Sleeping Riku

Riku was a typical newborn, meaning he was awake at least half the night up until he was about a month old, which is when babies apparently start to develop a more mature body clock and start to differentiate night from day. From about 5 weeks until 5 months he would go to bed at about 8.30, wake up once sometime between 2 and 4 am, go straight back to sleep after being fed, and then sleep until at least 6.30 am.

I thought we had lucked out and skipped the dreaded four-month sleep regression, but right around five months Riku started to wake up a lot more often at night and quite often be harder to get back to sleep as well. This has continued up until now- these days on a good night he will wake up only three times (usually at around 11.30 pm, 2.30 and 4 am) and go straight back to sleep each time after being fed. On a bad night we will have to resettle him at least once some time after putting him to bed, which might take up to an hour, then he will wake up every hour right through the night and/or not want to go to sleep at all at some point. Sometimes if he doesn't go back to sleep he will cry, other times (usually around 4 in the morning) he thinks it's playtime and starts rolling around talking and growling (those who have met him recently might have heard him "growling" and know what I mean!)

The bad nights can be exhausting, but it's actually amazing how you can adapt to this kind of thing- for me waking up 3-4 times a night for half an hour each time is the new normal and I can actually function quite well the next day, although I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to in my life BR (=Before Riku). My short term memory, English vocabulary etc seem to have suffered a bit, but oh well, they will come back eventually, right? ;)

Riku is still not eating a lot of solid food because he still refuses to be fed with a spoon, so I am thinking he wakes so often mostly because he gets hungry. I'm hoping that as he is able to eat more table food (i.e. has more teeth and gets used to chewing), he will gradually start to sleep for longer at night again. Wishful thinking, maybe? Time will tell I suppose!

Anyway here are some photos of Riku sleeping that I like- they say that babies and small children look like angels when they are asleep and it's true! No matter how long he has kept me awake for or how grizzly he has been during the day, looking at him sleeping always makes my heart melt :)

Isn't he gorgeous? :) The last one was in Koganei Park about 2 weeks ago- looks like he's had a few too many beers... You might have noticed that he tends to face right when he sleeps, although he does this less often now he has head control- that's because of a kind of diagonal flat spot on the back of his head which he was born with. Apparently it will partially correct itself once he is walking, and will also be a lot less noticeable when he has more hair.

I will definitely have to get on to his 7-month letter post, or he'll be 8 months before I get around to it- eek! Amazing how fast the time goes!

Proof of teeth!

Riku and the mikan

Update on the solid food front- we have been having to go mainly with baby-led weaning as Riku completely refuses to be fed with a spoon about 90% of the time. It is quite challenging to find foods that a 7-month-old can successfully feed himself and also have some variety in his diet.

He has got very good at eating bread and toast and likes baby sembei and sometimes cheese, but will usually only nibble at fruit and vegetables. Recently I tried giving him some segments of mikan (mandarin orange) to see what he would do. Here is the result:

He has a bit of a chew on them and sucks some of the juice out, so we are getting somewhere! He also likes whacking the pieces that are sitting on his chair tray and making the juice fly everywhere- just another way that introducing solids has been a lot messier than I could ever have imagined!

First Marmite!

Thought it was time for Riku to have his first taste of New Zealand so I gave him some Marmite on toast- he might not look too excited, but by Riku standards this is actually a lot of enthusiasm for a food!

Not just one...

...but two teeth have come through this week! We had various signs of teething (red cheeks, a lot of dribbling, *TMI warning* more pooey nappies than usual) over the weekend, and then I noticed on Monday evening that the right bottom tooth was through and it looked like the left wouldn't be too far away- actually I had been thinking it would be first.

When we were out today (at an anti-nuclear power sit-in in outside the government buildings!) we were given some nashi and I let Riku have a taste. He actually managed to bite off a piece quite easily so I felt for a second tooth and sure enough there it was. We hadn't been making much progress with introducing solid foods, and I now realise that was probably because his gums were bothering him. With those two through he seems a bit more interested in food again- we had been taking a break from solids because he seemed completely uninterested and would either clamp his mouth shut or just toss finger food!

I don't have any photos unfortunately and probably won't until the teeth have come through more- he doesn't like me trying to look in his mouth at all, so here is one of him in his Halloween costume at the park on Monday:

It's a frog costume- I know it's probably not immediately obvious!