6 months old already?!?

Preston is having so much fun, and so are we.  At his 6-month doctor's appointment, he weighed in at 20 pounds (90th percentile!) and 26 inches (50th percentile).  He loves reading (chewing on) books, especially "Moo Baa LaLaLa".  He cracks up when he looks at the first page, without us even starting to read yet. He loves to hear us make animal sounds, especially "meow."  

He loves playing and interacting with other babies. Last week, we were visiting with my friend Meredith and her 16-month old son, Julian. I have never heard Preston chuckle so hard as he did while watching Jules toddle up and down the room and throw his toys around. Ahh, there is nothing better than witnessing a belly laugh from your baby.

He is eating like a champ- rice cereal, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, pears and bananas. Surprisingly, it's the bananas that he seems to like the least. He'll learn...

Sleeping is going well. He's sleeping through the night with usually one wake up around 5am and then back to sleep till around 7am. 

IT FINALLY HAPPENED!!

Our little man slept through the night!!


After almost six long months, I thought this day would never come. The night before last, Preston and I were doing battle from 2-3:30am. At this age, I am trying not to feed him during the night (per doctor's orders) and do not want to pick him up out of the crib when he cries. It also would totally break my heart to let him "cry it out", so when I read about this "controlled crying" method, I thought I'd try it out. When I first heard him crying, I waited five minutes, then went in and gave him the pacifier and rubbed his back for about ten minutes. He was still fussing, so I went out of the room for 10 minutes, soothed him, then 15 minutes out of the room, and finally, when I was at the 20-minutes-out-of the-room mark, and he was crying pretty heavily, I was about to give up and rescue him from the crib. I had about 5 minutes left of my 20-minute window when the crying began to soften and then melted into silence. The little guy was able to calm himself down and fall asleep. And last night, he slept from 7pm-6:30am.

Hallelujah!

5 months old!

Here is an update of what is going on during Preston's fifth month:

(Almost) sleeping through the night-We put Preston down for bed between 7-8pm and he is now able to go without a feeding until the next morning. He still wakes up 1 or 2 times per night, and we have to go into his room and rub his back until he falls asleep, but we do not pick him up and he is able to get himself back to sleep with our help.

Sitting up on his own- Auntie Lesley discovered he could do this while we were all eating dinner together the day after Christmas.  She sat him on the table and then took her hands away and voila- we had a baby who was able to hold himself up on his own!

Eating solid food- Preston has really taken to trying out solid foods and is being a good sport about eating most of what we have been giving to him. For now, that has only been rice cereal, pureed peas and pureed prunes (that one was for "medicinal" purposes). 

Next challenge... working on getting this child to take a nap for longer than 30 minutes! Stay tuned...

Preston's First Christmas

On Christmas Eve, Preston experienced his first Vairo family Christmas party, complete with copious amounts of delicious Italian food, the infamous Yankee Swap that included a framed photo of cousin Matthew in the sixth grade and a Tiger Woods action figure, and of course, the family carol singing. Every year, we end with "The 12 Days of Christmas", each person or group taking a different day to sing. This year, appropriately, I got to sing "Eight maids-a-milking."  That evening, we all slept at my parents' house- Alex, Preston and I, Bobby and Jen, Lesley, Dug and Mazzy. There are only a few times a year when the family is all together under one roof, and I think those moments are very special.

Christmas day was very relaxed, with most of the morning spent opening gifts and then a family dinner. Preston loved being with everyone and loved his gift from Mimi and Grampy- an exersaucer! We bought him the same one, so now he can use it at home and at the grandparents'! Here are a few photos from the weekend.