Let me write an update seeing that it's been a while.
We took Ashton for his 10 week vaccinations on 8 September. He cried a little bit, but then it was over. No fever this time around. The night before was a rough night. For some reason he wasn't sleeping very well, and would be up every few minutes when he did fall asleep, most of the time he just wouldn't fall asleep. Oh my word, I thought I was going to die. I was exhausted, and tearful and hubby and I were fighting about this baby not sleeping. Hubby was blaming me, saying it's my fault he won't sleep at night because he feels I let him sleep for too long during the day. Babies need all the sleep they can get as far as I know.
I felt like such a failure and burst into tears over and over again, everything just got too much. I spent the entire Friday night crying, while doing yet another night shift (I do all of them). For a moment I felt like I wanted to run away.
At the clinic the nurse could see something was up and she asked that dreaded question - are you okay? More tears. She listened to both of us and said she understands both our points of view, gave us a business card for a sleep therapist if we really get desperate, and said it is rough. She had child welfare rock up at her house because her baby just screamed day and night, nothing she did would work. Ashton also had a few crying sessions, where he was inconsolable, which is like hell. Nothing I did would comfort him. I obviously misunderstood what hubby was trying to say (you will do that if you are broken from having no sleep), and he misunderstood me and my tears. We were also given books to read on sleep, and advised to follow Sleep Sense, which I started reading that very day. Sleep Sense has been my saving grace.
They also suggested we try soy formula, which was an utter disaster. Never going to try that again. If we want continuous screaming fits, we should stick to that. Went back to using our good old S26 gold quick quick and he's far happier on that.
Ashton point blank refuses to let me swaddle him, while he's awake any way. We had a few more difficult nights, but slowly it got better. I now know how to "put" him to sleep - it works 7 times out of 10. The trick is to get him into a drowsy state, when his eyes look like they are rolling back into his head (lol), or start getting so heavy he can't keep them open, that is when I swaddle him tightly, rock him a little longer and then put him down BEFORE he falls fast asleep. If I wait till he's sleeping and then put him down in his cot, it's game over, I have these two round eyeballs looking right back at me and we have to start all over again.
We finally got a smile!! I thought I was going to cry it was so awesome. After those hectic days seeing him smile just made it all worthwhile. We finally have a response. He hasn't stopped smiling since, and it's the best thing ever. I feel envious when he smiles at other people, I want them all to myself.
So we recorded our first smile at 10 weeks 4 days. If you take his prematurity into account, his "adjusted age" was 4 weeks 4 days. What a long time to wait to see this smile, but I tell you it is worth waiting for. I could just melt. These were the first smiles I managed to catch on camera.
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