Levi: Week 27 Summary

This is a reflection on Levi's 27th week; the good, the bad and the ugly.

FEEDING
This week Levi still struggled with nursing. And maybe struggled isn't the word. He is just going through a major transition. Instead of nursing for 40 minutes like he has his entire life, he is now down to about 15 minutes. Yes, it is great to have that extra time and for him to be a quick eater now, but it has taken me a lot to see that. I've always been so used to knowing he was full right around the 40 minute mark, so it's taken quite the psychological shift to realize that now that has dramatically decreased. I have to just trust that he is full when he just won't latch anymore--and he really fights me on this! And for the most part, all week, with his 5 15-minute nursing sessions plus 2 solid meals per day, he has kept his 3-3.5 hour schedule without issue. I've just come to terms with the fact that I have to trust him to know that he is full, now that solids have entered the picture.

Solids this week (breakfast, lunch):
06/08- Weekend. Pretty sure I fed him something, I just never recorded it.
06/09- Same as above.
06/10- 0.5 oz pureed pears, 0.75 oz pureed peas and BLW with 1 slice sweet potato
06/11- 1.5 oz pureed pears
06/12- 0.3 oz pureed pears and 1 oz rice cereal, 1.25 oz pureed carrots and BLW with 1 slice sweet potato and 1 kiwi
06/13- 1.5 oz rice cereal and 0.5 oz bananas, 1.25 oz pureed carrots and BLW with 1 slice sweet potato and 1 kiwi
06/14- 2 oz rice cereal mixed with 2 tsp of pureed banana

I tried feeding him rice cereal again this week (the last time he was 4.5 months old) and he seemed to really enjoy it (unlike last time)! I'll probably start mixing it with various fruits for his breakfast, so that he can get some more grains in his diet. The two days he had both sweet potato and kiwi, the first day he devoured the kiwi and the second day he couldn't get enough sweet potato.

NAPS
Levi's naps were fairly uneventful this week. We did have some more rolling over issues, but only a handful of times. Otherwise, he went down easily and without crying! He really got attached to his blankie this week. Every time I would put him down in his crib, he would lift his arms up and wait for me to put his blanket in his arms. He loves to immediately cover his face with it in order to get himself to sleep!

WAKE TIME
Levi was able to extend his afternoon wake times to about 1.5 hours this week, as long as he got a good morning nap in! One day I tried putting him down at the 1 hour and 40 minute mark, just to see what would happen, and it took him about 30 minutes to fall asleep (as opposed to his normal 5-10 minutes). So obviously, he isn't ready for that yet. His first wake time still varies from 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes.

His sleepiness cues have now evolved into him screeching at a very high pitch, around his eyes getting very red, and him yawning.

NIGHTTIME
Most nights this week, Levi slept his normal 10 or so hours. And most of the times he woke in the night were because he had rolled over. For his 6 AM-ish feeding, I started nursing him for only 5 minutes tops. I realized he wasn't very hungry for his first feeding of the day anymore and figured it was because he was eating too much at his early morning feeding. He is doing better with that now.

WONDER WEEK
When I first heard about the concept of "wonder week", I thought it was a bunch of crap. But I really think we experienced it last week. Wonder Week is the idea that many babies experience a week of crying, crankiness and clinginess because in the week following they will undergo a mental growth spurt; there are 10 of these times total in a babies first 20 months of life and all happen at relatively set times. Well last week Levi had one! I believe it was wonder week #5, according to the website. He was uncharacteristically cranky (to the point where even Brian noticed) and he would cry every time I put him down, for no apparent reason at all. But this week (week 28), he is back to his normal happy self and it seems he has aged significantly in just a short number of days--but I'll explain that in next week's post.

DIAPERING
I've been researching cloth diapers for WEEKS now and Levi finally tried his first ones out last week! We reached the last box of disposable diapers that we received for his showers, so it was time to make a decision if we were going to continue to buy them or invest in cloth. We decided to go for the cloth! It was a scary choice, but I'm really happy we made it! We bought 4 diapers to begin with: 2 BumGenius 4.0's and 2 GDiapers. Both were very different styles, so we hoped that would help us determine which brand we should buy more of. Once we use them more next week, we should have a better answer on that!

OUTINGS/EVENTS
Towards the end of Levi's 27th week, we went camping with him for the first time! We rented a cabin in the Red River Gorge (Eastern KY) with our friends Ethan and Anna. It was so much fun and Levi was exceptionally cheerful the entire time! Seriously, he did great! We took him hiking each day and he handled it like a trooper--only had one meltdown total. This trip definitely confirmed that his current age (6.5 months) is our favorite! He is so fun.

Below are some pictures of our trip: