Little Big Boy

A boring entry to anyone but me.   
   Jackson is 22 lbs and 30". Apparently he's tall and skinny, so who knows whose child he really is. Switched in the hospital? He crawls all over the place. He's no longer content to hang out in the living room. He gets from the living romo to the bedroom and kitchen in just a moment's glance away. Once, I actually lost him. He was very happily underneath the table and tablecloth, playing with a diaper. He crawled out and smiled at me when I started calling to him.
     He loves to eat. He nurses first thing in the morning then has breakfast about an hour later. He eats before, during, and after his two naps. Occasionally he'll want to eat between naps, but that's happening less and less. He eats lunch around 12:30, but lunch is his least reliable meal. He could take it or leave it. Dinner is at 6:30, the beginning of his bedtime routine. He nurses before he goes to sleep and then throughout the night.
     Jackson's sleep is an unreliable thing. On a good day, he naps at 9 and 2. A good nap for him is 1 hour and 20 minutes, almost exactly. Often we're struck by the 45 minute intruder. Or 20 or 30 minute intruder. These days (which occur often) are tough, because it's really not enough sleep for him, but he tries to go as long as he would on a long nap. He ends up overtired and fussy. When he's cutting teeth, he reverts to 3 shorter naps. Sleeping through the night is a pipe dream for the moment. From bedtime at about 7:40 to when I go to bed, around midnight, he's up every 30 minutes to 2 hours. Usually, for one hour a night, he's up every 15 minutes or so. Once I go to bed, either he sleeps much better, or I don't notice how often he wakes up. Cosleeping and breastfeeding is absolutely wonderful for that. I barely notice when he eats once I'm asleep. Unless he's teething. Then it's usually an hour long wakeful period of crying in pain. Poor kid.
     He has 8 teeth, all the front incisors. When he bites now, it hurts. He actually drew blood on my areola once.  He may or may not be beginning to teethe for molars.  Jackson has a very difficult time with teeth. He beomes a drool factory, takes very short naps, sleeps horribly at night, and is fussy fussy fussy. He also bites during breastfeeding during the worst day or two of the pain. Doable, but honestly, that sucks. A regimen of acetaminophen and ibuprofen helps, but does not cure his teething pain.
     Breastfeeding continues to be wonderful. Honestly, I don't know how people make it with difficult babies without breastfeeding. If he was up this often needing bottles, I'd die from sleep deprivation. As it is, I function on a kindergarten level. I guess most formula fed babies do sleep longer though. Probably because their moms are more likely to try other soothing methods than feeding (because mixing a bottle is obviously more difficult), and the baby doesn't tend to wake as often. Nursing really is a wonderful bonding experience. Jackson is more of a pacifier soothed than a breast soothed baby because of my oversupply, but he still loves nursing more than anything. It's wonderful and furatrating to know that I'm the only way he eats, aside from his solid meals, which he finds less satisfying, but more fun. Holy run on sentance alert. I love being so important to him, but it's difficult to have to always always no matter what have him with me. I've been on maybe 10 very brief grocery shopping trips without him in his life.
     I firmly believe that breastfeeding saved his life. Latching is more difficult than drinking from a bottle, and in his first 10 days of life, he couldn't nurse at all while in SVT. I think that if he was exclusively bottle fed, I wouldn't have realized something was dreadfully wrong. He was in heart failure when admitted to the hospital, and I think that if I hadn't noticed for a day longer, he would have been a SIDS baby. There's obviously no electrical activity on autopsy, so noone would have no what caused his heart to stop. I wonder how many SIDS deaths are actuallly WPW-caused SVT. I should ask his cardiologist at his next visit.
     He's outgrown his WPW. It will probably come back, either at age 2, around kindergarden or 1st grade, or puberty. At that point it can be easily ablated. We're currently weaning him off his medicine by letting him get bigger without increasing his dosages. He's had no adenosine since November. Wishing for and watching my baby's heart stop is something I never want to see again.
     You'd never know how tough a start Jackson had in life. He's advanced in his motor skills, although behind in communication skills due to his prematurity at birth. Mostly just that he doesn't care to imitate speech. I'm also not sure he has 3 words. I think he says mama and hey with meaning. He only says mama when he's really upset and crying. He says hey all the time.
   I love this little boy more than anything. Motherhood is better than I could have ever imagined, and I imagined that it would be incredible. I feel like I'm finally doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I have really hard days and really good days, but I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.