Jack is 9 months old

Where has the time flown?

Jack you are becoming a real little boy and everyday you continue to delight us with your gorgeous grins and your studious nature.

You are now 76cm long and weigh 10.24kg

You started saying dad at 6 months and 3 days :-)

You still mainly say Dad, sometimes it sounds like you say 'I did', 'hello' and when you're upset 'mum' otherwise you babble and enjoy the occasional high pitched squeal/scream. You also enjoy growling, a lot. You talk in your growly voice and find it very amusing.

You are starting to experience some separation anxiety over the last few weeks and have become more cautious of other people. When I am carrying you I can tell when you get nervous or anxious as you squeeze my left arm (tricep) with your hand, this sometimes is quite painful.

You are moving more but have not quite made it up on your knees. You get around slowly by commando crawling and generally under protest. It is hard not to pick you up as you usually whinge every inch of the way :-)

You much prefer being on your feet and pull yourself up whenever you can (bath time included) and have started making your way walking around the furniture. We bought you a walker/trike but you have only taken a few steps at a time unless someone is holding you. 

You finally have some teeth. All four front teeth appeared within 3 1/2 weeks with the last one finally cutting through just a few days ago. First it was your bottom left, then bottom right, top left, then top right.

Your sleeping has been erratic over the last month, with you waking anywhere up to three times in a 12 hour period but I am pleased to say you have improved again and back to sleeping through however we have resorted to giving you some formula in a bottle for your last feed at 7pm and this seems to have helped.

You can wave hello and good bye, mostly in a regal kind of way. You started off greeting people by offering your hand, it looked like you wanted them to kiss it, this progressed to a royal wave and is now more of a proper wave. 

All very cute of course :-)

You understand simple instructions like where is your toy car and know your name. You understand 'No'but won't always obey. 

You still love your food and are getting better at eating fruit. You have no problems chewing and can self feed but much prefer us to feed you. I don't think you can wait long enough to manage it on your own and can be quite demanding at the dinner table if we don't feed you fast enough.

You are one very adored boy and I love just being with you and watching you learn and discover.

Mum

xx 

Jack is Six months old

So, I started this post more than a week ago and am still going. In order to get it done before Jack is 7 months old I will keep it short and sweet.

JACK.......

• Your Length is 74 cm
• Your Weight is 9.19kg

• You are sitting up with out support
• You are Drooling lots

• You have 3 teeth that are visible just under the gum on the bottom
• You have 2 teeth that are visible just under the gum on the top

• You are drooling lots
• Some days your nose drools just as much as your mouth

• You're not really interested in rolling over, we know you can but you don't

• You love making brrr noises and I can tell when you start to get agitated as your brrr's get more intense :-)

• You drools lots

• You are a very happy boy, smiling lots but still very studious and serious around other people.

• You have started making a noise across between a growl and a grunt, you think that it's pretty funny

• We all love you lots :-)

xx

Jack is 5 months Old

This last month has been an interesting one, 

Sleeping - last month I celebrated that you slept through the night for 12 hours straight, unfortunately you decided that after a week of that you would regress (in a big way) and you started waking up 2 or three times a night :-( 

Day sleeps also became a challenge with you happily sleeping in my arms but in your own space you would only sleep for one sleep cycle of 30 - 40 mins. Waking up happy but only staying that way for an hour or so until tiredness would hit and you would need extra attention.

I am pleased to say that this last week your day sleeps have improved and you are once again having two 2 - 3 hour sleeps a day :-)

Your night sleep is improving and last night you only had me up once at 4.30 am and I am pleased to say I feel so much better after getting 6 hours straight sleep.

Growing - after a visit to the midwife on Tuesday I am pleased to say you have had a growth spurt (which could explain the extra waking and feeding at night), you now weigh 8.2 kgs (moved from 75% on the graph to 90%) and you are 68.5 cm long a big 3.5 cm more than a month ago.

Playing - you love the jolly jumper and are happy to bounce away for 30 mins or more at a time. You are not as happy left alone on your mat, where once you would amuse yourself for hours under the play gym it is now not interesting enough and I think you are getting bored easily with the same things. Once you get a bit more mobile and independent  I think this will change. You are smiling more (mainly at people you know well) and are laughing more, especially at me. It seems that if you are in the right mood almost anything can make you giggle, however the hiccups start soon after and you struggle to really chuckle :-)

Movement - you can roll over but you don't attempt to very often at all. You are starting to get up on your knees but your arms aren't quite strong enough to raise your upper body off the ground. You love to be stood up on your feet and you are able to sit alone for very short bursts, before you loose balance and topple over.

Voice - you sing when you are happy, when you wake up in the cot (we moved you into your cot 3 weeks ago), when you are having a bath, when you are jumping in the jolly jumper, when you are playing with a toy. 

I am trying to teach you to say mum, but you just laugh every time I say it. I'm not sure what you find funny about it.

