A one week respite from the teething to catch up on some sleep. All week long he's slept at least 7 hours straight at night. The long stretch was followed by another stretch of 3-4 hours. I got my wish and now the genie has turned the tables. Dexter must be teething again. He had a stretch of 5 hours and then woke up every 2.5-3 hours after that. I'm exhausted again today because I THOUGHT I might be able to watch half a movie after he went to bed. After he woke up at 2 am, I couldn't get back to sleep. I tossed and turned for hours and it felt like I had just gotten to sleep when the baby alarm went off at 5 am. I stuck one earplug in my ear after deciding 2 ear plugs didn't allow me to hear enough and no earplugs seemed like sleep torture. He woke up again at 7:30 am. Mr. Cobra gave me oatmeal in bed and grabbed me coffee on his way out. I love how he spoils me just when I need it.
I don't feel any tooth nubs close to the surface, but that doesn't mean they aren't coming in. He was drooling like mad last night and pulling off while nursing like he did before his first tooth popped through the gum. He has 18 more teeth to come in before it's done. I've read that it takes about 6 months for them all to come in, but I'm sure that varies. I hope I can survive the sleepless nights. At least I know it's not something I'm doing wrong. This week proved to me that he has a good sleep pattern if he weren't teething. I heard him put himself back to sleep several times which is part of the reason why I couldn't sleep.
Teething sucks and it doesn't feel so great nursing either. He clamps down once in a while just to try them out, or he'll get distracted by a loud noise, clamp down and pull me with him as he turns to see what's going on. At first it wasn't so bad because the teeth were still surrounded by gums, but every day they stick up more and more. You can see them now when he smiles. It's cute, but the theme from JAWS pops in my head once in a while.
In other news, Mike just brought home a great hand-me-down from some friends of ours with a 2 year old. It's an exersaucer. Dexter went wild in it last night. He figured out how to pivot the seat around to play with all the toys. He rattled, grabbed, chewed, and twirled all the toys. It's the first big toy he's gotten since the rainforest play gym and he loved it. I was surprised that he figured out how to move everything within minutes. There's only one little button he hasn't figured out which is good because it's on top of a little car and it plays the sound of a siren. That one will get annoying, so I'm not going to show him how to make it work. He'll have to figure that one out on his own. It was so funny to watch him get so excited though. He was in total toy heaven.
