I think we've hit our first big growth spurt. Normally, Joseph is quite content, nursing every 2-3 1/2 hours, and napping most of the time in between. He's typically really good about going 3-3 1/2 hours at night, which I really have appreciated. Until recently. Tuesday night he was a little harder to calm during his middle of the night feedings, and they were closer to 2 - 2 1/2 hours apart. Not a big deal, but made for a tired Mommy Wednesday morning. Joseph seemed to return to "normal" (is there a normal for an infant? I don't think so), but still feeding a little closer together.
Last night around 9pm we gave him a bath, dressed him for bed, nursed him and assumed he'd fall right to sleep, like he's done after every other bath. Nope. Wide awake. I was exhausted, so Joe cuddled with him, which I don't think he minded too much. :) At 10:30, he was hungry. I woke up, fed him, gave him back to Joe to be changed and put to bed. By about 12:15, he was hungry again, and I was officially on the worst night shift yet. From 12:15 to 4:15am, Joseph nursed 3 times, would start to doze off and then wake himself back up crying. Our night feeding "routine" typically takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, from the time he first starts eating, to diaper change, soothed and back asleep in his crib again, so this was completely new. I kept checking the diaper, checking his temperature, and discovered that no, all he really wanted was to eat. Finally by 4:15, I was able to calm him so that he fell asleep for more than 15 minutes - we made it to about 6:15am before it was time to feed again! That feeding took our typical 45 minutes, and he was wide awake... Knowing that Joe's alarm was going to go off at 7ish, I decided it was time for him to take over, because I was beat. They cuddled for a little bit, until Joe had to shower. 8:15am, Joseph's crying to be fed again. At this point, I dragged myself out of bed, brought Joseph back into our room and managed to feed him two more times between then and now, 11am local time. Right now he's sleeping in his swing, and I'm about to doze off trying to catch up on some sleep before Jill and Gary get here this afternoon.
The doctor said he should be eating 8-12 times in a 24 hour period. Right now for today, I think we're at 11 times in 12 hours.... if this isn't a growth spurt, I don't want to see what that'll be like!
2 comments:
Yikes! I remember the first 3 weeks I thought I would never make it, and then Ethan started sleeping one 4-5 hour chunk per night, and that seemed manageable. You seem to already be handling the constant feeding much better than I did, but I hope he goes back to sleeping for you! At least tonight you'll get a few more people to help extend the time between feedings!
The first few nights I had to wake Ruth up every 4-5 hours to get her to sleep and then one day when she was a week old she decided that 1.5 hours at a time was enough sleep for her. That was when I started reading all those baby sleep books and letting her cry herself to sleep. I thought I'd lose it. Hang in there, you're doing great!
It is hard to believe that my tough big brother is such a softy with little 7. So cute!
Post a Comment