My little 15 Week Old...

Oh my goodness! 15 weeks! It seems like up until this point I have just been looking forward to him getting to this point. I have long been looking forward to my little man smiling, laughing, holding his head up, and interacting. But now, it's going by TOO quick! I can't BELIEVE that he is soon to reach the 4 month mark. Crazy.

Things still aren't particularly easy, though I don't know if they ever will be! He has been a lot of fun in that he laughs and likes to be tickled, and he likes to wrestle with his stuffed cow. haha. He is always looking around, staring at things and people. He laughs at his image in the mirror. He likes bathtime (despite the fact that he often poops in it, which is disgusting and hilarious.)

He also gets overtired, particularly in the evenings, and can't seem to handle it without excessive crying. Sometimes it really is overwhelming. I have spent several nights over the last few weeks on the phone to a friend, shouting over the crying, "I don't know what to do!!!" He will eventually fall asleep once the conditions are perfect. Sometimes this means me rocking him to sleep and other times it means swaddling him and putting him in his crib in the dark (seriously, after an hour of trying to get him to sleep the other night, I swaddled him, put him in his crib and with no more cries he fell asleep...!)

Other than the evening-overtired-period of the day, he's pretty adorable. Only about 2 or 3 days ago, he started smiling at strangers. He then goes all shy and buries his head in my chest - it's SOOO cute!

On Saturday we decided to brave a family day out to Cardiff, Wales. Our church was taking a bus so we thought we'd go for it. I was extremely anxious and unsure if this was a good idea. 9am-5pm in Wales with an unpredictable baby? Don't know about that! BUT he was wonderful. On the way there he fell asleep for most of the ride (in Adam's arms), and once we got there I fed him in Burger King and then he was quite happy to just be in his stroller and look around. When he did get a bit fussy we would put him in a carrier so he could look around. He slept a little throughout the day but obviously he didn't get great naps. That night he didn't sleep great but I didn't mind since he was in such a good mood during the day!

Hmm what else? He has started becoming VERY distracted during the day which means he doesn't care much about nursing. This is both nice for me and stressful. Nice: I get breaks during the day! I don't worry so much about feeding him because I just know when he's fussy it's probably not because he's hungry. He really eats about every 3 hours during the day.Stressful: I know he won't sleep at night very well because he's hungry! Last night was great because he was up every 3 hours. I can handle that. It's the every-hour-nights that don't do well with me. I was up this morning at 5:45am, and happy, because I got over 8 hours of sleep, even if it was broken. It wasn't broken every hour and that's what matters!

This leads me into the fact that I am SO excited to start giving him solids. Two more weeks until his body is ready for it! Obviously if I don't think he's ready at that point then I will have to wait but I'm not going to hesitate to offer it to him.
I'm not really sure yet what approach I am going to take. There's "baby-led-weaning" which is basically me offering him partially-boiled foods just to explore, like softened carrot sticks or cucumber, etc. This is a technique encouraged and followed by many people in my breastfeeding group, but I think I might be too worried about him choking. Then there's just the straightforward mashed up food way. Haha. I think either way I'm going to start by giving him baby cereal, especially since I got some free in the mail from a baby food company. We'll try that and see how it goes. I AM however looking forward to making my own baby food. I've got a slow cooker now and I've found some fun recipes to try. It's quite good because all I have to do is soften food, puree it, put it in an icecube tray and then freeze it. When I want to use it, I just defrost it and wah-lah! Baby food.

I just want to mention at this point that Reuben has just fallen asleep in his swing as I've been typing and he is so adorable. I love him. Even when I am stressed out beyond belief with his silly crying (sometimes he cries simply because he wants entertainment...) or his fussiness. His smile just makes life worth living.

I'm looking forward to getting him weighed which will happen on the first Tuesday of December, he hasn't been weighed in a month and last time he was 13.1 lbs BUT I'm sure he has had a major growth spurt since then. He's huge now! IT was like one day he woke up and I was like..."where did my baby go??"

Oh, I've also got him sleeping in his crib (cot for you UK people) now. He was sleeping in our bed but I decided that this isn't a battle I want to have when he's bigger. So it only took one rough night to get him to be happy in his crib and now he is fine. His crib is also RIGHT next to my bed so he knows Mommy is near!

He is going to be sleeping in our room until he is sleeping better through the night. The way I see it, at this point all I would be doing is creating a more rough night for myself by having to walk down the hall to his room every 1 to 3 hours. Why would I do that? Also it is suggested by Researchers of Sudden Infant Death that babies stay in their parents' rooms until 6 months old..so that's the plan.

On another note, we've just bought our tickets to go to the States. I am SO excited but definitely nervous because Roo will be 6 months old. This is an awkward age. He will be needing entertainment but not quite mobile yet. OH well, at least it's a direct flight from London to Boston...going to be crazy though. We will be there February 14-March 1st. This will be the first time Reuben has met his Uncle Eddie, Uncle Joe, Auntie Julie, Cousins Andrew and Amelia, Great Aunt Mary and Great Uncle Chris, Great Nana Brydon, etc...the list goes on! He's met Uncle Mike and Grandpa MattMatt and Nana Donahue. :) Can't wait!!! He is also going to meet all his psuedo-Aunts and Uncles...haha!

Ok I'm so starving. Need to go eat. First I will upload photos from our trip to Wales...here we are!