Mr. Baby
It seems like I’m always writing about Byron being sick or keeping me up all night. That is just a teeny tiny fraction of what Byron is like. Byron is sooooo much fun! He is the sweetest little baby and he likes to laugh and have a good time with me. He is learning things every single day and it is truly amazing watching his personality unfold. He has what we call these “silly moods” where every thing me or Ruben does is really funny to him. Those moods are becoming more frequent, I think that is just his personality, he is such a clown. We have so much fun all day together.
At our last doctors app the dr told us to lay off all the toys we bought him (like his jumpers and walkers) that it would interfere with his learning how to walk. Boo! But we obliged so we have been hanging out on the floor a lot playing with toys and trying to learn how to crawl. I put all his toys in a basket and then let him take them out and play. Here are some pics…
*** PS. No Byron is still not sleeping through the night but he’s not waking up at 3am and then not going back to sleep either. He wakes up about twice a night still but he goes right back to sleep when he’s done eating like a good baby. I can handle getting up a couple times during the night, how can you resist this guy?
Night Owl
Byron wakes up max twice a night. I consider it a bad night if he wakes up two times. A good night is waking up at 5am and then again at 7-7:30. Thursday Byron redefined bad night. He got to bed a little later than usual. Ruben and I had been making a huge effort to have the baby in bed by 8pm. Bath and bed. On Thursday he didn’t go to bed until 9pm.
The first time he woke up was at 11:30. I chalked it up to irresponsible parenting, he was protesting his late bed time. But he did go back to sleep. Well he woke up again at 1am!! Not good. I did our drill, get out of bed, nurse him, put him back to sleep. The boy was wide awake. Usually when I put him back in his crib he goes right back to sleep, maybe with a little protest but he does fall asleep. So it’s 1am, baby is wide awake. I rock, I sing, I nurse some more, before I know it an hour has gone by. Really not good. It’s not our thing to let the baby “cry it out”. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s where your baby cries himself to sleep. The idea is that the baby learns how to self sooth and can put himself to sleep if he wakes up in the middle of the night. It’s effective if you’re consistent, not that I would know because it’s also super sad. Ruben and I both agree that for us “crying it out” is not an option. The alternative you ask? Staying up with your baby and coaxing him back to sleep however you can. So there we were folks, awake with our little baby. We tried everything to help Byron go back to sleep. EVERYTHING!! He was not having it. To make a long story short Byron was awake and didn’t go back to sleep until 6am. And then to add insult to injury he woke up at 7:30, we don’t usually wake up until 8am. We were so tired and poor Ruben had to go to work. Not our best night.
Ruben and I both thought Byron was probably teething but to be cautious I made him a dr’s appointment. I have a little cold and we wanted to make sure he wasn’t sick or getting sick especially on a friday. So I scheduled a sick visit. Well our little Byron is the picture of health with the exception of a slightly runny nose, prob from crying the night before. The doctor told me he was not sick and he wasn’t teething. The dr said that Byron had probably had a bad dream and didn’t want to go back to sleep because he was scared. WHAT?!?!?! I was pretty skeptical in the dr office I didn’t even try to hide it. I asked him to repeat himself ( I was sleep deprived I thought I had misheard him) and then I asked if he was serious. He explained that Byron hadn’t necessarily had a scary dream but that it could have been an action dream and when he woke up not where he was in his sleep, but in his crib, he got scared and didn’t want to go back to sleep, so he kept himself awake. He then told me to get some over the counter Zyrtec and give Byron 1/2 tsp. This would clear up Byron’s stuffy nose and make him drowsy.
So…I left the doc’s office with permission to drug my sweet baby to sleep and the need to get a second opinion. I didn’t do it, either of them. I tried to wrap my head around the idea that maybe Byron really did have a bad dream. We are relieved that Byron wasn’t sick. I’m not sure why Byron decided to stay up all night. I think it has something to do with us interrupting his routine. Shame on us!! That night I was really excited to give Byron some zyrtec. I checked out the side effects online and it didn’t involve risk of split personality or heart attack. But Rube said no. Actually, he said hell no woman, are you crazy! He objects to giving your infant drugs just to put him to sleep, doctor’s permission or not. Party pooper!
Byron’s first playdate
Byron and I went to our first playdate last Thursday. It was super fun. My friend Melissa invited us to a babydate at her house. I didn’t really know what that was but I knew it would involve babies and getting out of the house. That was all I needed to hear, I was in. So me and Byron made brownies the night before and went on our merry way on Thursday morning. Melissa’s house is across town so we left an hour early cause we were so excited!!! Here are some pics of a babyday.
I think Byron enjoyed our play date, however I think it was funnest for the moms. The babies were not too impressed with each other. Byron got poked a lot and there was a lot of toy stealing. We stayed for almost two hours and then all the babies one by one started pooping out and getting cranky and fussy. Byron was one of the last, that’s my boy!!! Overall I had a blast and it is something we will definitely do again if we are invited. Afterward we had lunch with grandma, greatgrandpa Butcher and aunt Erica. That was fun!!!! Here 
are some pics.
