Feb. 7, 2005

(I am going back to work soon, so I probably won't be able to blog very much anymore. Wendy pointed one website for me, noting that parents who blog about their babies are actually just self-absorbed. Maybe it is true that parents do need to feel that their selves are not burried with the birth of their babies.)

Eli has been sleeping through the night for a week. It is great, and now I can really enjoy motherhood. He still has his fussy time at the end of the day, before his bed time, but I was told that that will go away after he turns 3-month old. Yesterday, our friends from the east bay came visit. They have a 1-year old daughter. They actually taught me a lot about baby rearing. Their baby is very happy, content and sleeps well at night. Anyway, last night, we put both babies down for the night, and we stayed up late and played board games. That was just like the old days before Eli was born. That was great, and certainly made us feel like ourselves again. This is all due to good sleep at night since Eli started sleeping through the night. The past weekend is just full of actions for Eli: we had friends over non-stop. He only took 1-hour long naps during the day because of all the commotions in the household. I am amazed at how well Eli slept through all the noises, believe me, there were quite some noises with teenagers talking at the top of their lungs and babies screaming. Maybe I am too nervous, as a first time mom.

Feb. 2, 2005

Eli has finally slept through the night! Well, actually, just three days in a row. Last night, he did wake up at 4:30am to be fed. Hopefully, tonight he will sleep through again. He finanlly found his thumb, and he sucked his thumb to self-soothe and put himself back to sleep. He never liked pacifier which turns out to be great. All the hard work seems to have paid off. I am very vigilent about his schedule. Dr. Weissbluth's book "Healthy sleep habits, happy child" seems to work really well - I try to put him down for a nap after 1 hour of being awake, and it is usually no struggle at all. He can usually nap 1.5-2 hrs at a time, which is also recommended by Dr. Weissbluth. I also follow feed-awake-sleep pattern, as recommended by Baby Whisperer and Baby Wise books. Eli sleeps a lot a day: 6 hours of nap, and 12 hours of night time sleep. Dr Weissbluth argues that the more sleep baby gets, the better they develop - they are emotionally more stable, have longer attention span and generally have higher IQs. I am looking forward to the 3-month mark; I was told that the baby will be completely different (more pleasant) when they turn 3 month old.

Other books I have read: 
Touchpoint by Brazelton. This book illustrates all the important milestones from birth to 3 years old.
Your Baby and Child by Penelope Leach. Her philosophy is attachment parenting, which I am not a big fan of.
What to expect for the first year. Useful book to read on a monthly basis.
Baby manual book. All the baby rearing practice is done in mechanical terms. Very fun to read.

Pictures of Eli with mommy and daddy.

More pictures of Eli flying solo.

January 6th, 2005

Eli is 7 weeks old now. A week ago, he started meaningful smile. He would smile when I played with him or even changed diaper for him. Right now, he only has about 15 minutes of awake time when he is fully focused, after that, he usually gets cranky and needs to be put down for a nap.

Eli and Dad look so much alike. The first picture is when Amnon was 2 months old; the next 2 are from Eli when he was 7 weeks old.

Various expressions from Eli.