- 7 1/2 hours of continuous sleep! Wow, you can almost call that "sleeping through the night", if it wasn't for the fact that it was from 9pm to 4:30am. Now, had it been from 12am to 7:30 am, it would of course have been official.
- First time to church! Duvan came to church with us on Sunday. He loved it, and was really peaceful, even in the midst of the loudest time of praise and worship.
Well, it's appropriate to talk about sleep today. We noticed last week that Duvan is definitely not close to sleeping the average 16-20 hours of sleep that newborns get. Marésa, prudent mother that she is, decided to start keeping a log of when Duvan is sleeping and we were a little alarmed to find that he was getting a mere 9-12 hours of sleep (in total) each day. Whoa. Not enough, we reckoned. To add to the complexity, we ran into the difficult question of how we should approach naptimes. As we've mentioned before, we'd really like to teach Duvan to fall asleep on his own, rather than to be rocked to sleep. Conventional wisdom tells you that if nothing else is bothering baby, it's okay to let him cry for a while before falling asleep. This way he'll learn the skill all parents covet for their babies - self-calming. That's in theory. In practice, it's a whole different story. First of all, it's heartbreaking to listen to a baby cry, and 5 minutes quickly start to feel like 5 hours, so that the 20 minute limit that some of the books suggest, seems days away. Secondly, it's not clear that this philosophy works for a 2 week old baby, with whom you're still building a relationship of trust. All the latest literature hold fast that you cannot "spoil" a child this young by rocking him/her, and that it's better to tend to baby at this age than to leave him. Hmmm, the dilemma is though that he will not stay this young, and once he's older, he'll love the habit of being rocked to sleep, so that we might have a harder time breaking it again. In our hearts, we know that the right way is for him to learn that at night, we will not always come when he has to fall asleep.
Anyway, we spent a lot of time the last couple of days trying to find a position to stand on in the sleep-area. We've come to the following conclusion. We'll take somewhat of the middle ground. We'll wait until Duvan's at least 1 month old before attempting to let him cry himself to sleep. In the meanwhile, we earnestly prayed to the Lord to start teaching Duvan this technique, so that we won't have to listen to his heartrending lament. :) Now, let me remind you that we serve an awesome God. If He had given us His Son on the cross, wouldn't He do this for us? Yes, He gladly will. So we followed the advice of Phil. 4:6:
"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."...and made our requests known to God in earnest prayer. Well, the last two days has been amazing. Duvan has not required any lenghty bedtime routine the last 2 nights. After his late-evening feeding, with him being milk-drunk and already very drowsy, he falls asleep quite peacefully (as opposed to before where he would wake up after 10 minutes and really call (read: cry) for us). Or tonight (and this morning), he would lie and groan a little, coo a little and just be talkative for 20-30 minutes(!!), and finally fall asleep. This is amazing, and if you have kids of your own, you'll know how much this means! Yes, it's only been two days, but again, the Lord has shown us that if we cry out to Him, He is quick to answer in the most loving manner. We can absolutely not take any credit for this behavior, because we've literally not done anything different. Praise God!
So... that's the long story to Duvan's first 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. We're very excited!
Sunday was Duvan's first time to church. We took all of the morning from 7am to 10am getting ready for it, and was still 10 minutes late (well, we were interrupted with a fairly long phone call from great friends, so we really did okay). Either way, he was peaceful and slept through most of it the 2 1/2 hour service. Maresa missed the sermon since she had to feed him midway, so he cheated a little. :) Afterward, he fell asleep on Dad's chest.
You may find this hard to believe, but we're also taking pictures with our film camera. :) Yes, Jan has somewhat of a disposition toward the camera, so will take any opportunity he gets. Since we had a roll to fill, we also snapped some with the digital camera for the site. It was the first time that Duvan was awake while being outside (he's hardly awake when in the stroller), and he was quite taken by the world we live in. The sky, the son, the trees and especially our faces in the sunlight, he took it all in with wide-eyed marvel.
Hehehe this look is classic. Whenever he's done feeding, and gets burpin', he'll be on your shoulder like this. Sometimes he's lazily throwing his arms over your shoulder, other times he'll arch his head back and try to look into your eyes, or he will plunge face-first into your shoulder and fight with your shirt for breath, until the shirt wins and he sleepily turns his head to lie on his cheek. Other times, like here, he seems to grab a hold of your shoulder and hang on for dear life!
Monday afternoon Duvan was smashing the scales on adorability in his bouncy seat. Marésa caught a couple of his expressions, and we'd like to share the wave with you! The smiles are coming more frequently now, and we actually reproduced one this evening 3 times in a row. Whoa, that was the coolest.
Look out in the right-hand column (the menu) of this page. Pretty soon we will add a "Downloads" section. We've developed an Excel sheet to keep track of Duvan's vitals, to see how he's doing on sleep and on the ins and outs of food. This is crucial info for a doctor whenever you'd like to call them for advice. It also allows you to plot your baby's development against the official US growth charts issued by the Center for Disease Control, so you'll know when baby is not thriving as it should. Pretty nifty, but could be considered overkill for some.
Sounds like the 3 of you are doing extremely well and you have everything under control. God is an AWESOME Father isn't He? He is definitely your best source for wisdom in caring for this new little one. However, you sound like you have all of your bases covered. Duvan looks awfully happy! Keep up the good work!
Posted by: Barbara Waldron | October 16, 2003 10:02 AM
Duvan
Is absolutely adorable! I agree with Barbara--the three of you look great together. This website is fantastic, I know that I have enjoyed sharing his special moments with your family. Last Friday when I meet him, I realized that he is even cuter in person. Its amazing how God forms the little ones in their mother's womb. I look forward to seeing him grow more in the future. I know that he'll be a great kid because he has been blessed with two great parents.
Posted by: Melissa | October 18, 2003 08:06 PM
Doet so voort!!! Hy is pragtig en ek kan nou sien dat die neusie wel sy pappa s'n is. 'n Regte-egte Boshoff-neus. As 'n kleinding so baie liefde van Mamma en Pappa kry kan dit mos nie anders as 'goed-beter-beste' gaan nie.
Posted by: Pa & Ma Jacobs | October 19, 2003 01:40 PM
