Hi everyone,

Welcome Vanita and Dion. Congratulations again on the arrival of your little boy.

Dear little Blake is fast asleep at the moment after his bath and feed. As a thought, when do the rest of you bath your babies? Blake is such a demanding man for food that I have to feed him when he's awake about an hour before he's due. This usually works out best when I've walked to school in the morning, particularly Monday's as I also go to assembly and don't get home until later, but I do bath him other days too! LOL

Blake is starting to sleep for longer stints now, and I often get 5 or 6 hours out of him at night. He will also sleep 5 hours during the day if I let him although I'd rather he saves that for night time.

He's still being selective about when he wants his dummy which I'm pleased about, and he's still spitting it out and he doesn't wake up because he's missing it. I agree with you Vanita about the dummy vs thumb debate. My Godson (GS) was encouraged to suck his thumb as a baby rather than being given a dummy because his mother felt he could easily pacify himself with is thumb and he wouldn't wake during the night looking for it as he would with a dummy that had fallen out. The only complication with this is that he is now nearly 11 and when he's tired or bored, his thumb will often find it's way into his mouth. I'm pleased that my DD had a dummy because when I chose to take it off her sometime between 2 and 3yo, it was gone and there was no repercussions. If she's tired or cranky I used to joke with her that I'd get a dummy to give her something to soothe her, but she's laugh. In the back of my mind I'd think about my GS who wouldn't hesitate to suck his thumb.

Deb, Congratulations on naming Alexander. It's such a lovely strong name.

Linds, Blake is still in his bassinet in our room, although I've been thinking about how much longer he'll be in there. Not because he's a noisy boy, simply because he's so big! There's not a lot of room left at the head of his bed (I put him in like I would in the cot to 'SIDS Standards' with his feet touching the bottom of the bed.) There's maybe 10cms left between his head and the top of the bassinet, and when he's trying to settle to sleep and he's got one of his arms out (actually I tend to wrap him with one arm out these days otherwise he spends too much time and energy getting it out) he waves his arm around and I can hear him hitting the side of the bassinet, and kicking the end of it too. Unfortunately he's not yet sleeping all the way through so it's handy to have him close, and really, I like having him near me. I'm still doting on him, and getting warm and fuzzy when he's so close

Time to do some other stuff - like housework, oh joy!

Have a great afternoon.