Food - you enjoy sitting in your Bumbo at the table with us. We have started giving you a rusk while we eat, you weren't sure what to do with it at first but now you have worked out how to make a big mess with it :-) We have given you tastes of rice cereal but you aren't very impressed. 

Personality - you are still a very studious, serious baby, you love to see everything around you, enjoy going for walks in the pram with the dog and you love watching people who talk with their hands. 

Love you Jack

xx

4 months old

Jack, you are four months old already.

You are still a very serious and studious little boy, carefully watching everything around you.

You are becoming more alert and that makes it hard to be out and about during nap time, you much rather watch what is happening all around you.

You have continued to sleep very well over night though and have started sleeping 11 - 12 hours without waking for a feed or for comfort :-) (lets hope that lasts)

You have discovered some new sounds with the most recent being a growl, that you enjoy testing out often.

You love nappy free time and bath time, such a huge contrast to when you were first born.

We have bought you a jolly jumper and you worked out how it works quite quickly and you enjoy spending time in it.

You are learning how your fingers work and spend quite a long time staring intently at them as you move each one.

You are dribbling.... 
lots
in fact I am not sure who is worse, you or the dog.

You are growing well and still sitting on the 75th percentile, 65 cm long and your weight is 7.39 kg

You still enjoy playing with the jungle gym however you are getting frustrated faster with it and ready for more.

You are just starting to roll from you back to your front.

You enjoy sitting in the bumbo and watching as I make Nicholas lunch in the morning or you sit with us at the dining table as we eat, in fact I am sure you wish you could join in sometimes.

You are a delightful little boy who is loved so much and we just enjoy you so much 

xx

3 months old already

Wow  has the time flown past, its hard to believe that our precious boy is 3 months old already. What a lovely baby he is, we are so blessed to have him in our lives :-)

The colic is settling down and I stopped giving him the drops about a week and a half ago. He doesn't seem to be in pain any more however passing wind is still a bit of a struggle and the downside is that he has started waking up more frequently when he has wind :-( I will give it a week or so and see how he goes if he  hasn't gone back to sleeping through the night we may have to do something about it.

We spent two weeks in Coffs Harbour enjoying our long awaited holiday, it was such a lovely time for us as a family, no schedule, minimal house work and beautiful weather. We really relaxed and enjoyed our time away as a family of four. 










Two weeks make such a difference in a babies life and Jack really grew and developed new skills while we were away.












 


His weigh in yesterday was great, he has gained another 800 grams and is now 6.8 kgs as well as stretching another 4.5 cm making him 63.5 cm long. No wonder my arms and back started to ache from carrying him around :-)

Jack has really started to enjoy play time and thankfully spends quite a while absorbed in his jungle gym. I was rather disorganised and had to complete some paperwork on Monday for the government and Jack played on his own for almost three hours in the afternoon on the floor while I "played" with the paper and laptop at my desk. Great kid! 

He then got to come with me to his first finance committee meeting that evening and to his credit only fell asleep towards the end of the hour and a half meeting, we may have an accountant in the making.

We have started getting plenty more smiles from Jack provided there is no camera around and today on the way home in the car from lunch Jack discovered his reflection in the baby view mirror and happily gurgled away at himself while I giggled away at him. So cute!

Nicholas is back at school this week and he is a great big brother, he did a wonderful job entertaining Jack in the car on the way to and from Coffs Harbour (a 9 hour plus drive each way). 

















Being a boy Nicholas doesn't goo and gah over the baby but he does ask faithfully every day when he gets home from school if Jack has done anything new that day :-) His interest does not stretch to nappy changes and he gets quite disgusted when Jack brings up milk and he has to wipe it up (happened a few times through the 18 hours of driving). 

I am loving having a baby around and I am really enjoying every minute, I am looking forward to the next three months, seeing more of Jack's personality and watching as he masters a whole lot of new skills. 

I have been over in Instagram much more than I have been here and I would love for you to join me, my username is @mccarthydesigns, please let me know so I can follow you too :-)

xx

10 weeks

It is amazing how fast the last 10 weeks have gone by. In some ways it feels like we only just brought Jack home from the hospital and in others it feels like he has always been here.

We all adore our little boy and I am so pleased to say that his colic has started improving, we still use the Brauer Colic relief drops at the moment but he definitely isn't in as much pain as he used to be.

At 7 weeks Jack stopped screaming every time we changed his nappy or gave him a bath and I can safely say that he actually enjoys his bath now and likes to float around for quite a while before he is ready to come out :-)

We finally got our first responsive smiles at 8 weeks, during his 8th week Jack's colic started improving (probably why we finally got a smile) and he started to pay more attention to things around him not just people. At this time I started putting out the play gym for him daily with a small variety of toys to look at. Jack started to reach out towards the toys hanging off the gym.

