Change is hard

Someone asked why I decided to unswaddle Guppy.  Really, there is no good reason to keep swaddling him.  My baby boy is a week shy of 6 months, and he still takes measly 30 minutes naps.  Additionally, he wakes a lot at night too.  The whole purpose of swaddling is to help a baby settle down and sleep longer.  Since the swaddling obviously wasn't helping Guppy sleep, I decided to just get rid of the damn blanket.

Things have improved somewhat, but they are still not great.  I can now transfer Guppy from my arm to the swing without waking him.  When he does awaken during the transfer, I have to turn on the swing to get him to settle back down. But for most of his naps, I can just sit him in the swing without turning it on.  For some strange reason he wakes up whenever I lay him down in his crib.  So, we are still working on this one.

Not wanting to stress everyone out too much, I decided to work on naps first and then move on to bedtime.  It was my intention to start unswaddling at night this week, but my baby boy is suffering through a nasty cold right now.  I think I'll wait until he is feeling better before I unswaddle him at night.

When guppy is completely unswaddled and his sleeping has returned to normal, I want to move him to his crib in his own bedroom.  After all, my baby boy is getting big.  I want him out of my bed before he can crawl.

So, that is why I unswaddled my wee little babe.

Unswaddled and Unhinged

My baby has been sleeping horribly lately.  I woke up on Wednesday morning exhausted and ready for a change.  I decided to unswaddle him for his naps COLD TURKEY.  And now?  I feel like the world's biggest failure, because I cannot get my baby to nap.  He will go to sleep easily, but he wakes up during the transfer from arms to crib EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  It has to get better - right?  I know that I've done this before, but for the life of me I cannot remember how I made it happen.  Let's look at how cute he is, so that I have motivation to keep trying...

Look at that chubby face!  He is so fun to nibble and kiss and squeeze!  I guess we'll keep him;)

Baby led weaning?

I am strongly leaning toward baby led weaning with Guppy.  We largely did finger foods with Izzy, and he is the world's best eater.  Seriously, that child will eat anything you put in front of him.  My daughter, who I spoon fed mush, is the world's pickiest eater (That isn't enitrely true.  She will eat almost anything NOW, but we struggled for years to get to this point.).  So, my past experiences have led me to believe that letting babies feed themselves will result in more adventurous eaters. 

I am actually very excited to start solids with Guppy.  He has been nursing ALL THE FREAKING TIME lately.  My baby boy can barely make it 2 hours without nursing during the day.  And by that point, he is starving.  I know I have a good milk supply, because he is a chunky little monkey.  I think he just needs something more substantial to fill his little belly.  Izzy had lots of tummy issues as a baby, so I want to play it safe with Guppy and wait until that magic 6 month mark before beginning solids.  And besides, I want my baby to stay little and newborn-like for as long as possible.  Why do my children keep growing up so darn fast?