6 months

At Ryan's 6 month appt he weighed 17lbs 8.5oz, so he gained less than a pound since his last appt 2 months ago. He's now in the 52nd percentile for weight. I totally thought he would be closer to 20 lbs but I guess not. His height is 25.5 inches, around 20 percentile. I guess the nurse measured him wrong last time because his last appt 2 months ago his measurement was 25.75inches?!! He got more shots but after these he doesn't have any more shots until 1 yr old. His next check up will be at 9 months.

Ryan now has two little teeth starting to grow on his bottom gums and he started rolling over the day before his 6 month appt! J was worried that he was behind, so I had to do a lot of training to get him to do it (totally like a dog haha). Most babies do it on their own, but I guess Ryan just needed motivation (lots and lots of praise!). He can only do tummy to back for now but at his 6 month checkup we were able to check off the box that he could roll over, haha. I think it might be a while for him to go back to tummy. I've tried some training but not really too hardcore.

One side effect is that when he's sleeping (we put him on his stomach), when he wakes up after a few hours he'll flip over and end up on his back. He sleeps really poorly on his back so he'll wake up often and cry. Now he has to learn to sleep on his back, so we've been doing cry it out. The first night was the worst, he would sleep for 1-2 hours, and then cry for another hour. It was really bad...but the next night he sleep for 10 hours straight!! But the following night he woke up a few times, but each time he was able to put himself back to sleep. The problem is that his crying wakes me up and it takes forever for me to fall back asleep. argh. I still end up nursing him once at night. So he sleeps at 7:30pm, nurses around 4am, and then wakes up at 7:30am. I *think* he should be able to drop that feeding, but I've been doing it recently just so I can nurse him back to sleep and then I can put him down on his stomach. So I at least have a 3 hour stretch of sleep without interruptions! I know, so selfish, but it's for my own sanity. I really hope we're getting closer to him sleeping through the whole night. I don't know why sometimes he can sleep 10 hours straight while other nights he wakes up every 2-3 hours. It's frustrating. Also his naps are very poor now because he sleeps on his back so they only last about 30-45 minutes and he's perpetually in a bad mood. Ughhh. Even though I'm happy Ryan is doing new things, they cause such disruptions!! I'm hoping he gets used to sleeping on his back, either that or he learns to roll back onto his stomach!

We've also started solid foods. I bought this baby food maker called the Beaba Babycook and I really like it so far! It steams and purees the food all in one little machine. It's very cute. We started with zucchini squash and we're supposed to introduce a new food every 5-7 days. I've been giving it to him twice a day, usually 3 tablespoons of veggie and mix it with 1-2 tablespoons of rice cereal. Next we'll be doing carrots and then peas. When we first tried rice cereal, he didn't seem to really like it, but now he's pretty good. He'll actually open his mouth now...before I would have to shove the spoon into his mouth. It was not fun heh.

Ok, very long entry, but here's a cute video of Ryan rolling over! This is only his 2nd time rolling over ever, so that's why it takes a while for him to do it. Now he does it pretty quickly once he's on his tummy. I guess he doesn't really like tummy time! =P

ryan's first tooth

his first tooth popped out yesterday! a few days ago he woke up from his nap screaming and unhappy so i looked in his mouth and saw two lighter colored areas on his lower gums. i told j and my mom he was teething but i don't think either of them believed me! i told them to look in his mouth but his tongue always got in the way so they couldn't get a good look. my mom said "no...it's too early..." she has this weird chinese rhyme that says "seven month - sit up, eight month crawl, nine month first tooth".

well looks like i'm not crazy after all! yesterday he woke up screaming from his nap AGAIN so i felt his lower gum and now i can feel the ridges! looks like a tooth has broken through and is starting to come in!! this morning j confirmed feeling the tooth also haha. so yay, his first tooth a few days before he turns 6 months. his 6wk appt is on tues so i'll update with his stats. i think he is almost 20 lbs! i know i know, i haven't update the photos page in AGES, so hopefully i'll get on it and they'll be updated to his most recent pics. we're debating whether or not to get professional pics taken for 6 months. hmmm. we got a sears giftcard from a relative when ryan was born, so since we don't shop there, maybe we'll use it for photos!

