it's true, our little king is 8 weeks old and he is changing so much i feel i can hardly keep up sometimes!
noah continues to have more awake-time during the day and now spends much more of his time studying his surroundings and actually engaging with them. he is thoroughly enjoying his new bouncy chair and still enjoys spending time on his activity mat. he also has started enjoying books more and will now calm down and quietly listen while we read page after page of dr. seuss, shel silverstein or other classics -- the only exception is when he's hungry, and at that point the only thing that will calm him is a meal, of course. noah has also been gracing us with more and more of his little baby smiles, which are always a treat. this past week he also began to react to music, and now when he is fussy (usually in the evenings just before bedtime) we know that if we turn on the ipod and dance to some brad paisley, bruno mars, lady gaga or whatever else is playing he will calm right down. he doesn't seem to have a preference for anything just yet, so i'll have to keep you posted as his musical taste develops ;)
his other big news? he's gotten pretty good at rolling from his tummy to his back, especially when he's angry for some (i.e. any) reason. his neck muscles and arms have gotten much stronger, so now when he's upset and on his tummy he can push himself up and eventually ends up pushing off with his left hand and rolling over his right arm onto his back -- which just makes him more angry. sorry, noah! hopefully we'll get to the point soon where he doesn't have to be fussy to roll over! only once have i seen him roll himself over and not be upset about the whole process.
speaking of fussy, we did have a *very* fussy noah on our hands for a couple of days due to a not-so-good (in hindsight) decision on our part. as i mentioned in the previous post, noah's reflux seemed to be doing better on the zantac which made us very happy. but, being the greedy wanting-only-what's-best-for-our-child parents we are (and hoping that there would be less spit-up and more sleeping involved -- for all three of us) we made the decision to try noah on prevacid instead of zantac to see if it worked even better for him. the answer turned out to be a big fat NO. after two days on the prevacid noah was back to screaming his head off after feeds, regurgitating most of what he ate and not being able to sleep unless he was being held. it was a horrifying flash-back to his 3rd/4th week of life when he wasn't on any medication at all. matt and i took turns sleeping with him lying on our chests because he couldn't sleep any other way. when i realized our mistake we immediately switched him back to zantac (thank goodness we had a few more doses left and a refill was only a phone call away!) and things have been rosy ever since. the moral of the story? don't get greedy! if nothing else, the 24 hours we endured before we switched him back to zantac were an effective, yet cruel, reminder of how much better things are with the zantac, and that his occasional fussiness and spitting up were not nearly as bad as we had previously been thinking. i think it was God's way of showing us we should be thankful for the happy little boy we have and the wonders of modern medicine. amen!
since my last post i've also worked (read: endured) two weeks back at work. okay, so it wasn't that bad. the transition went about as smoothly as i could have wished and with my mom's assistance during daily "transitions" we've figured out a way to work opposite schedules and keep noah out of daycare -- yay! despite a rough couple of nights, matt and noah seemed to do pretty well without me here all night. i also survived being back in the ER, which i did miss, and was able to find time to pump (thanks to some very supportive coworkers!) so we can avoid having to put noah on formula. i think the roughest part for everyone was the fact that my first week back consisted of me working a horrible stretch of 4 out of 5 days: friday, saturday, monday and tuesday. needless to say, by wednesday i was *beat* and was having a really difficult time keeping up with noah's schedule. it was practically impossible for me to keep him awake and happy while i was ready to fall asleep standing up. fortunately, my new schedule does not require back-to-back-to-back shifts like that and i think it will be much easier for everyone. and, for those who are curious, i am still holding two jobs but i have not had the chance to work another shift at acute kids just yet. i'm not too worried about picking those up though, since they are shorter shifts and the pace is usually slower than the ER. and before you ask, i'm not sure how long i plan to keep both jobs but for right now i'm not planning on quitting either one. i guess i'll keep them both as long as noah will let me ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment