During the last couple of days and nights Maxim’s sleeping periods increased a bit. Now he can sleep for 4 to 5 hours at a time. Considering the fact that he eats approximately every 3 hour, he almost misses one feeding at a time. These are good news. Such sleeping habbits show that he has enough food, that he is growing up as he should, and that Olga and I will be getting slightly more sleep too. During the next few days Maxim should increase his night sleeping to 6 hours and we’ll be totally fine.
Tag: parenting
Clockworking vs. natural baby needs
My mother keeps suggesting that Olga and I should start teaching Maxim the clock. One of the ways to feed the baby regularly is by creating basically a time table and sticking to it. This means that the baby will always eat at the same time. Hours between feeds can be flexible though and don’t always have to be 3 hours. One can stick to a schedule where breaks between feedings during the night are four hours and during the day two hours, or something like that. The point is just to stick to the predetermined scheduled, so that the baby learns the clock.
We are not rushing into the fixed time table though. Most of the pediators we read and talked to suggest that the baby knows better when it is time for food. We tend to agree so far.
Since we are keeping the baby chart for the last few days we have made few observations. Firstly, Maxim is not sticking to a strict time table. There are similarities in the chart that last for up to 2 or 3 days. After that he slightly changes his habbits for the next 2 or 3 days. The number of feedings stays rock solid at 8 though.
We decided that we’ll give Maxim some more time (at least a couple of weeks). Maybe during this time he will work out a better controlled schedule. Or maybe we will get some more ideas with statistics that we are gathering.
In the mean time, his reflectory smiles are appearing more often and he can alsmost hold his head straight. Exciting times are ahead of us I guess…
Family photo session
Today I did yet another photo session with my family (Maxim, Olga, and my mother). I noticed that facial expressions of a infant do change extremely often. Actually, I had to switch my camera on to a continuos shoot mode to get few of the captures. What is even more interesting is that facial expressions of adults who play with an infant change at approximately the same rate. During 15 minutes I have made more than 60 images. Out of all these I have selected and postprocessed about 20.
Album location: /photos/2005/2005-03-08_POTD
Check with pediatrician
We’ve taken Maxim for his second check with pediatrician. According to the measurements, he has gained almost 200 grams and grown 3 centimeters during the last 7 days. I am surprised!
Also, the skin which is coming off is totally normal. This is the first skin, that should get off and be changed from the one used to water to the one used to air.
Dr.Simos suggested that we take Maxim for a walk every day. Walks should start with 10 minutes and gradually be increased to a maximum of two hours per day.
Fighting dried skin
Skin on Maxim’s hands and feet looks very dry and comes off in a number of places. It’s not a very pleasant view of skin patches everywhere. The good news is that he doesn’t seem to notice this at all.
We tried to fix the problem with baby cream yesterday, but it didn’t help that much. It’s not fat or oily enough.
Today my mother suggested the old and proven method – sterelized sunflower oil. We sterelized some oil and put some on Maxim’s skin. It looks like it helps. We’ll see how it will go for a couple of days…