5 months

when ryan turned 5 months, we were in LA for a wedding! it was his first time on a airplane and he did great, but the flight is only one hour =). we were only there for a weekend so i had one outfit for myself and everything else was for the baby! he needed so much stuff and we had to bring his carseat and stroller. southwest doesn't let families board first anymore unless you are in the A group. family boarding is now in between the A and B groups, i wonder why they changed it.

so, ryan is doing well. we are on a semi-regular schedule now, yay! it took a lot of work but he's finally *almost* there. the most regular thing right now are his first 2 naps, both lasting around 2 hours. his bedtime is between 7-8pm but his wake-up time in the morning is still very irregular, sometimes it's 6am other times it's 8am! and he's still waking up at least 2 times at night, if i'm unlucky 3 times. He's only woken up once at night 2 times this whole month. i think the problem is that during the day, he gets reallly distracted when eating. the only times he eats really well is at night =/. when he was getting distracted during the day time, i thought i should feed him more often, but that doesn't seem to be working. So now i'm going to only feed him every 3-4 hours as opposed to every 2 hours and see if when he's hungrier he'll eat more. I think now that we are on a pretty good schedule, I can now put him down awake and he'll fall sleep (but usually with a little fussing. now it's usually less than 5 minutes - when it first started it was around 15 minutes or so)! OMG! it's such a breakthrough. we were still rocking him and putting him down totally asleep up until 3/4 months and i never thought i would see the day I could do this! i also didn't think i would be able to handle doing cry it out, but it's actually not too bad. i usually don't let him cry longer than 15 minutes. and i can usually tell by his cry if he'll be able to fall sleep/go back to sleep.

oh, and ryan is sleeping in his own crib and in his own room now! it was bittersweet moving him to his own room at 4 months, but when we moved his bedtime earlier, when we went to bed a few hours later, it would disturb him and he would wake up. It took a few days for him to get adjusted to his crib and room, but now he's fine in there. He's growing up!

So I am back to work now, it's great that Ryan sleeps about 4 hours during the day time because it gives me time to work. While he's awake he's pretty content in his jumper or playing on his playmat, so it hasn't been too bad. I think my next door neighbor has found a nanny that we'll be sharing starting in March. We haven't really worked out the details yet though.

Ryan still has not rolled over and I think it's going to be a looong while before he ever does. He doesn't twist his body at all, he kicks his feet, that's about it. He's really into his hands and stares at them a lot. He can hold stuff now, but isn't really that interested in grabbing things that you put in front of him. He'll look at it and kind of give you this look like "Cool, there's this thing in front of me" but won't try to grab it. However, if you put something next to his hand, he'll grab it. He's weird. He alo likes to put anything that is near the vicinity of his mouth into his mouth. So he'll put toys, your hand, his hand, your shoulder, etc into his mouth. He smiles alot, and giggles and "talks" more often than before.

Oh yeah, we also started trying to feed him rice cereal. We've only done it a few times so far. I don't think he really likes it that much, most of it ends up on his bib because his tongue still pushes everything out. We are just going to keep on trying every few days until he "gets" it or likes it. then we can move onto oatmeal. Once he is 6 months we can start baby food and I think I'm going to attempt making it myself =O

So for next month, we need to buy a high chair and I think he's ready for a real stroller. We also need to get a new car seat. Ahhh...my little baby is growing up!!

shedding hair

OMG it's nuts...i find my hair EVERYWHERE. when you are pregnant your body retains your hair and it grows nice and thick, but post-pregnancy it sheds it all! it's really disturbing, but it's hair that you supposedly would have lost anyways. months of hair is all falling out now, ick!

