Porridge and sleeping

Mid-January, Magnus is 6 months old

A few days before christmas we had decided it was time to try some solid food; it was time to make an effort to get Magnus out of the habit of eating throughout the night. The first step on the way was to intoduce porridge which according to the book would “last” longer than a milky meal. (Somehow all the pictures here are about eating, I just realized I don't have any pictures in his bed! I guess flashlights are not the best sleep inhibitor...)

So we tried a sample of porridge that we had received from somewhere one fine evening, and he ate and ate. We were aware he shouldn't have so much the first time, but weren't entirely sure what “much” was. But he seemed to enjoy the change of menu and eagerly ate away. The next day he was even more eager, and we probably got a bit carried away, and he got more than the day before. Problem was, he did not poop in between. Needless to say, he got tummy-ache that evening, something which it had been a while since last time, we had lost touch. The next day he finally got it out, but we didn't dare to give him more until we had talked to the nurse.

It turned out we had given him the wrong kind of porridge also. So after a couple of days break we tried again. Now he seemed less excited about it. We tried to feed him banana, something he seemed to enjoy at first, but then his desire for that, too, went down. So he kept getting porridge and some banana mostly every day, but he would only eat very little of it most of the time.
As the holidays started, so did the effort to have Magnus sleep through the night. It was not going to be pleasant for anyone, but something had to be done, mama Muna was just tired all the time. We started purposefully to bath him every night in the big tub, because it was obvious that he spent a lot of surplus energy when bathing; that should help on his sleeping. Sleeptime was still the same, though.

So he started waking up at 10, at 01, 02, 03, 0330 etc in a quest for pity and food, and all he got was daddy telling him he was loved and that he had to sleep... it was probably a traumatic christmas for Magnus, I am sure. For longer periods he would just cry and cry and I had to go down there every 5-10minutes just so he wouldn't feel abandoned. We aimed for one meal per night, around 5am, so there was still some ways to go.

New years eve was a problem, he kept getting unsettled with every BANG of fireworks outside, so he couldn't sleep. But then around 10 he was gone, and strangely did not wake up anymore. The night after was perfect; he slept nonstop from 7 until 5am.

After some experiments with porridge, 2 combinations that he likes a lot have been discovered, one is wheat with banana, and another is rice with carrot, and now both sleeping in the night and eating porridge is going very well! Mama Muna is happily sleeping large parts of the night.
Me, on the other hand, am not having such an easy time. First, I could not relax after reading several articles about babies died when they turned around in their sleep, because suddenly I discovered Magnus on his stomach in the bed. I had to come in and check on him at least every hour all the way through the night. Needless to say, I could not sleep well.

Then I got convinced that the worst threat for babies dying in their sleep (crip death) was over at this age, but I kept waking up during the night to go check on him quite often, when I'd expect him to be awake. So whether Magnus actually wakes or not, I'm still in there to calm him down. Probably, in time, Daddy can also relax. But baby is doing fine!