I don’t really remember at which point we stopped describing Austin’s age in “weeks” and started using “months”; but ever since then, it’s gotten a bit tricky to keep track of which week we are on!

Austin turned 4 months on February 9th, and we’re right smack dab in the middle of week 19 now, and as per usual, I don’t know where the time is going. We’ve had a busy morning today at the specialists office to find out what the best approach was for Austin’s shots. They’ve referred us over to a different hospital to receive the shots in hospital and under full-day observation, so it looks like Austin-from-Boston (lol – newest nickname in rotation and cracks me up every time) will be getting his shots in the next few weeks which will be a big relief.

Lots has been going on around here in the past few weeks….

Leap 4 

Leap 4, the 4 month regression, whatever you want to call it, this thing sucked and sucked BIG time. Thankfully our little Austin Possum managed it really well, all things considered, and we only had one extremely tough week (here’s lookin’ at you  week 17).

During week 17, my poor little baby was just inconsolable most of the day, refused point blank to nap and really didn’t want to do anything except walk around the house with either Matt or I (and even that didn’t do the trick sometimes….sheesh). We had a couple of brutal nights too where we were back to being up every 3 hours or less, and even one night where he took a full feed in the middle of the night which was very odd as he hasn’t done that in quite a while. We kind of worked up to this point starting in week 16 when he was starting to wake up a couple of times a night because his soother had come out of his mouth and he wanted it back.

I was gearing up for the long haul with the regression, but it SEEMS anyways that we’ve come out the other side of it, at least for now! Austin is back to his sunny, smiley self during the days, and it’s a “bad” night if we have to get up once or twice to replace his soother  (which, of course, isn’t bad at all!).

Naps are still a challenge for us (nap schedule? WTF is that?), but that’s nothing new and has been going on since he was born! I thiiiiiinnnnkkk you could say that on average he takes three naps a day: one arouuunnnnd mid-late morning, one arouuuuunnnnddd the lunch hour / early afternoon, and one arouuuuunnnnd early / mid evening. I say this very skeptically, and very tentatively, if you couldn’t read into that 😉 Little man basically does as he pleases as far as naps go, and I’m not stressing about it. Believe me, it’s the only thing I’m not stressing about lol. I’ve read lots of articles and even purchased one sleep training program back when Austin was only about 6 weeks old, and they insist (INSIST) on these extremely rigid nap schedules during  the day being critical to a full nights sleep (I’m talking, wake your baby within 5 minutes of the allotted napping time being over if they’re still sleeping, which just seems crazy to me). Matt and I haven’t done a damn thing in terms of regulating Austin’s sleep / nap schedule, and our little possum seems to have figured it out for the most part completely on his own, so we’re going to leave well enough alone and I guess just thank our lucky stars!

Milestones

We’re chugging along over here, and it is so much fun to watch Austin grow and discover new things and new abilities literally every single day! Ever since his big rolling spree a few weeks back, he hasn’t rolled completely over either way again, but he loves to roll from his back to his side and does this about a hundred times a day lol he’s also great at pushing right up onto his hands now from his tummy and will usually hang out like that for several minutes squirming with this lower body trying to move before he gets frustrated. I was reading that some babies just aren’t into crawling and will go straight from the ground to some form of walking, but I can tell that Austin will be a crawler (god help us all), because his little legs are already so busy trying to get his knees under him!!

The latest and greatest thing that he started doing towards the end of week 18 was grabbing his feet when he’s laying on his back! It’s hilarious and just cracks me up whenever he does it (which is a lot now!). He normally beams at me when he grabs his feet, and I now truly understand where the “happy baby” yoga pose comes from! 🙂

The next big gross motor skill that we’ve been working hard on is sitting up! Austin has been doing great with this, and now when I offer him my fingers while he’s lying on his back, I can pull him up to sitting with relatively little force, and he can stay sitting on his own while holding onto my fingers pretty well most of the time! He is so funny when he sits up, he normally lets his mouth gape open as he looks around like “well THIS is a new way to see the world!”, it just warms my heart. We still have lots of work to do before he can sit up on his own, but we’ll get there!

