The Grunter

Doug, Nathaniel and I are slowly evolving a routine with each other. He is a fantastic baby at night, generally sleeping for solid four hour periods between feedings. We spend the morning getting all of us showered, dressed and fed. That now seems to take three to four hours, rather than the half hour it took pre-Nathaniel. He is generally awake for a good four hours during the morning to early afternoon period. We pass him back between the two of us, talking and cooing to him, singing along to CDs with him (this morning it was Johnny Cash), then showing him "stimulating" toys or drawings, or dressing him up in cute outfits.

But mostly it involves convincing him that while he is awake there are other things to do besides feed. He finds breast feeding to be the most rewarding part of his day. It gives him food, warmth, attention, and I think mildly soothes the gas problems he has started developing. He could quite contentedly feed the whole time he is awake. This is the typical view I have of my young son as he demands a feeding.

And this is Nathaniel post-feeding.

He will usually sleep for a few hours during the afternoon, at which point Doug and I try to get to our email or phone calls or something else. But the house feels very quiet and empty when he is asleep. We usually try and get him up in the evening again so that he can get into bed around 10 or 11 p.m. But we usually inexpertly mix up the timing though so that both me and Nathaniel are attempting to eat at the same time, which doesn't work out too well.

Nathaniel has also started trying to communicate with us. We like to call him Mr. Grunty. These communications are generally related his feeding, with a contented little coo signaling his satisfaction and a deep, long, dissatisfied grunt meaning that there is some latching or flow problem. He also seems to struggle with a bit of indigestion and gas, which means he grunts his way through his nighttime sleeps, trying to work all the extra air down through his system. But the best noise he makes is his contented little chuckle. He only does it in his sleep, but we get hours of amusement listening to him laugh to himself during one of his naps.