About a month ago, Sawyer started teething and it's been off and on since. Within the last week especially, he has been gnawing on everything - his hands, teething toys, and anything else he can get his hands on. Tylenol helps a bit, and he loves it when I rub lavender essential oils along his jaw. Despite the teething, his demeanor is just has happy as ever!
His nursing habits, however, have been a nightmare. For the past couple of months or so, Sawyer has been SO difficult when it comes to nursing! But not consistently so. Sometimes he'll nurse amazingly. But, more times than not, he won't want to latch on even though he's starving. So then he'll cry and get kind of angry. Other times, he'll nurse fine from one side but not the other. And other times still, he'll start nursing but then pull off, start and pull off, start and pull off. Regardless of the positions I try, this happens. So almost every time I feed him, I have to end up giving him a bottle. Which he takes totally fine, by the way. It's been driving me insane. I've been all worried that it's something I'm doing, so I finally went to visit a lactation consultant at the hospital last week.
She observed a feeding and basically concluded that it's nothing I'm doing wrong at least. Based on her observations, she thinks Sawyer is A) teething, which is making nursing difficult and uncomfortable for him, and B) easily distracted. But the latter, I mean that anything around Sawyer distracts him from eating. I wasn't so sure about this when she said it, but it is DEFINITELY true. If I try to nurse Sawyer in the living room with the washing machine running and Carson babbling and the lights on, it just doesn't work at all. But if I take Sawyer into our bedroom, close the door, and turn out the lights (and sometimes swaddle him up so his flailing arms are out of the way), he eats just like he used to eat in the good ole days! It's SO nice! But it also makes this whole being-a-mom-of-two-under-two that much harder ... because how on earth do I find a way to nurse during the day while Alex is at work and Carson is a crazy spaz when left alone?!
On the up side, Sawyer is the cutest, friendliest, happiest little guy ever! Even when he wasn't eating well during my visit with the lactation consultant, he was smiling, cooing, and laughing at her! So far, anyway, Sawyer definitely has zero sense of stranger danger! haha!
Sawyer basically can roll over onto his stomach now ... he can roll all the way over, but he just can't get his arm out from underneath him, so he ends up rolling back onto his back. He loves standing and bouncing, and he loves waving his arms all over the most (in particular his left arm). He loves chewing on his hands and anything else, and he still loves being naked or having his diaper changed. And within the last few days, he's discovered his toes and loves grabbing at them!
He's literally ticklish ALL over his body, and I love it! Carson even started tickling Sawyer's tummy (while repeating "Tickle! Tickle!") the other day, and Sawyer was laughing hysterically!
Sawyer has, for the most part, been sleeping through the night. He'll usually sleep from 12:30 - 1:30 am until 8 am or so. It's glorious! During the day, he's still not on any set nap schedule; he'll kind of just get tired and take a snooze every few hours.
I love this little guy with all my heart, and I'm SO grateful to spend each day with him. :)
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