New skills and nursing strikes

Michael has been quite a character lately.  Every time I try to figure him out he switches things up on us.  On Sunday, for instance, we left him on the playmat for just a moment while we stepped into the kitchen.  When we came back, he had rotated himself 180 degrees from how we left him!  That was the first time we have seen him move.  He did it again by rotating 90 degrees in his bassinet this morning when I found him.  It's all crazy from here on out, I know... We're going to be in trouble when gets fully mobile.  He can now also push himself up pretty well!

[caption id="attachment_642" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Push up"][/caption]

Michael switches up his sleep schedule and fussy times quite a bit, too. Sometimes he lets me sleep until 5 or 6, but then for four days in a row he was up at 2:30 or 3.  And all weekend he was all smiles and talking a lot, but then he went on a mini-nursing strike last night and was positively inconsolable for a few hours.  He just didn't want to nurse, I think because he was so hungry (for whatever reason ... it's not like I starve the child!)  that he was impatient with nursing and just wanted a bottle :(  This website suggested feeding him formula first and then trying to nurse, or pumping if you have to, until the baby settles down and shows interest again.  In any event, the website helped (along with the nursing book my mom gave me, an invaluable resource!*) and he nursed fine today -- up until another mini-strike tonight.  But I think I got him through that (easier tonight than yesterday) and he is nursing to sleep now.  All that growing must be exhausting.

*I feel like I should give a PSA on nursing to all the women out there who, like me, have/had no idea how many things can come up while nursing.  It's not always as easy or natural as I assumed.  Clogged ducts, painful cracks, supply problems, oversupply, latching issues, nursing fussiness ... yikes!  But it seems like many women go through this and you can usually make it through :)