Out & About

I’ve been doing a little better at getting out of the house with Austin the past 2 weeks and I think it’s been good for us to get out and moving a little bit for sure.

We’re still right in the middle of this vicious cold and flu season, and I’m still completely OCD, carrying around hand sanitizer and all-but drinking the stuff before I touch Austin, but so far (BIG knock on wood), we’ve all managed to stay healthy. I know my friends and family think I’m crazy and poke fun at me for insisting that they wash & sanitize their hands before they touch Austin or come into our house, but to be blunt, I really don’t give a damn. These aren’t small stakes that we’re gambling with, and I would rather be safe than sorry, so I’ll take all the ribbing, as long as you do it while soaping up to your elbows in my bathroom sink, mmmmmkay? 🙂

We have a few weeks left of our nursery rhyme class Tickles ‘n Tales, and then we actually start swimming lessons the week of March 19th! I’m totally freaked about germs etc for this, but am just kicking that can down the road as future Sara’s problem to deal with. I’m also planning to sign us up for a sensory art class that starts in May! I’ve heard great reviews about this one, and am excited for it!

It’s a little tough for Austin and I to get out to a lot of the drop-in programs because most of them are reasonably early in the morning, and since Austin goes to bed around 9pm – 9:30pm, he normally isn’t up and awake for the day until about 10am, meaning we’ve missed the start time for most of the morning programs, or there’s no chance that we would make it there in time. One in particular I was really interested in was a program where you bring your babies (or toddlers) over to a retirement residence and have song / dance hour with the residents! Apparently it’s a real hit and the babies / residents all get a kick out of it. I’m really hopeful that maybe as Austin gets a bit older we’ll be able to shift his bedtime earlier and hopefully get out to some of those programs before the end of the year.

My Recovery

The usual roller coaster – ups and downs, highs and lows. Some symptoms have improved dramatically, others have worsened significantly.

The main thing that’s been on my mind has been an extreme, crippling fear of creating pelvic organ prolapse because of weak pelvic floor muscles. I’ve had this lingering feeling of heaviness / dragging in my pelvis that definitely gets worse the more I walk, or do any form of exercise. Ironically, it also gets much worse the more that I think about it. I apparently do not have prolapse (says my pelvic floor physiotherapist), but that doesn’t mean that I can’t develop it over time, and it’s scared me out of doing 90% of the exercise that I was doing, including walking.

I’m finding it really, really difficult (if not, impossible) to stop obsessing over every little thing that I feel in that area, and to worry about it constantly, all day, every day. The fear / worrying is much worse than the actual symptoms at this point.

My primary goal at the moment is to get onto some sort of regular pelvic floor training routine where I know that the muscles are working properly and getting stronger to support things down there. I’m hoping that this will give me some tiny iota of confidence, and will hopefully lead to me trusting my body enough to start using it a bit more.

Mexico

We leave for Mexico one week from today, and I’ve officially started packing! It’s pretty hilarious that tiny little Austin is bringing the biggest suitcase we own just for his paraphernalia lol  I think I’ve thought things through about as well as I can, and at this point I’m kind of anxious to just get going so that we can start dealing with the inevitable challenges as they come.

I really don’t think this trip is going to be very relaxing (quite the contrary lol), but hopefully the change of scenery will be nice for Austin, and hopefully we can make it fun for him even though he’s still pretty young to enjoy a resort like this 🙂

I’ll have a full report for you on the trip during my next update post! 🙂

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Well, I think that’s about all from us for now! PLEASE wish us luck on this trip to Mexico, above all, as long as our little guy stays healthy and happy, the rest of the details really aren’t such a big deal 🙂

Have a great couple of weeks – maybe we will bring back some sun with us?!

-Sara xo

 

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