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He slept through the night! 10 hours straight - from 8 to 6. I must admit I did not even wake up once. The night before he did a six hour stretch and after five hours Julian had to go check on him. Not me - I was catching up on a year and I was out cold! So when I heard that cry and saw the clock, I just about fainted! We are beyond thrilled - fingers crossed he can do it again!
I feel sort of negligent that I haven't been tracking the ages when Peter hit all his milestones. I know that I will forget these things and then kick myself for not remembering. So here are a few that spring to mind:
Anyway now my guilt is somewhat alleviated.
Peter is becoming more and more of a person and less of a baby, but he's still my little baby boy. He is very funny and loves to clap for himself and to give you things. He is also clearly struggling with his inability to communicate. When he wants something and I either can't figure it out, or have to refuse it, he screams and cries. Previously he could be easily distracted with another object of affection, but he is growing more and more determined. I am generally a pretty easy-going mother, which is why Peter is often seen eating Cheerios he found under the sofa, sucking on keys or crank-calling people on my cellphone. But I can't let him eat crayons, or play with forks or hold mugs of hot coffee. Even I have some boundaries. I have been signing with him for quite a while, but he has not really taken to it yet; still I am hoping that teaching him the sign/word "help" might assist in reducing the yelling so I am working on that.
This past month has also been my last month of maternity leave, and we enjoyed it by taking two trips: one to Toronto, where he was left with a nanny - he did very well! I was okay too, although by day three I was missing him terribly. Still, it was a nice transition for us as we both adjust to me going back to work full-time. We also saw all his cousins, although trying to get a picture of them together in which no one was crying proved extremely difficult! There are even more hilarious photos than this one, but I am saving them for blackmail purposes when the kids are older.
We also spent a week on Galiano, resting and relaxing. Peter slept very well, which meant he napped for more than 40 minutes at a time and had some four hour stretches in his Pack-and-Play. It was very relaxing and heavenly (although maybe not for Grandma - she traded in her nosy condo neighbours who are up at all hours for a noisy baby who is up at all hours.)
Unfortunately, one area where we still struggle is sleep. On a given night, Peter can be up seven or eight times. Because of his frequent wakings, we have had him in our bed for much of the night now as it is much easier for me to function if I don't have to physically get up each time he wakes. I also really enjoy having him there with me. However at my job I need to be able to concentrate and think clearly and I need a lot more sleep than I am getting.
I don't have a problem with him not sleeping through the night - if he just woke up once at 2 a.m. and came to bed and slept through that would be perfect. But as it is every evening is unpredictable because he is up multiple times and we are afraid to leave him with anyone because he can wake up and be inconsolable. So we have decided to get some outside help. We are slowly weaning him off his night feeds and getting him used to remaining in his crib consistently. We still comfort him touch him and do what we can to stop him crying. Unfortunately the program is not compatible with him sleeping in our bed, but after 11 months of bed-sharing, I think I am ready to let go of that aspect if it means I might get a bit more sleep. Eleven months of fractured sleep is beginning to age me.
The goal is to get him to sleep from 7:30 to 6:30 or thereabouts without waking. We are on Night Four tonight and wakings so far have been:
Night 1: 7 times
Night 2: 4 times
Night 3: 3 times (but very hard to console, so in some ways worse than the other two nights where he fell asleep quite quickly.)
Tonight will be his first night without eating, and we are also decreasing our involvement in helping him fall asleep - we cannot rock him down although we can still comfort and touch him (increasingly, that's all he needs.) Who knows what Night 4 will bring but hopefully things will gradually improve and we'll all be happier and better-rested as a result. (Okay, just better-rested since as you can see below we are actually already very happy.)
Now that we are East-siders, Julian, Peter and I are trying to check out some of the facilities in our new neighbourhood; we're getting to know the shops, the cool places to eat and the funky neighbourhoods. This weekend we decided to check out a community centre that has a large and newly renovated pool.
It is amazing. The place is like a waterpark, but the cost of entry for our whole family was just over $5! There's an enormous slide, a "lazy river", tonnes of little spraying gadgets and falling waters, a hose that small children can spray at unsuspecting swimmers (got hit a few times), a baby slide, and various depths from a few inches to several feet. You can do laps there too, but we didn't venture into the grown-up pool.
You also get an amazing view: one wall of the pool area is entirely glass overlooking a large grassy area and the mountains; the picture I took doesn't quite do it justice, and I wasn't able to reshoot since the lifeguard was a little skittish about us pointing our lens at anything other than Peter - privacy concerns. I guess some people don't want photos of them in their swimsuits on the Internet. Weird!
And one of the best features is the universal change room! Yes there are separate men's and women's for those who want to bare all, but there's also a place for families (it has small changing booths when you need to get nakkers) so Julian and I could deal with Peter together and share a locker.
Peter was a little overwhelmed when we first entered the pool; he had just woken from his nap and was a little upset when we tried to put him into the spray. But he soon got into the spirit of things and got quite excited as we took him on the slide, played "London Bridge" under falling water, got him to crawl to us across rubber floating mats, and generally had loads of fun.