On Monday I went back to my first board meeting since I had the cervical stitch placed in October. I expressed milk for Jack (we had practised expressing and feeding from the bottle a few times prior to make sure he would feed ok) and left him in Dad's capable hands. I wasn't sure how well I would cope away from him for the evening but I managed quite well and was even able to concentrate on the meeting :-) Dad also did a great job but has requested that I leave some extra milk next time just in case, it seems that Jack wanted a tad more than I left, it's hard to tell with breastfeeding how much is enough sometimes. 

I took Jack in to see the midwife at the chemist yesterday and he now weighs 6.02kg and is 59cm long. He is feeding well and still sleeps well. He seems to be moving towards two big sleeps through the day and we still only get up once through the night for feeds, generally around 3.30am, however he is having more nights where he will sleep for 7 hours and not wake until 5am, yay!

Jack has a very serious little face and doesn't smile often, he seems to study things quite intently and is becoming more and more vocal with his cooing and baby talk, sometimes desperately trying to tell us something.

Our little boy has very strong legs and likes to stand (with help) he also has pretty good neck control and is able to sit up with assistance for quite a while.

It is so lovely to see his little personality emerge and I am enjoying each stage as it happens. We are so very blessed to have this precious baby boy.

xx

Family photos

We attended a family wedding on the weekend and I am sad to say but these are our first family photos :-(

I am not sure why we haven't managed to get any before and I think ???? someone may have one of us altogether but the only one we have is the one that appeared in the birth announcements in the newspaper. Oh well it is better than nothing.

We had a great time showing off our newest family member and I loved seeing all of my boys looking so handsome.

Jack behaved beautifully throughout the whole day except for dinner and speeches at the reception, he woke up with tummy pains right on cue when entrees were served, so I fed him while I attempted to eat my dinner (seems to be the case more often than not lately) and then tried to pacify him while he made himself heard over the top of the speeches oh and then cried while he was passed around too. But once the music started he decided it was a great time to go to sleep, as you do because no-one can hear you crying over the top of the music anyway so why waste your breath ;-)

The wedding was in Berry NSW so we rented a holiday house that was able to fit 12 adults and 5 children, perfect for all of the family. It was lovely to spend time together but also very tiring, a big weekend with late nights and 5 hours drive each way. I am rather tired and trying to settle Jack back into a routine but he is really uncomfortable with colic and just not happy today so we have spent a lot of the day cuddling. 

Jack is now 7 weeks old, not smiling yet (we were all trying to get his first smile over the weekend but no luck), he was weighed a week ago and put on 2 kg's since his birth, he had his immunisations last week and a check up with the Dr confirms that he is all good with no problems other than colic. We are using drops from the chemist and the Dr and the midwife assure me that he will most likely get better by 12 weeks as his system gets stronger. I can't wait, I hate seeing him in pain and not being able to fix it.

Time is speeding past and we are all loving our little boy, he is changing all the time and we love watching him grow and we are all looking forward to him reaching his milestones.

xx

Handmade gifts

 Jack has been very spoilt and received lots of gifts especially some very lovely handmade items that I know we will treasure for many years. 

I wanted to share this one in particular because the Lovely Lou from Stitched up with Buttons made it and just in case you don't know I have a range of her gorgeous hand made quilts available in store.

We were so thrilled that our wonderful friends who happen to be related to Lou organised such a special gift for Jack. 

Lou's quilts really are a lovely gift for any baby or child, each quilt is handmade and one of  kind. 

You can see the range of quilts that I have in store here.

 Have a great week!

xx

Jack is one month old

I confess that this last month had absolutely flown and we are still just so enchanted with our beautiful baby boy. I haven't blogged much because I don't want to bore you all with photos of my baby but I am sure you will understand that everything else has really taken a back seat at the moment and I have little else to share. One day I will hopefully have a little balance back here and not be totally baby focussed :-)

Jack has settled in beautifully, he pretty much straight away got into a 3 hour routine, with slightly longer sleeps at night. Usually I get up to him once and sometimes twice. By getting up I mean I feed him at about 10.30pm then I head to bed. Generally he wakes up about 3am and then again at 6.30am, I can cope with this and I confess on weekends I go back to bed after the 6.30 feed. So I am not as tired as I thought I may be. I am praying that it only gets better and not worse.

Jack feeds well, has put on weight and doing all the normal things, he does seem to be slightly jaundiced still but we are just keeping an eye on it and the midwife thinks he may have a clicky hip, apparently this is common and nothing to be overly concerned about. The Dr will check it again at the 6 week check up.

If you follow me on Instagram or are friends on Facebook (if not you can follow me here or find me on FB here) then you probably would have seen most of these photos but just in case here is a little look at the last month.

March is shaping up to be a busy month for us with trips away at least 3 of the weekends at this stage. It will be interesting to see how Jack (and mummy) cope with all of the travelling :-)

xx