Sleep training has been going well. It went really well at first and now it's good, with the occasional blip. I do nurse him to sleep, which seems to help. The main issue I was having was inconsistency on when I put him down for a nap and making sure he didn't sleep too long. If he slept longer than what the Contented Little Baby Book said during his morning nap, I just let him sleep and then he didn't want to go down for a nap in the afternoon. I just hated to wake him up. I woke him up only a couple times after a half hour and now he wakes up by himself pretty consistently.
I had to modify my expectations about when he was going to wake up in the morning and during his afternoon nap. The main problem is him waking up at 5 AM. I try to get him to sleep until 6:30 AM at least. I let him cry sometimes and other times I feed him and put him back to sleep. It seems to be the only way to get him to go back to sleep.
One early morning when I was nursing him he sat up and turned to the other breast. Now he's a little obsessed with switching sides. Every few minutes he sits up and wants to nurse on the other side. It's a little annoying. If I think he's done and bring him up to my shoulder he will scooch himself back down. I guess he's pretty good making himself understood.
Quentin is getting so big. I'm excited to see how much he weighs at his 12 month appointment next week because it feels like he's gained 10 lbs in the past two weeks. I can barely carry him around anymore. That boy really needs to learn how to walk. He loves to stand up and walk along the table and cabinets. He also likes it when we hold his arms and walk him around the apartment. I know he wants to walk, but I guess he's just not quite ready yet which isn't totally surprising since he's so big! It probably takes a lot of muscle to balance all that weight :)
He loves flirting and smiling at all the people we come into contact each day. He will smile at someone for a long time until they finally look at him, but if they come too close he'll burst out in tears. I don't want them to feel bad so I tell them he's tired, which is sometimes true.
We like to play rodeo a lot around these days. I chase Quentin and then wrangle him while I try to change his diaper or worse his clothes. He's gotten really good at throwing himself backwards when he doesn't get his way. Luckily most of the time I'm able to catch him before he hurts himself.
Bath time is still a big hit. While we were in Wyoming I didn't have his baby tub so I just put him in the regular tub with just a few inches of water and he did really well so we haven't been using the baby tub anymore. This allows him to crawl around the tub, splashing, with lots of happy yelling. When we first started putting him in there he kept pulling the plug, but it didn't take him long to either lose fascination with it or learn that bath time is over when the water is gone. My only rule is if he stands up he has to get out.
I can't believe I've been a mom for almost a year! You'd think I'd be better at allowing time for diaper changing right before we have to go somewhere.
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