Food
Diego has been teething for weeks now: 3 molars and two canine teeth. Diego is a picky eater, just imagine a picky eater in pain! He has been eating less and less! And lately, he makes the effort of telling us that he is "all done" several times together with the sign, to make sure we don't offer more food!!! If we ignore his "all done" he gets mad and may start crying. However, I have to say, that Diego is a very adventurous eater! He has surprised us with eating tofu, couscous, Kashmir spinach (Indian food from Tasty Bite), mango, and pineapple! The volume of what he eats is small, but he has tried bunch of foods and textures!
Naps
With the summer full blown in Phoenix, we had to transition to stay inside A LOT. My poor little dude was used to be outside quite a bit, but with temperatures of 90 oF at 8 am and 112 oF at 2 pm it makes it unbearable to be outside. So, his level of activity has somewhat gone down, and the lenght of his naps too! Instead of a long nap from 11 am to 2 pm, now I am lucky if he sleeps until 1 pm. But then, by 4 or 5 pm, he starts getting too tired and cranky!! I have to then either put him in bed again for a 2nd nap around 3 or 4 or just keep him awake, but then bed time gets tougher because he is exhausted and cranky!!!
Sleep at night
This has always a hard one for him. Since Gotcha Day, he struggled sleeping through the night. At the beginning, he woke up several times per night, screaming and crying as if he had a night terror. After coming home and taking him to the doctor, we found out he had bad ear infections and it took two rounds of antibiotics to get rid of the infections (about 20 days). Then, it was the overstimulation, so we limited going out and the sleeping got better. Well, I am sad and a a bit concerned to say that for the last week or so he has been waking up 2 or 3 times per night. He cries, doesn't open his eyes, and it usually happens 1 hour after he falls asleep (9 pm), then another hour later (10 pm), and sometimes he hear some noise around 1 am. Besides me feeling sleeping and tired sometimes, it really makes me sad to see him in such a distress... I took him to the doctor yesterday to check if he had another ear infection, but his ears were just fine... He said maybe "he had night terror", oh, really?
So, what are we doing to tackle these things? We have a pool, so I am planning to get there in the morning and afternoon, about 30 minutes before his meal. Hopefully he will get a bit hungry and tired so he will eat and nap better! Hopefully, as Beth mentioned many times, going to the pool also will help as an attachment activity for us.
Attachment... the BIG word in adoptions... Some days, when I am really concerned, I tend to link a lot of the issues I mentioned above with attachment... Maybe Diego doesn't eat because of his controlling tendencies due to attachment issues... Or maybe Diego doesn't nap or sleep well because he still feels uneasy about us... Who knows... We keep hugging and kissing him, and trying our best to make eye contact with him. And maybe we are doing few things right, because he now gives us kisses and looks at us more. We continue trying our best to connect with him and at this point we have realized that Diego is a very sensitive boy and this is not a horse race, so we will give him time and hope things get better...
In the meantime I can say that after 3 months Diego is finally say "Dah" when he says Mark, and one time he said "Mah" when I went to the restroom and he chased me to the restroom door wanting for me to come out! He hasn't said it again, but I am fine, I know he knows who I am.. He also says "Doh" or something like that for dog and we are working on the nose and ears...
And now, few pics from Father's day when we went to the park.
And finally his favorite thing: taking Mark's glasses off!
5 comments:
I know exactly what you mean. I worry a lot about Eli's eating, napping, and attachment. It doesn't sound like you're going backwards though. It sounds like he's doing pretty well, all things considered. Eli is very sensitive too, and we wondered if it's taking him a little longer to trust fully because of that. I think just being with him all the time is helping though. I think he'll find security in that, and I think Diego will too.
Pool sounds like fun. It's gotten hot here, so we're indoors in the afternoon too.
He is just so cute in that little hat!
One thing we learned (not without worry though) was that eating, sleeping, and attachment is such a process and like any process there are steps forward and steps backwards. Luca has been home almost 3 years and he even regressed a bit after we went to Russia to adopt Jaxon.
Jaxon has started waking up at night occasionally too. He seemed to just want to know that Mommy and Daddy were there. We tried changing his nap and putting him to bed a bit earlier and that seemed to work well(for now). I think so much with our kiddos is trial and error :) Once they get into a groove and all seems good, they up and change it too!
Hope Diego enjoys his pool time. I know the boys sleep like logs after swimming in the lake.
Diego sounds like he is doing wonderfully, Sinziana. He has an amazing Mommy and Daddy, too!
It seems like once these li'l fellas get past the "you mean I can eat almost anything I want?" phase, the picky eating ensues. Liam's range of acceptible foods continues to grow and we're really happy that he likes healthy stuff like oatmeal, fish, & nearly any kind of dairy - especially cheese! But mealtimes are sometimes sorta protracted & laborious affairs. I think it's just part of discovering new freedoms...
By the way, we switched to some heavier, darker curtains in Liam's room and that made a huge difference with his naps.
I am sure that he is doing better then you think. I bet those teeth are really bothering him.
I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
Joy
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