Random Stuff

I'm mostly writing this post as a way to try to organize my thoughts, which are swirling around like crazy in my head. This week, in general, has been crazy. My to-do lists at work and at home are miles long, and I feel like every 5 minutes I remember something else to add to one of them. Meanwhile, very little is getting crossed off. Too much to do + too little time + lack of focus and organization = an extremely unproductive week. Here is what I'm currently obsessing over and/or wondering about and/or needing to research in terms of babies and parenting:

• Teeth. Nathan's first tooth finally poked through the gums a bit this past weekend (yay!) so now I'm worried about biting and what this means for nursing. I know you can nurse with teeth, and there are ways to teach babies not to bite. But I feel like (as with everything else) there is a lot of conflicting advice, and I just don't have the time or the energy to sort through it all to figure out what to do. It hasn't happened yet, but I want to be prepared for when it does.
• Sleep. Now that the first tooth is out, Nathan isn't screaming all night long anymore. But he is still all over the place with sleep in general. One night he slept straight through, without a peep, for 9 solid hours. I actually woke up to my alarm clock that next morning! Then, last night, he woke up 4-5 times just between bedtime and 1:45 a.m., and then slept until 5:30. I'm trying to gauge when he is awake because something is wrong, when he is awake because he is truly hungry (which I don't think is often), and when/for how long to let him fuss and see if he'll go back to sleep. I feel like there must be a line between "sleep training" and needing to intervene because something is wrong (hungry from not enough calories or in pain from teething or leaky diaper). I just don't know where the line is, and also, I'm tired.
• Solid food & nursing. We're doing both still, and I want to keep it up as long as possible (up to his first birthday is a "loose" goal but we'll see). We started solids a couple weeks ago when he was about 5 1/2 months. The original plan was to start at 6 months, but I'm going on a business trip next week when he will actually be 6 months, and the week after that we're on vacation. I didn't want to start in the midst of all that, and waiting until we get home from it all wasn't looking like a good option because he was clearly showing signs of being ready and needing more calories. It's actually been going really well, and I'm having fun making his food and watching him learn new tastes and textures. But we're struggling with the schedule and amounts for both food and milk. Again, there is a lot of conflicting advice out there. In general, I feel like he should still be getting the same overall volume of breastmilk every day (between bottles and nursing), even if the number of actual sessions has dropped. Also, a lot of advice says to offer milk first and then food, but if we do that, he doesn't ever really want the food. At the same time, I don't want him to get dehydrated, so I'm trying to make sure he doesn't go too long (at least during the day) between bottles or nursing. It's all just very complicated and is kind of stressing me out more than it probably should.

There's probably more, but those are the top 3 things I'm pondering at the moment. I feel a little better putting it all down in this post. I know things will work out one way or another, and I realize my stress levels are making the situation worse than it needs to be. So in light of that, I'll close on a happy note with this sneak peak from his 6-month photo shoot:

My sweet boy :)