Sleeping Arrangements

Noah is a fairly good sleeper. He keeps to his normal bedtime schedule of 8pm to 6 am on most nights. When he wakes up for night feedings he always dozes back to sleep as soon as he's done eating. And he has begun occasionally dropping the 1 am feeding which allows me to sleep uninterrupted from my bedtime until around 4 am - heavenly. His napping is normally good too. On a routine weekday he gets between 3 and 4 hours of naps total. So for the most part he's a good little sleeping boy.

But the issues I have to concern myself with now are how he goes to sleep and where he goes to sleep. I get Noah to sleep by nuzzling his head in close to my chest and bouncing about like a crazy woman. Then when he's nodded off I put him down to sleep. According to the pediatrician I should begin putting Noah down to sleep when he's tired and before he's sleeping. The few times I've done this he's gone instantly from a sleepy baby to a clubbin' fiend gung ho for a night on the town. I don't foresee that changing too easily. Noah now sleeps in the co-sleeper bassinet that we keep next to our bed. Unfortunately it won't be long until he gets too long and too heavy for it. But I can't imagine moving him to his own room yet. Not only do I feel he is too little to be SOOO far away, but also since he still wakes up for night feedings I'll have to make the journey in the middle of the night. I don't want to have to leave my warm snug bed to go downstairs and feed him. What is an overly clingy and lazy mother to do?

Oh, so remember several posts ago I was both celebrating and lamenting the fact that Noah was now putting things in his mouth. Well, the boy faked me out. He has done this maybe five times total in his entire life. In fact he won't even put food in his mouth. I'll give him a piece of apple and he really wants to chew the crap out of it - but ONLY if I hold it for him. If I give him the piece of apple in his hand he plays with it and never even gets it near his mouth. The same goes with those Gerber melt in your mouth puffs. Noah seems to enjoy them when I put them in his mouth. If I put some on the tray in front of him he just chases them around the tray with his little hands. If I hold up the puff in my hand - he opens his mouth wide and puts his hands up -far from his mouth and the puff - like he is surrendering. Once in awhile he'll palm a puff and then put his hand in his mouth - but with the puff facing out away from his mouth. It just happens to be hanging out there while he enjoys chewing on his hand. This boy LOVES to eat - but for some reason it hasn’t occurred to him that he could try and shove things in his own gaping maw. The pediatrician said this wasn't uncommon for babies that rarely feed out of bottles. I guess because a bottle fed baby will learn early on to wrap their hands around the bottle - therefore gaining control of the food source. So it also occurs to them to shove other things into their mouth. While a strictly breastfed baby doesn't get as handsy. I'm sure Noah will indeed find his own mouth some day, until then I guess it's kind of funny hearing him grunt hungrily for food while holding it in his own damn hand.