4 months

yikes, i am quite behind in updating with the 4 month update! it's almost 5 months soon. my excuse is the holidays and going back to work, sniff. so on 12/23/08 the baby had his 4 month checkup and shots. he weighed 16lbs 11.5oz (85 percentile), 25.75 inches (81 percentile), and head circumference is 17 inches (77 percentile). So at least everything is proportional, everything is big...hehe. this time it didn't seem like he had any adverse reactions to the shots so that was good because the next day we drove down to LA to visit grandma and grandpa! he handled the drive pretty well...he slept or was quiet in his car seat. we stopped once to change and feed him. when we got into LA, the last half hour he started getting fussy and there was a looot of traffic, but we got there eventually. we just had to keep on trying to distract him from his crying. we stayed in LA for a week but every day we were always out doing something, so ry didn't get to nap much and he was a pretty unhappy baby the whole trip. he wasn't sleeping well at night either so i was not very happy either...i was definitely missing home the last few days. the trip was good though, he met his grand-aunt and another baby that is 3 weeks older. it was fun talking to the mommy and commiserating about similar issues. on the drive back home he was pretty good as well. so far he still hasn't really been doing anything new?? he laughs and smiles a lot more. he is kind of grabbing stuff but only if you put it in his hand. if you hold stuff in front of him, he doesn't seem to know to use his hands to grab it?? it's kind of weird.

the few weeks prior to going to LA, the baby's sleep became really HORRIBLE. he would only nap 30-45 minutes at a time and when we put him down at night he would wake up after 30-45 minutes and we would have to try to get him back to sleep which sometimes could take several tries. needless to say, it SUCKED. it was driving me nuts and i couldn't really figure out how to make him sleep longer! i researched online and i found out that babies sleep cycles go from deep to light every 30-45 minutes, so i figured he was being woken up during his light sleep cycle. it seemed like there wasn't much i could do other than hope that he would eventually learn to stay asleep during the light sleep cycle. we even tried a white noise machine, but that didn't help keep him asleep either. the bad part was that he would wake up, his eyes would be wide open, but he was still tired and wouldn't go back to sleep. so he would cry, be unhappy, not really want to do anything, and finally after about an hour later, i could try putting him down to sleep again. it was soo frustrating and after dealing with that for a few weeks i was soo happy when j started his 3 week vacation and i wouldn't have to deal with him alone! i literally dreaded every day and would count down the hours j would get home so i could hand him off. ry was always in a good mood in the mornings because he was rested, but once the afternoon came along, he became cranky baby. i felt like such a bad mama and was worried that all this crying/unhappiness/not sleeping would affect him in the long run somehow either developmentally or physically. ugh. it was a really rough period but since coming back from LA the sleeping has improved a lot, thank goodness. i'll have to update in the 5 month post since technically that is when his improvements occurred, but i am actually enjoying spending time with him again hehe. just in time because j will be heading back to work soon and i'll be alone with him again =)

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3 months

Baby is now 3 months old...after that 8 hour stretch that one time he kind of regressed and went back to 5 hours! but now he's back to 6-7 hours and i'm hoping it stays that way (or gets longer). he's still not really doing anything new, he smiles more and likes to look around a lot. he gets super fussy right before naptime, so i'm going to have to try some stuff out to try to avoid that crying/screaming period.

only one more month to go for my maternity leave! i guess i'm going to try out the working/watching baby at the same time, but i don't know how well that will work out. i should probably maybe start looking for a nanny, but i'm lazy. i would prefer to have someone that speaks chinese, but i don't know if i would trust an asian grandma. so i think i'm looking for someone that is young-ish with childcare experience.

i'm also starting to have craaazy thoughts about having a 2nd baby sooner rather than later. i kind of just want to get it over with! is that crazy?? i think yes, but since i have no clue what it will be like to have a toddler, maybe it's better to just do it and hope for the best =) we'll suffer for a little bit, but maybe it won't be so bad??????? and i think most likely we'll only have 2. i would like 3, but monetarily speaking, it's definitely more practical to just have 2. even if we have 2 boys...wah. we'll see though...maybe we'll have a large age gap if we decide to go for a 3rd. we'll see we'll see. i soooo hope the 2nd child is a girl so i won't have to think about a 3rd haha

