The wee lass is almost 5 months old now, something that has crept up on us all of a sudden. There have been a few indicators of this in recent weeks: she's watched us eating with great focus and intensity, she gets bored laying down very quickly, she's almost repeated the infamous new nostril ripping trick her brother visited upon me at a similar age and the cries of frustration and not quite being able to roll over are frequent and loud (although she has managed to roll off the sofa but not on my watch I hasten to add).
We only started M'laddo on solids as early as we did because of his silent acid reflux. We had no intention of doing the same with the wee lass but she was watching the fork to mouth action so intently, we thought we'd try and now you can see her straining forward with every fibre of her being towards to spoon with purée on it that evidently isn't coming towards her as fast as she'd like.
The one area that the wee lass is still causing problem in is her feeding though. Especially at night time, she has stubbornly refused to deviate from a 3 hour feeding regime. And as a lot of you will know, the timing for a 3 hour gap between feeds is from the start of the feed, so by the time you factor in the feeding and the winding and the getting back off to sleep, as a parent you often only get an hour or two between feeds. Well for the last 3 days (possibly due to the huge quantities of Ella's Organics we've stuffed into her chops), she's slept from 7.30pm to half two and then from half two til gone 6. Yes, I know she's only pretending and that it will be much worse once she reasserts her normal pattern but for the moment we're clinging to this tiny crumb of hope with both hands and stifling a yawn at the same time :)
And it really is hats off to wifey- she does this arduous night time regime Sunday through to Thursday and I only do the weekends. And its all I can do to not be a grumpy so and so on a Saturday as I've been up half the night after a busy week at work. Still, mustn't grumble as I have it easy compared to some (Miles, if Jenny's reading this she should tell you I have it easy!)
*that will turn out to be very short lived I'm sure. I know from bitter experience with M'laddo that they lull you into a false sense of security and then catch you out.
Fingers crossed she keeps in up. I too started Bub at 5 months (because he is such a big boy) and he is woofing it down. Unfortunate we haven't achieved the elusive sleeping through but we live in hope too! Good luck and I hope she is sleeping like a baby in no time! PS - I'm very envious - being a breastfeeding mummy, hubby doesn't have to do the weekend night feeds in our house(although they aren't 3 hourly thank goodness!). And yes I am a grumpy so and so in the morning!
ReplyDeleteWow, sleep sounding fab, our little man fed 2-3hrs intervals til 11m,finally sleeping through (til 5am,does that count??) at 15m. We baby-led weaned, so not much chance of filling his tummy! He did it all himself, and only started eating real quantities, instead of playing, you guessed it, around 11m! He now eats more than me :-)
ReplyDeleteI believe the sleep thing is developmental, no amount of "weaning" them off night milk etc, will make them sleep, they just will when they're ready. As soon as I accepted this, I felt much less tired than when I was fighting it, and not long after, sleep came naturally.
Aussie Mummy: I'm jealous of you: not having to traipse downstairs to warm a bottle, then having to wash/sterilize 13+ bottles every morning!
Um... might get not much more empathy in the future, but after my struggle with breast feeding and the 'thread' of putting her on formula, little L decided to sleep from 7PM to midnight and then again until 4 or 5 in the morning. And then until 7-ish. And the spells seem to get longer. I feel very lucky, all of a sudden :-)
ReplyDeleteWell done you for taking the weekend shift. Will have to have a word with Big M!