Sleep and Metabolism
So, in all the vacation excitement, I forgot to mention a very important milestone. The night before we left for Southern California, Adlai slept eleven hours in a row. That marks the first time he has slept through the entire night. Unfortunately, he has only repeated that pattern once since then and every night he wakes an hour earlier - last night he woke twice: 1:30 am and 4:30 am.
Simon, as you probably don't recall, started sleeping through the night at 9 months after we introduced late night cheese parties. We introduced Adlai to the same cheese - fresh mozzarella - but he wasn't particularly interested. Last night he tried Havarti for the first time and it was a huge hit. Tonight we'll have a cheese party at bedtime to see if it has any effect.
Adlai's doctor assures us that he doesn't need to eat between the hours of 7 pm and 6 am but Adlai doesn't agree. It's fairly easy to tell if he is just snacking or if he is actually hungry and, lately, the boy seems actually hungry during these nighttime feedings. And how can you not feed a boy with the metabolism of a hummingbird? He's in the FOURTH PERCENTILE for weight and eats like a horse. His doctor also suggested that because he is so thin, it wouldn't be a bad thing to give him, oh, pats of butter, cheese, meat... We've added (unsalted) real butter to his bread as of late and that is a big hit as well as little pieces of chicken and fish. Add pureed beef to any pureed vegetable and that vegetable suddenly becomes a thousand times more interesting. Once some barley cereal is added to the bowl you have a very happy boy.
Now if we could only get him to eat breakfast for Matthew when I'm running late. In Adlai's world, breakfast and dinner come from Mama, lunch comes from Daddy and if you mess with that pattern, he just won't eat.