April Fools? Nope. This is really happening.

Dear Blog Readers,

I interrupt our back-dated blogging updates to bring you some breaking news.  April has only been here for 5 days, and yet, we have 3 milestones to report.  Yes, THREE!

First, Weston can now roll from his back to his tummy.  He has been doing this in parts … from back to side and side to tummy … for awhile now, but a few days ago, he mastered it and can do it in one "umph"!  A couple weeks ago he also started pulling his knees in during tummy time and a few times has done it while also fully pushed up on his arms. Our little guy is going to be mobile before we know it! 

Second, he has slept in his crib all-night!  Which does not yet equate to sleeping through the night, but its a huge step!  He did it for the first time on April 1 and I seriously thought it was going to be his April Fools joke, but he did the same thing the next night too.  Yay Weston!  I contribute this milestone 98% to being able to roll onto his tummy! I put him down and he does his "umph move" and rolls immediately onto his tummy. He is also taking longer naps and going down faster in his crib than before. Yay!  Makes for a happier (and more rested) baby and a happier (and more productive) mommy.  The remaining 2% I attribute to our work over the last 6 weeks to establish a sleep routine to make the transition from the family bed (*if you're interested in our experience, see below) to his crib. We always rock in the green chair in his room and do some sort of combination of eating, reading and singing.  Now that he knows what's coming, he is fighting sleep less! 

Last but not least, he has his FIRST TOOTH!!!  I felt it for the first time just an hour ago. His front, bottom, (his) left tooth has just barely broken through the skin.  Hopefully this will give him some relief.  Poor kiddo has been teething for well over a month now and we only realized it about 2 weeks ago.  He's only 4.5 months old and we thought it was too early for teething.  But at our 4 mo appt in mid-March, the doctor said his gums were a little swollen.  A few days later some of the other moms in our playgroup were talking about how their kids had pulled at their ears or head and that they had found that the teething tablets had really helped.  I decided to try them out because at times Weston just attacks his poor little face and does his best impression of a rock-n-roll front man scream (imagine the one from "Who Are You" by the Who) … and man have they made all the difference in the world!  He is much more comfortable and less restless.  We had a rough couple of weeks of frequent screaming fits and restlessness and I couldn't figure out what it was.  It was definitely the teething and giving him the tablets every 6 hours really helped! A MUCH happier camper. And he's a champ at taking the medicine, maybe because he also enjoys the accompanying gum rub. 

Everyone always says that they grow and change so quickly but this is like warp-speed! Each new development is so exciting, but its always also a little bit sad to realize the change.  I'm trying my hardest to soak in each moment with him, I want to remember as much as I can!  I know that many of you, especially you family and friends who live far away, want to get to see him grow and we are so thankful to know that there are so many people who love our little family!  Now that Weston is sleeping more on his own, I hope to get caught up on the last two months and do more timely updates on the blog in the future.  We've got some great pictures to share and hopefully I can get some of our videos up here too!  Sorry for the super-long post without pictures.  If you've made it this far, you deserve a cupcake!

*Weston has been sharing our bed since he was born.  We didn't go into this planning on a family bed, but we have a finicky sleeper and it is what worked best for us … meaning more sleep for everyone!  You'll find lots of different opinions out there about the family bed and I've had a few people really warn that it was a bad idea, but it worked out really well for us.  I believe, as with most other things that come to being a new parent, that each family has to make their own choice for what works best for them and their baby.  For all those soon to be moms, here is our experience with it.  Hopefully it will help!  In our family, Tim is a deep sleeper, so he was able to continue to get a pretty good nights rest (and also at first, when there isn't much difference between night and day, he was able to participate in those night wakings and was a HUGE help to me!)  I am a light sleeper and have been able to nurse and tend to Weston in a timely manner, which meant that there were many nights (after the first month or so) that he didn't even get to the point of crying to tell me what he needed. I learned which moves meant that he was hungry and which meant he needed to burp, etc. It was very convenient to nurse him as we were both able to remain lying down and could continue resting.  I have also been sleeping with a teddy bear ;) for the majority of my life, so it was very natural for me to cradle Weston next to me and hold the covers so that he was safe from suffocation hazards! The bonding part is also probably obvious, but we, all three of us (well 4 if you count Charlie the cat too!), have enjoyed the closeness and cuddling … some of my favorite moments with him so far have been our morning "talks" … I've captured a few on video and am working on being able to share them on the blog.  Priceless moments!  So, in my opinion, the family bed was a good experience for us and if we get to have more kiddos, I would definitely consider it again if it helped everyone in our family to get some good sleep!