"Is He Good For You?"

That question along with "Is he sleeping for you?" have become my biggest gripe of late. Almost every single person I speak to outside of my immediate family and friends asks me these 2 questions. I'm sure every other parent gets asked this as well but until I became a parent myself I never realised how ridiculous these 2 questions are actually are.



Let's start with "Is he good for you?" - Of course he is, he's a tiny little baby who doesn't yet know good from bad. He doesn't yet know how to communicate in any other way than to cry. I'm not sure if that means because he may cry a bit that he's not good?! There is so much going on for a baby all day every day, learning and discovering new sights, sounds, smells and now tastes, their poor little heads sometimes get too packed up with information and they just need to cry for a bit or give out. That's ok, it's what babies do, some more than others. So yeah if I must answer, he is good for me, he's great in fact - he makes my heart burst with pride each and every single time he smiles or laughs or gurgles or falls asleep in my arms or finishes his bottle with an extremely pleased with himself grin on his cute little face or when his chubby little fingers wrap around mine.....even when he's crying because he's teething, hungry, needs a nappy change, tired, has a temperature, is bored of his current play things, he is still good for me! (Even if he wasn't I wouldn't be discussing it with every person on the street that asks me that question!)

Happy or sad, he's still good for me!

"Is he sleeping for you?"  - Erm, yes he does! What they really mean is if he's sleeping through the night or not! This question is ok when not taken literally but these days it almost feels like a competition every time someone asks me it! I get somewhat pitying looks when I say yes but he wakes at around 5am every morning and will toss and turn until he finally decides to wake up properly around 7.30am. This is something he has done since birth, a phase or not, its ok, we can handle it. Some nights he might wake on the hour every hour, that's ok too, again he's a baby, his little head is full with new things all the time. I feel not enough is said about the growth spurts and developmental stages for babies, particularly around now for L. At 4 and half months he has been having a bit of a learning curve, trying to sit up, trying to talk and learning to roll over so of course it's hard for him to switch off at night. I figured this out after some online research but really think these are things the doctor and nurse should discuss with us parents more, if at all.
We have had a bedtime routine since day one and for the best part, at the moment, he sleeps form 7pm - 2am when he wakes for his bottle. He may stir looking for his dummy before this time but nothing major. He then will, without fail, wake at 5am as mentioned above. I think this is good...he's 4 months old, its unrealistic to expect him to sleep through the night just yet or to have people think he should've been doing that from the first week we brought him home. It just makes me so mad when I hear "Oh my baby has been sleeping through the night since 3 weeks" or along those lines. It's not good for them to do that so young, I'm sure I don't need to spell out the reasons, but good for you if your little one is sleeping through the night at this age, enjoy the extra sleep. But there's no need to feel sorry for me because L isn't yet, he will get there when he's good and ready. It's not a competition, it's not pitting one baby against another. It's giving a a baby a chance to find his feet and own pattern for sleeping.

Yes he sleeps, see :)