Biting, bottles and sleep, oh my!

Here's what's going on around here recently:

Well, the biting is back. Owie. And now it has escalated to where Charlie is no longer nursing much at all. (He'll still nurse at night sometimes if he's sleepy enough to not try to bite me). And he's become mobile enough to get booted out of our bed and into the crib (finally). In just a few days, I've gone from having a co-sleeping, nursing baby to an entirely different one. This baby drinks bottles. And sleeps in his crib (mostly). And is learning to go to sleep on his own. And wants a binkie (sometimes)!

I'm not sure that either of us is ready to wean yet (ideally, I'd like to breastfeed a few more months) so I've been pumping to not lose my supply. I'm hoping that once his other top tooth breaks through (it's so close!) that Charlie will stop biting and we can go back to our happy nursing relationship.

One positive note, Charlie is now taking naps in his crib and slept the other night from 7 pm to midnight in his crib without needing help to get back to sleep (two brief wakings, but he was able to fall back to sleep on his own). The bad side is he wakes at midnight and sometimes takes 2 hours to get back down. I feel like I have a newborn again.

Another negative, the bottles make him gassy. He's not used to them so he has a hard time burping which leads to finally vomiting a whole feeding.

In the meantime, being in the limbo of kind of sleep training and sort of weaning is really strange and difficult. The other night I dealt with making bottles, pumping, projectile vomiting, changing his clothes, changing my clothes, rocking, patting, shushing, administering medicine and laundry. John has been working late nights so I'm going solo, too. Bummer for everyone involved.

We're kind of settling into a new normal (?) but it's been a rough couple of weeks. I have a whole new appreciation for co-sleeping/nursing because I really don't fully wake up while doing that, even though Charlie wasn't sleeping through the night. Doing this bottle feeding/rocking thing in the middle of the night is killer. I've figured out to prepare bottles in the evening so our night wakings are briefer, but I don't know how long we'll last in this current situation.

Charlie does LOVE that bottle, though. He will ask for it by saying "Ba" (but heck, practically everything is "ba" to this kiddo). He's been a little bit more stranger anxious and mommy-oriented, which I attribute to the loss of that nursing time.

We'll see what happens in the next few weeks!