Baby, work, wedding...

Just a few topics I wanted to write about briefly while Turtle-Love naps...

Nursing to sleep. Does anyone else pretty much HAVE to nurse their child to sleep?? Turtle-Love refuses to sleep for me without the boobie. He was refusing to sleep without me holding him, but we are working on that and doing pretty well. I'm thinking that was just a phase. However, nursing to sleep does NOT seem to be a phase. It doesn't matter how tired he is - he will NOT go to sleep with out the boobie. Unless I'm not home. Not just in the other room, but actually gone. Then apparently he will go to sleep. And SOMETIMES in his car seat, if he is stuffed to the gills.

TV time What is your policy on TV time for your infant? Sure, Turtle-Love has inadvertantly watched some NCIS with me, but today I actually decided to put him in his bouncey seat with a Baby Einstein video. He is about 24 weeks old. Bad? Okay? Good? Who knows. I guess as far as TV goes, Baby Einstein is definitely the lesser of the evils. He was a good distance away from the screen. The video was Meet the Orchestra and he really seemed to enjoy it - complimented by grunts and babble =)

Starting solids Attention preemie moms but of course I would love feedback from everyone. What is your view on solids? Did you do purees? How old was your baby when you started? Preemie moms: did you wait til your child reached the appropriate adjusted age, or actual age? I'm having a bit of an internal battle with this. Turtle-Love will be 6 months in 2 weeks. He is sitting supported and has some moments of balancing upright on his own. He salivates at the table when we eat and stares hardcore at food. We have been letting him hold breads for a couple weeks but he wasn't interested in putting them in his mouth. I've spoon feed him formula supplements a couple times to see how he does with the spoon, btw he loves it and grunts and whines if I'm not fast enough. The past three times we have handed him a bread item (a biscuit, a pizza crust, a cracker) he has put them in has mouth - I made it a game and took it from him before he could ingest anything. The last thing we gave him was a cracker 2 days ago - he slobbered on it and broke a piece off. I was terrified at first, and then watched him chew it! I made it a game again, and fished it out lol. He thought it was funny. Originally, I wanted to wait until his 6 month appointment to see what the doctor said about starting him on solids - mainly because he is a preemie and I worry about his digestive system being ready. He has given me tons of signs he is ready though. I'm just not sure. I know I'd like to make my own baby food when we get to that point.

Working & babysitters I've been working from home since January. I had asked my company to let me work from home for at least 6 months, and that mark is coming up. In addition to that, one of our employees turned in her 2 week notice. So my boss has asked that I come back to the office. s2bDH has an off the wall schedule that revolves around events at the university for his "day job" and events at local music scenes for his security job. We can't count on his paycheck or his hours more than a week at a time because we never know what the schedule will be for either job. He is about ti hit a slow point in his day job, and my sister will be up for about 2 weeks so they will be home with Turtle-Love through mid June at the least. I'm now having to decide is paying for a daycare or a sitter, which is about half my take home based on the prices I've seen, is worth my job. Obviously we need the money, but if I'm putting out everything I take in AND losing time with my son, I'm just having a hard time accepting it. If we go with a daycare, or can't find a sitter that will use cloth diapers and handle breast milk (assuming I can keep my supply up) we will also have the added costs of disposable diapers and formula. I love my job, honestly I do, but this is difficult. I don't even know where to begin on choosing a place/person to care for my son.

Wedding We are less than 5 months from our wedding! Yikes! We are certainly pinching pennies right now to make sure we can save enough to cover all of our costs, but this added expense for day care is going to injure our bottom line for the wedding. I've already signed some deposits and contracts and such so we are in it regardless, its just a matter of coming up with it all, as we are hosting our wedding.