New addition to the menu

I just couldn't resist! he had found his feet a few weeks ago, but this morning he decided to taste his big toe!

Sleep last night was a bit better again, mostly it's me that still can't have a good night sleep. If I wake up, I'm done. For hours. Not sure what's up with me either! At least I don't cry...

I have started two days ago a detox plan for my liver/gallbladder and friends. I really never had problems till after the pregnancy. I blame all the hormones I took like candies for the last few years. So I have a nagging pain on the right, just under my ribcage. I won't deny it, a few times I gave in to hypochondria and thought I had something terrible and lethal. It's more likely to be an overly stressed gallbladder (so I read anyway). Water with a few drops of lemon is one of my best friend. And I bought this utterly expensive herbal mix. I want to be in good shape if I'm going for treatments again in September!

Very quiet blogland lately, but my dear blogger-friend C just had fantastic news as she'll post it herself very soon! I forgot to mention I met her last week and then again this week too! Shame she'll be leaving Ireland for good in just a couple of weeks, but that's always how it happens isn't it? Anyway, if you come to Dublin know that I'll be thrilled to meet you, never doubt that, so if you are up for it just give me a shout!

I said it too soon...

Of course I should have known better...we are back to getting up every hour or two. Let's hope it'll settle for real soon!

Getting better!

Thank you for your kind comments my friends, it's good to know it's not only happening to us and that it's a phase. Yes he's definitely working towards sitting up on his own and to rolling back on his back, so it may well be that the cause of the interrupted sleep.

Nearly as soon as I read your comments, we decided not to go in Oliver's room any more (unless the crying escalates) and miraculously for the last three nights we had almost a full night sleep! He still makes his noises but they seem to be less intense. We found him a few times 180° turned in the bed, he must have worked out how not to get stuck halfway. He seems to be much happier to sleep on his tummy also, and must have learned to roll back (maybe while rotating!) as in the morning he's always on his back.

He seems to be back to his old self, when he wakes up in the morning he's happy to chat to himself and play with the soft toys he has in the bed.

So thanks so much for sharing and I hope it'll settle for your child too if you are still experiencing it!

Sleeping problems

Oliver will be 29 weeks tomorrow and I am not sure what's happening but his sleeping routine is gone out the window. First I thought it was because we were on holidays, then maybe it took sometime to readjust but nope, our dream boy who slept through the night since he was a few weeks old has started waking up possibly every 2 hours...

He has a nap in the morning, of various length (30 mins- 1 hour) then he has a long nap in the afternoon (1.30-2hrs) and then goes to bed as he has always done around 8-8.30 pm. He sleeps solidly till about 11pm when he cries a bit and we call it "a soother emergency", you go up, give him the soother and that's all that's needed. Till a month ago, you wouldn't hear him till 7am in the morning, when he would wake up happily chatting to himself and didn't need attention for about another hour. It was great going. Now he cries for a bit before sleeping, nothing major, no drama, doesn't really need anything a part from the soother and he's asleep within 10-15 minutes from going to bed. And then the occasional waking up starts. First it was because he may have rotated in the bed, getting stuck sideways. Then it was because he may have rolled over onto his belly and couldn't get back on his back. But now it's just waking up crying (not an upset cry, just a nagging one) you go in, he's not stuck anywhere, give him his soother, and back out to bed. After a couple of hours it happens again. And again. And again. Maybe he's warm, maybe he's cold, maybe he's thirsty/hungry, maybe he has a sore tummy, maybe he's teething...I have no idea.

Any tips or comforting thoughts? A part from this he's the usual sweet baby, eats happily (chicken too!) and plays. I'm running out of things to try... I had read somewhere that as they grow to this age, the World during the day is so interesting that they don't want to give it up at night, can this be it?

6 months check-up and 28 weeks!

We have nicely settled back into our routine and Oliver is doing very well. No particular reaction to the vaccines (the 4 months shots were definitely worse) and we had a nice weekend.

