat to feed him. We got to the ferry with over an hour to spare so I fed Simon again and we waited. Simon was such a good baby the whole drive to the ferry and for the entire ferry ride.

The next day was the baby shower. All of Simon's great aunts and cousins were there and all got to hold him and oogle him. They spoiled him rotten, getting him so many cute outfits, a bunch of stuffed animals and a few practical gifts as well. Grandma S got him a cake with yummy custard and strawberry filling and a cute little lamb toy on top that said "Welcome Simon". Everyone had a great time at the party and Simon was on his best behavior.

We decided to stay an extra day just so we could visit some more with PP's parents. It was nice being able to hand Simon over to his grandma or grandpa when I needed a break. And there must be something about grandma's house that Simon likes because from the moment we got there, he started sleeping long stretches at night. Before we left, he would wake up every 2 hours to eat, and since then he has slept at least 5 hours going up to 8 hours before needed to eat again at night. Needless to say, we've all been a lot happier now that we're getting decent rest at night!!

A few more pictures from the shower.

All dressed up for the party. Wearing an outfit that we bought him when we found out we were having a boy. I never thought it would fit him this soon!!












Wearing a hat that grandma got him as a shower gift. He's trying to smile at PP in this picture and we almost caught it on camera.

Simon's first fire alarm

It's our first full day home from the hospital and Grandma S had decided to cook PP and I a nice meal of shaken bake chicken and baked potatoes.  I had gone to take a nap, and baby S was sleeping peacefully in his crib.  Not 30 minutes after falling asleep, I hear the smoke alarm going off.  I come out of our bedroom to see Grandma S frantically fanning the heat detector to get it to stop beeping but to no avail.  I run to open up all of our windows thinking that any minute now the main building alarm is going to go off and sure enough, it did.  At this point, my heart is racing and all I can think about is get the baby and get the hell out of the appartment.  I open the oven and don't see anything out of the ordinary so I shut it off and put on my shoes, tell grandma S to get her coat and grab my keys and head outside.  On the way down, I run into the building manager so I tell him it was from our appt. and that it was a false alarm.  He says we still have to go outside.

We get outside and baby is wrapped pretty tightly in the blanket, still sleeping peacefully.  We get the all clear to go back in about 30 minutes later and we walk in the appt. and see a piece of the heat detector on the floor.  The firemen have to come up and inspect that no fire actually started and when they see that piece on the floor, they start accusing us of tampering with the heat detector.  It turns out that grandma S was fanning the wrong thing.  What she thought was the smoke detector was the HEAT detector and she fanned it so hard with a dishcloth that a piece of it fell off and triggered the main building alarm causing all of the building to evacuate.  Needless to say that grandma S hasn't wanted to cook another meal in our appt. and can you blame her?

And through it all, baby S slept peacefully and didn't even open his eyes or cry once.