Sunday, April 19, 2009

Hush Little Baby

My son has developed a new sleeping pattern which I can't decide if I love or hate. For the past three nights, Isaac has gone to sleep at about 10-10:30 with little feeding. And then he sleeps until 4-4:30. I have gone to bed around the same as he has the past two nights because I am soooo tired and sore (from the massive 3 hr. walk around the lake with a Lamaze friend). I have really enjoyed the 5+ hour stretch of sleep I get.

What I don't really enjoy is that when he does get up, he is ravenous....and WIDE AWAKE. This means the schedule that took place previously at 6-7 am is now happening at 4-5 am. And when I say wide awake, I mean smiles and laughing and kicking and cooing. The full "I'm awake, Mommy, play with me, cuddle me, love me, I don't care if your eyes are still unfocused and crusted shut with sleep deprivation."

But I do it. I try in vain to put him back in the bassinet with the magical FP seahorse he has grown to love (or is that me?) but it has yet to be successful. So we get up and come out to the family room and hop onto the packnplay for a diaper change. I let him kick forcefully while I put everything away from our night and make my oatmeal and oj breakfast. Usually by this time, his eyes are looking a little heavy as he has been awake for about an hour and a half (I let him kick in the bassinet for a while, as long as he is happy). Thus far I have been able to put him in his swing and he falls asleep while I snooze on the couch for about 3 hours.

This schedule is fine now but will not be very good in 2 weeks when I have to go to work. Daddy will not want to get up at 4 am.

I am happy for the most part with how and how long Isaac sleeps. We have finally taken the hot water bottle out of the bassinet and he sleeps completely flat on his back with his arms over his head. We have moved to the half swaddle for his legs only since he loves his arms free (which probably isn't necessary anymore, but we are trying to adapt him to a few new things so one thing at a time, right?).

Bottle feeding...yeah, not so much. The past two nights have been tough. I don't understand what is going on because he used to take the bottle so well when we introduced it at about 3 weeks. He has had consistent bottles since then so it really is like he made the decision to hate them. Last night I got abou 2 ounces down him over about a 45 minute period in which I was talking to him constantly. You should have heard the things I was saying. If I stopped or paused for a second, everything unraveled. I have some more methods to try so we will see how it goes.

Today is Family Funday Sunday, so we have aBBQ to prepare for. :)

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