So This Is Sitting
Henry took one of those huge steps (well, without actually stepping) late last week when he decided it was time to start sitting on his own. Suddenly, the world took on a whole new, wonderful perspective.
This, of course, meant several things. First, Kristen and I now are hovering around him more than we have in the past several months. At first, when he was only weeks old, we stared at him constantly, watching every breath, every arm move, every yawn. (Somewhat graphic image here, but when he was only a couple of weeks old, and Kristen off at the grocery store, I had to use the bathroom. So I put him in the bassinet and rolled him to the bathroom door so I could keep an eye on him as I did my business.)
As he got older, I was able to walk away from time to time and leave him be for a minute or so as he played on his mat as I would do dishes or make a sandwich. (Of course, any strange yelp or coo would bring me running back to him.) And when we got him his excersaucer, we were able to let him play on his own for even longer, ignoring him letting him be for 5 minutes without too much worry.
But now, he can sit. This is a terrific thing (and, frankly, he’s never been cuter), but has caused us to be within arm’s reach at all times because, as much as Henry is a sitter extraordinaire, he also is quite good at losing his balance and tumbling to the ground. (I have to admit, it’s kind of cute when he falls over, although we always catch him before he hits the rug.)
Another thing is that Henry’s gone a little bonkers. Suddenly, the world looks different and things are much closer and much easier to grab and put into his mouth (always priority number one), and his brain is firing on all cylinders. Because of this, getting him down for naps has become a challenge. There’s a lot more rocking, a lot more singing, a lot more jiggling. Of course, once he’s asleep, he’s out for two hours (or more) because he’s exhausted.
Even worse is at night. Where once he’d sleep either through the night or at most wake up only once, now it’s back to how it was his first few weeks: every two hours. This is, to say the least, brutal. At midnight, the moans start. Then at 2:30. Then at 5:00. And then, a short hour later, he’s up for the day. We’ve taken to bringing him into bed with us in the middle of the night and letting him sleep with us.
I’m not a big fan of co-sleeping. I constantly worry that I’m going to roll over on him or some pillow is going to fall on his face. And because of this, when he’s in bed with us, I tend to only half sleep. For Kristen, it’s much easier for her to feed him, but it also means a baby who happens to have a brain going nutso is constantly waking up and shimmying over to one of us (I say shimmy because he’s swaddled), poking his face in ours, and talking for what seems like hours.
They say this won’t last long, that he’ll soon go back to sleeping how he was a month ago, and we can’t wait for this. For as much as we love him sitting up and playing, we are running on fumes.
God help us when he starts to crawl.
