APRIL 2004
Well, there goes April… my last full month off work. I can’t say that I am looking forward to starting back mid May, even if it is only part time.
We definitely made the most of April and Callum has done a fair bit of travelling.
Firstly, we went to the Coast to stay in my parent’s caravan over for the Easter weekend… it was also Shaun’s birthday on the Saturday. We went through on Saturday evening, and my Mum & Dad joined us on Sunday morning. We had a great time. The weather was really quite pleasant.
On the Monday we all took Callum swimming for the first time. I was really looking forward to taking him… not least because we had bought him a baby wetsuit to keep him warm in the water!! There are no arms or legs to the suit, it just wraps around the body, but it definitely worked… his little body was toasty warm! He seemed to like the swimming, although at first I think it was a lot to take in and he couldn’t understand why so many people were sharing his bath! It’s unfortunate that, because of the twisted minority, you are not allowed to take cameras into the swimming baths any more, so we didn’t get any pictures. I have got a couple of photos on my phone from when he tried his wetsuit on, but he has his vest on underneath… I’ll have to put him in it one day to take a proper photo so you can all see it.
Shaun went home that evening so that he could get some decorating done at home whilst me and Callum were out of the way. At least Shaun had had two decent nights sleep before going home to do the work… Callum slept like a log at the caravan, must have been all that sea air. We were putting him down around 10.00-10.30pm and he was sleeping right through to around 6am, then having a feed and dozing off again for an hour or two. One morning he slept straight through for over 9 hours and only woke up because we were busy making breakfast which created a bit of noise in the caravan!
Callum and I came home on Thursday; Shaun was really pleased to see us as he had missed us. He said it felt strange when he rolled over during the night as he automatically looked over to the crib… only to find it empty.
We returned to the caravan on the Sunday, but only for the day – we went to see my Mum for her birthday. They had Callum’s cousin, Luke, at the caravan that weekend, so it was nice for them to have both grandsons about.
Callum’s sleeping routine did improve after being at the caravan. Although he returned to waking for one or two feeds in the night, at least he was going to bed earlier. To begin with he was asleep by 10.30pm, but after a couple of nights, it became more usual for him to fall asleep at around 8.30pm, he did wake up after a few hours for a feed, but we were ready to go to bed ourselves by then, so it was no hardship.
Then, the teething kicked in again, his gums were really swollen and sore, plus he had an upset tummy with it… still no teeth above gum level though! All this meant that he was really out of sorts and reverted back to going to bed around 10.30pm. Still, better than the 1am we had being having previously. At the time of writing this, he has started drifting off a bit earlier again.
We are hoping to get Callum used to putting himself to sleep, but we rarely get the opportunity. With him still being breastfed, we normally find that he falls asleep during his na-night feed, so he is usually asleep when we put him in his cot (yes, cot – he has moved out of his crib now). We did try it out a couple of nights, if he woke up when we put him down. It was so hard. He was so distraught; I think it upset us more than him. I think he thought we were pretty useless at it. So, in sympathy, the next day he fell asleep all by himself in his chair downstairs at 8.15pm – without even having his na-night feed!
I suppose it’s not too much of a problem, we can get him to bed ok. I just think that if he was more used to putting himself to sleep we may not get as disturbed during the night as he might go back to sleep without a drink. I’m also concerned that we may be making a rod for our own backs in the future. It’s a shame, because when he was younger he used to go in his crib awake and put himself to sleep, it’s just circumstance that as he has got older he has been falling to sleep during his last feed.
We took another trip towards the end of the month; this time we headed south to see Shaun’s sister Lynn and her family. It was great catching up with everyone, Anna and Paul made it over from Luton, and everyone was home at Lynn’s except Scott, so unfortunately we missed him.
Callum’s appetite has waned a little on occasions, probably due to his teeth. We found he didn’t want to eat as much at lunchtime. We had gone up to a full jar of savoury and a half jar of sweet at lunchtime, but he went back to only wanting half and half like he normally had at tea time… after a few days we switched it around so that he was having the bigger meal on an evening, and this seemed to suit his needs more.
He has still had a nice weight gain though. We had him weighed towards the end of the month; he had gone up to 16lbs 11½ozs, and increase of 1lb 2ozs. His length has increased by 3cms (over 1 inch). He now measures 68½cms. Strange that we measure his weight in imperial and his length in metric isn’t it?!?
He has learnt a new trick... Callum can now sit quite happily unaided. It didn't take long to master once he decided to give it a go, he only had a couple of 'fallie over' incidents before managing to stay sat up on his own for some considerable time.
Well, better dash. Loads to do.
Take care, Amanda
