Toronto

This is a follow-up to the post called – Help, We Have A Two-Hour Charlie. First thanks to those who left comments offering up advice and sharing some war stories of their own.

So to update you since we had that stretch of little sleep and feedings every two hours, I can say, things have gotten better. I say better because it certainly is not worse. Things are ideal yet but we are certainly managing much better.

Three things have been added into the mix since.

1. Rice cereal.

2. Formula before bed.

3. Dad is taking his turns putting the baby to bed.

So we started with rice cereal every night just before we had dinner. He loves it. Could not be more happy. We have actually started giving it to him for breakfast as well. So that is two bowls of cereal per day.

We also introduced formula over the weekend. So, the story with that is pretty funny. We had guests on the weekend, the in-laws, and of course that meant having extra help.

For those of you who watched Lost, do you remember Desmond and the code he had to enter every hour or so, or something bad would happen? Watching him panic when the countdown was on. Well what if the computer was a baby and you could not stop the countdown every two hours?

That is our life right now.

Yep, our four-month old, Charlie, is on a very strict, I need to eat every two hours or I will freak out like Frank Ocean.

We thought it was a growth spurt, but it has been going on for weeks and we are now at a crossroads of what to do next.

The back story is, he was sleeping through the night just fine for over a week, so we decided it was time to upgrade to the crib. Since, I don’t think he has slept longer than four hours at a time in the new digs.

Then over the last week, he can’t seem to go more than two hours without wanting to eat.

So now we are trying to figure out:

• Is he really hungry?
• Does he not like the crib?
• Is he not ready for the crib?
• Does he just need more food ie. formula?
• Are we going to survive a mental breakdown from lack of sleep?

So what does a dad do when the driveway needs shoveling but you have a little one inside who is trying to sleep?

You turn to the baby monitor and test out the range of course.

Recently we reached the stage where it was time to move our 3-month old out of our room/bassinet, to his nice, big crib next door. It meant a lot of things – less constant sleep, a new bedtime routine and of course digging out the old baby monitor from last time.

Apparently a lot has changed since we last relied on the old baby walkie-talkie because this time when we turned it on, 8 out of 10 times, there was nasty interference.

Crap.

I spent a good day trying to crack the code. What was different from last time? Was it the Wi-Fi? Was it the neighbours Wi-Fi?

Anyways, while this was going on, it meant my wife was basically trapped on the top floor of the house each night, because we would not be able to hear the baby from the basement.

While she did enjoy the peace, the chance to read, and going to bed early, after a few nights, she was craving TV. We had a backlog of shows piling up, one of which, Top Chef, our weekly hit of crack.

As I was using tin foil on the baby monitor to see if that would magically fix it like a bad episode of MacGyver, I realized I had gone too far.

It was time to suck it up and just get a new one. Gone baby monitor, gone.

On Sunday, Feb. 3rd, the biggest game of the year will take place. I am referring to Super Bowl XLVII of course.

The Baltimore Ravens will take on the San Francisco 49ers. If you want to know about the actual game, well I know you can find that in five seconds somewhere. I am not here to focus on that.

With the Super Bowl, there is the week long lead up, the commercials, the food, the 56 hour pre-game show, the monster halftime show and of course, there is the actual game.

Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, predictions, betting and all around opinion time. There are only two teams, you have a 50/50 shot.

Since I have access to a huge group of awesome dad bloggers, I threw out the simple question, who do you think will win the Super Bowl.

Here are the responses. I want to see yours as well.

The last few nights have been less than ideal in our house. In order of lack of sleep, we have my wife, baby, me, then the 3-year old.

So this is what is getting me through.

For those of you who buy baby formula, do you check the expiry date on the package before buying? Yes, we all say we do, but it is okay if you forget.

The thing is, you may want to start checking every time after what I read about happening in British Columbia.

Turns out, there, many stores are carrying expired formula and selling it.

President’s Choice Soy Infant Formula, a liquid, was found for sale more than two months past its expiry date at a Real Canadian Superstore in North Vancouver.

We buy President’s Choice product all the time and when Harry was a baby, that was the only formula he ever had. I can’t ever remember really focusing on the expiry date. I just assumed that stores would remove that product.

I just heard more on this story on the radio. It explained that “best before dates” are guidelines and the product generally is fine months later. But an “expiry date” means remove it from the shelves and destroy it.