This is definitely the opposite of what she did last night. I'm blaming it on a 3 week growth spurt, seeing as she is exactly 3 weeks today, and the books say she'll have a growth spurt at 7-10 days, 3 weeks and 6 weeks. And definitely about a week or two ago, she did this same "cluster feeding" thing as she did last night, where it seems like she wants to eat every hour or hour and a half. Good grief that is exhausting. And poor Jason was up all night with me, probably more than I was. I would feed her and then he would attempt to get her to sleep.... which was impossible.
I am open to any and all suggestions from experienced moms regarding how to get a baby to figure out the difference between night time and day time. And now there is an adorable, sweet little baby girl calling to me that it is time to eat again.
*for the record, she was swaddled and she houdini-ed her way out of it. i promise i was being careful that there were no blankets in position to suffocate her!
9 comments:
lily was a big cluster feeder baby. she cluster fed for a long time (months) every evening from about 4 or 5 to 8 or 9 p.m. it feels very inconvenient but perfectly normal. just shows you how dependent they are on you! and it's good for your milk supply. i just let lily eat whenever she wanted and she eventually worked herself into her own schedule. don't worry about chaotic eating right now, it won't last forever! i'm sure it feels like it will right now but it will change quickly. as far as days and nights mixed up i always started doing a bedtime routine around 8 or 9 with bath, lotion, pj's, nursing, swaddle and hopefully going to sleep. and we went to bed then too. a lot of times it would take several nursing sessions to get lily to sleep. and keep everything dim/dark & quiet after bath. before too long she will get it figured out. and before too long she will be in bed and you and jason can have time to yourself in the evening! it just takes time and lots of giving up of yourself. it's pretty much the most selfless job you will ever have. the best thing i told myself when lily was going through a trying period (after having gone through it with eva) was "this too shall pass". just keep telling yourself that. and those difficult phases will pass usually within days or a couple weeks. okay, that's it. sorry so long. she is beautiful and i know you guys are fantastic parents!
My two cents is that I intentionally tried to keep Ellie from sleeping too much during the day. I think I aimed for about an hour of awake time (that was a goal, but didn't always happen) in between feeding and sleeping. We also did what Danielle mentioned w/ the bedtime routine and wouldn't really talk much to her after "lights out". And Danielle's right, just remember "this too shall pass"...when I get overwhelmed thinking "how am I going to keep doing this for the next weeks" I try to remind myself that she changes sooo quickly and it might not even be an issue in a few days! Enjoy, she's beautiful!! :) A
Babies just like to eat, a lot. We never did the bed time routine thing (although lots of people say it worked), we just kept putting her back to sleep when she woke up (after feeding her). They figure it out on their own eventually. I don't remember the exact progression, but I know that by the time I went back to work at 8 weeks, Christina was on a pretty good schedule of going to bed around 9-10, and waking up twice (around 12:00 and 3:00) to eat, then up by 7-8. At that age she was also pretty easy to get back to sleep after she ate. It sounds crazy, but that schedule worked pretty well for a long time, and eventually she started going to bed earlier (around six months), around 8:00 which gave me some more free time. Also, Christina hated being swadled, she always worked her way out of it. And around six weeks we realized that she sleept so much better and longer on her stomach, so we gave up on the back (we needed some sleep). It really does seem like forever at the time and so short in hindsight. You are doing great, and Adelaide is adorable, praying for continued adjustment. The Esbecks.
i wish i had some great piece of advice but alas. i remember sarah going through that too. some days i felt like all i did was sit on the couch with her and feed her. but that is ok because like these other wise women have said, these things shall pass. we didn't do a bedtime routine til much later, but sometimes i wonder what it would have been like if we did. so. good luck friend. you are doing a great job. and she's a doll.
I LOVE the Adelaide pictures! Seriously precious. I have no advice except hang in there & go with your instincts! One day you get to sleep through the night again! What an awesome time that will be for all :)
Maybe one of the only things that I have done with all three babies is when I go feed at night, I keep it as dark as possible (I'm talking I can barely see!) and change the diaper if needed while I nurse the baby so the baby doesn't really wake up and most nights for all 3 of the kids, they would go right back to sleep after every feeding. Doesn't mean they slept long in between every time, but I had very few "up walking the halls" in the middle of the night with any of them. Now I also didn't have a helper like ol' Shuby to be up with me, so that's different. And Jeannie wanted to kick me I think when I suggested changing the diaper while nursing, as it can be a challenge on your first baby. But that's what I did, so there you go! I hope it's encouraging to hear all these mamas just confirm how normal it is to deal with this stage. Sometimes you just need to know that it happens to everyone and you're going to make it!
First of all she is so precious!! I love looking at all of her cute little pictures. As all of the women have mentioned, and you know, this is just a hard stage. She is so young so getting her on any sort of schedule right now is going to be hard. For the first several weeks during the day I would intentionally try and keep my kids up for at least an hour of wake time, this would include feedings too. So if she is a really slow eater she might not be up a lot between naps but at least try and have her stay awake after she eats for a little bit.
As for nights--my nursing adviser ? (not sure what they are called) always told me to have my last feeding of the day at 10pm and then let them wake up on their own during the night. This worked great for us because they only would wake up about twice a night which seemed a whole lot better than 3-4. And, even if they would go to bed earlier in the evening I would wake them up for that 10pm feeding. As they got older I slowly worked that 10pm feeding back so eventually their last feeding was at 7pm. Everyone has their own ways but that is what worked for us. Hope that helps! Glad to hear she had a great night!!
This sounds exactly like Karis. At least I don't feel we are totally abnormal. Still trying to figure out something too, and seriously am running on steam. We are trying to take turns with her, and I have the tv on in hopes that the noise will make her feel more comfortable about sleeping (as she does during the day) - read it in a book - we'll see - obviously won't do that forever - just hoping she'll get some sleep tonight so we can. We'll see - she sounds pretty fidgety in her bassinet... I'll have to read the above advice too! Glad to hear Adelaide maybe has done a bit better lately, and btw - she gets cuter and cuter!
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