2 months

oh dear, i have been so neglectful of my baby blog!! i actually forgot it existed...oops!! so at his 2 month appt his weight was 14 lbs 14 oz (97th percentile) and height 22.25 inches (20 something percentile). yikes! He also got his first set of shots (3 of them) and he cried sooo much. the poor thing. the rest of the day and the next day it seemed like he was crying more, my poor poor baby. i don't look forward to the rest of the shots.

when he was a little over 2 months he started sleeping 5-6 hours during his longest stretch of sleep at night. last night he slept 8 hours!! yay!! the bad part is that i was horribly engorged and it was painful. i actually woke up before him so i could pump.

other than that, not much new to report. he still isn't very excitng yet. he will smile at you and coo and gurgle if he's in a good mood =)

8 weeks

guess what!! last night he slept 6.5 hours!!! ZOMG!! he went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 5:30am, i was so shocked. except i woke up at 2am and every hour thereafter wondering when he would wake up!! so i didn't sleep that well, but hopefully this means it's the start of sleeping longer. although, his sleeping pattern is pretty erratic because the night before that, he was up every 2 hours. that was very very horrible. j's theory is that it is because he was gassy due to the milkshake i had at dinner. the previous time he woke up every 2 hours we had garlic fries during dinner and he thinks it was because of that. who knows, but i am going to avoid those things now!

anyways, the baby is starting to get less fussy thank goodness. he still has his days once in a while though. at least he'll finally sit in his swing or bouncy seat, but you can only put him in there when he's content or tired/drowsy. if you put him in there when he's unhappy, it won't make him happy (unfortunately!!) too bad there isn't a magical device that will turn off crying - if i could invent one i'm sure i would make a fortune! =)

right now he likes to be held A LOT, so most of the time he is in my arms. i guess that is normal? (i have no clue...) but it's veeery tiring, especially since he's getting so big. our rough estimate is that he is now 14-15 lbs! (i weighed myself on a scale and then weighed myself plus the baby to figure out his weight) i also wish it was easier to put him to sleep. i have to rock him for a loong time before he'll fall asleep. one night i rocked him so much it made me fall asleep but he was still awake, oy.

it seems all i ever talk about is bad things hunh? well, hmm. umm. it's great to hear him coo and see him smile, but that only happens probably 1-2 hours of the day, so uh, the rest of the time isn't very fun. BUT i've read that the first 3 months are the hardest and it only gets better! we'll see.

7 weeks

I think the baby has finally started settling down, the fussiness isn't as bad anymore. The sleep book I'm reading says babies start getting really fussy from week 2-6 and reach peak fussiness around week 6 (sooo true!). I also read somewhere that this is when infant homicide is the highest. I read this to j, and he said "homicide??" in an incredulous voice as if that was totally crazy. On Sat, he watched the baby for a few hours at night so I could get some sleep, and he came to bed saying "I totally wanted to strangle Ryan!" heh...I said "That's how I've been feeling the last few weeks!!" While he's at work I would send him many messages like: "omg i'm going crazy" etc...now he knows what i have to deal with THE WHOLE DAY while he is at work. Anyways, I hope the worse is over. Can you believe we even had thoughts of Ryan being an only child?? =P

Our next challenge is getting the baby to sleep longer. In the sleep book, it says from week 6-8 they should start sleeping 5-6 hours at night. I don't know if Ryan will be hitting that milestone any time soon =( He JUST started sleeping 4 hours at a time, so it might be a while. We'll see...I'm already happy he's going 4 hours, 5-6 hours would be heaven!!

Ryan's eating has started to slow down so I've had to pump to get all my milk out, otherwise it gets reaaaally uncomfortable. Now we have an abundant supply in the fridge. We're trying to train Ryan to take a bottle now, but he's still not very good at it. So we're going to give him a bottle every night and hopefully he'll get better at it without having half the contents on his clothes!

Can you believe if I just took the standard maternity leave, I would have been back to work last week?? So crazy. I'm glad I am able to stay home for a few months with Ryan before going back to work.