Some more work was done to the attic (yes I know, still not finished!) and we changed all the windows too to triple glazed, high efficiency ones.

AF also made her appearance over the weekend and I hope to be back on track for September.

During the week I brought Oliver to the paed for a routine 6 month check up and he did very well. He's growing in weight (8kg!) and hight (67cm) which according to online calculators means he's between the 25 and 50 percentile so I'm very happy with that as he's on track, in fact probably getting closer to the 50%. Paed was very happy with developmental progress and said he can now eat everything he likes including eggs and meat. Nice!

I think he's getting much stronger in his upper body and can sit almost by himself (still needs a bit of support for balance) and rolling is now a very common thing. Still, he can't roll back and he gets frustrated when on his tummy for too long. My little man is 28 weeks today!

Oliver's best friend at the moment is Carlito. Carlito is our kitten and he loves licking and chewing Oliver's fingers! Oliver doesn't seem to mind (most of the times!) and could spend ours looking at the cats playing and caressing them. I closely supervise this, I don't want him to be too rough with the cats and of course he still doesn't have a clear idea of the fact that pinching is NOT ok!

Finally I bought another gadget... this is a kitchen robot which cooks as well as mixing! I love it! It was seriously expensive but I think I'll use it a lot and it's great also for baby food. Mom has it since Christmas and praises it on a daily bases. I've made pizza, bread, risotto and tiramisu, all super yummy!

Holidays recap

We flew to my home town on the 17th of June and we went to the seaside on the Riviera from the 19th to the 30th. Flight was great, and after a day of adjustment to the heat and fuss of the grandparents Oliver was the usual happy baby.

The highlight of the seaside stay was the pool! Oliver absolutely loved it (in fact more than the sea I think!) and the time he spent kicking his legs got longer and longer. The last day we actually went to the big pool rather than the baby one and again it was a hit!

Of course the next best thing for him was the gorgeous juicy fruit he was able to flavour while on holidays...peaches, apricots, melons and cherries! Yes we can find them here to, but honestly there's no comparison.

A few developmental milestones were reached while on holidays. He rolled over at around 25 weeks for the first time unassisted woohoo! And now he does it all the time! He found his feet and we discovered that he also loves to shower. This is very handy as he can shower with me and it's quicker and less messy than a bath. On the food side we introduced cheese which, as he has Italian genes, he absolutely loves and we tried chicken for the first time. Not quite a favourite just yet though.

Elimination Communication is going great, I feel I can really recommend it, at least try! Oliver seems to be truly delighted and I actually now have the impression he waits to go to the loo to do his business!

After the seaside time we moved to the hills (Apennines) where my parents have a place and we regrouped with my granny who was there too. Of course no real pool there but we got one of those inflatable ones and it did the trick. He also turned 6 months on the 1st of July!

It was a very long holidays and I didn't have a connection most of the time, but when I did I checked on you girls (by the way, if you can, activate the mobile settings, it's fantastic for reading blogs on the iphone without having to fiddle with the screen). My heart was broken when I read about Misfit Mrs. devastating (yet again) news.

And I'm glad to be back home and would you believe it, AF is late (like 5 days late) and if it wasn't for the fact that I'm tubeless and had no sex for 3 weeks I would almost think I'm pregnant. The last time I was this late I was dreading being pregnant in my teens! Anyway, hopefully it won't be too long or it'll upset the September plans!

Tomorrow Oliver will be 27 weeks and he got his 6 months jabs today...poor baby, 3 injections this time!! But he was quite good, getting fussy now though.

A few pics of the holidays till next time!

On the beach

In the baby pool with my dad and me

In the baby pool with me

with my mom

in the big pool!

the inflatable pool in the patio

eating granny's legendary pizza!

I'm back!

My friends I've missed you all so much! We flew back yesterday and we settling back into our routine which, as you can imagine, was quite different when we were in Italy! I've so much to catch up and to update, I'm hoping to do so tomorrow.

I'm glad to be back in blogland!