Levi: Week 37 Summary

This is a summary for Levi's 37th week, August 17-23. We arrived back from our vacation to Pensacola on August 19, so most of this past week was spent recuperating from that!  It was a difficult one, but I had prepared myself for that!

FEEDING
Nursing continued last week, but it was still a huge struggle. Levi was still distracted like crazy, he would latch and unlatch, and then he wouldn't eat for more than about 5-10 minutes from only one side (same as last week). It was getting to be a bit [a lot] frustrating, so I decided to exclusively pump for him for a few days and see how he did with a bottle. The first day, he didn't care for the bottle much--it took him 10-15 minutes to drink a few ounces. By day four of pumping and bottle feeding, he was a pro! He would drink 4 ounces in about 3 minutes, flat. Unfortunately, I just couldn't pump as much as he wanted, and having to pump every 2-3 hours and then actually feed Levi every 4 hours was just getting to be exhausting--but that's an update for next week :)

Solid feeding is going great! Levi is very adventurous and pretty much likes everything I offer him. He is really loving store-bought food. We had some leftover from our trip that we used for the rest of the week. I think he likes the texture of it--it is a bit thinner and less chunky then my homemade food is--and the flavors of them are much more complex than mine.

Here is what he is eating everyday at this point (he nurses/bottle feeds before every meal):
Breakfast (7:30 am): 3-4 oz oatmeal mixed with 2-3 tsp applesauce
Lunch (11:30 am): 2 oz veggie + 2 oz fruit + 1 oz plain yogurt mixed with cinnamon (if he is still hungry)
Snack (3:30 pm): Fruit puffs or other finger foods
Dinner (6 pm): 2 oz veggie + 2 oz fruit + finger foods + yogurt (if he is still hungry)

NAPS
Levi's naps were still sporadic and short the days following our arrival home, but they did get more back on track and longer as the week went on. He'll usually take a 1-2 hour nap in the morning, a 1.5-2 hour nap in the afternoon, and a 30-60 minute nap in the early evening. Luckily (knock on wood), he seems to be past waking up at the 45 minute point and can easily roll from back-to-tummy and tummy-to-back now, so he is no longer frustrated by that anymore!

NIGHTTIME
Every night this week, Levi woke around 3 or 4 am. Considering he went to bed around 7 or 7:30 every evening, he did sleep a long stretch every night. I wasn't surprised by this (it always happens when we get back from a trip) and he didn't really seem to be hungry. I just nursed him for 3-5 minutes, put him right back to bed and he would sleep until at least 7 am. Maybe by next week things will be back to "normal" :)

WAKE TIME
This is usually still anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2 hours after he wakes in the morning or after his nap. I've noticed this length gets longer as the day goes on.

His favorite toys are now a Winnie the Pooh "laptop" he brought home with us from Pensacola, his Mickey Mouse stuffed animal (he loves to chew on his tail), his buffalo pillow pet, and especially his Jumperoo! He jumps non-stop for several minutes at a time now--good exercise for sure.

WONDER WEEK
Levi was especially grouchy, whiny, and clingy all week! At first, I thought it was from just being so tired from vacation (and I'm sure a certain amount of it was), but when it continued even far into the week, I knew something different was going on. Literally, he would start whining from the time he finished eating to the time he went down for his naps--which is totally unlike him! I went on the Wonder Weeks website, because it has been a while since his last one and sure enough, it was spot on. Fortunately, he's over that now and I've seen some new developments with him...that's for next week's post.

OUTINGS/EVENTS
Nothing much in this area from last week! Oh, Briana did come to visit for a day as she was passing through on her way to Ohio! It was short, but nice to see her. She hadn't seen Levi in a few months, so she had fun seeing how much he had changed. We stayed home for most of the day and then just took a short trip to Starbucks and Babies R' Us (exhilarating, I know) and went for a walk in the evening.

Brian started class this week as well, so we are trying to get back into the swing of things with his school and work schedule. Other than that, we didn't do much else!

Until next week!