Baby and I had another visit with the Plunket Family Centre, the people who are helping me sort out our (okay, my) reverse cycling problem. Their feed-often strategy doesn't seem to be working, so I've been given a daily routine to try on Baby.
The Plunket nurse who gave this to me stressed how important it is to get Baby to get her five feeds per day during the day, rather than during the night.
Tell me about it.
Having a little more predictability in my day would be great. I could actually make appointments and be pretty sure I can turn up.
I'm supposed to wake her up for a last-feed-of-the-night at around 10pm, the theory being that this will avoid having to get out of bed and feed her at midnight or 1am. I'm a little sceptical whether this will work (I've read that there's maybe a 50/50 chance of success), but what's the harm in trying?
Well, for a start, the very thought of waking up Baby at night on purpose gives me the heebie jeebies.
What if she wakes up, feeds and then doesn't want to go back to sleep?
But on a slight tangent - just talking to the Plunket nurses always gives me a feelgood. They're really encouraging and tell me how normal my anxieties, and Baby's foibles, are. That's a heck of a lot more than I get from socialising with the mother's group - the mums I talk to only want to chat about how well everything is going. That's sooo not blogworthy.
6 comments:
Thats the way we approached things with both kids. Feed them when they need it at first, but feed them earlier than they are usually seeking it at night to buy yourself some sleep. I had my doubts but soon realized something really neat about babies when they are incredibly young. If their eyes are open they are hungry.
It seems like it may never happen, but baby will soon be sleeping through the night.
Its interesting looking back on the early months with my baby because once the drama of the first couple of weeks was over & I'd partially gotten over a very traumatic birth experience I was always adamant that everything was going well. And I did have quite an easy baby, and we all got through it, but in retrospect, although there were some moments of joy, it was a totally draining and exhausting time which I survived rather than enjoyed. I just couldn't admit that to myself or to anyone else at the time because that is how I cope. I'd imagine the same is true for a lot of the mothers in that mothers group.
rainypete: Baby used to be hungry when she was awake, but that hasn't been the case for about 2 months...
mtnw: I must be a rarity then, because I have not problems whatsoever going on about how hard I'm finding it. Though I do bow to social convention by smiling while I complain, as though I don't mind all that much really.
You're doing a Pollyanna,eb! I try to keep it light on the blog, so imagine how sunny my posts would be if everything was going swimmingly...
ah, the dream feed
it worked for one chicklet, but not so much the other (which would seem to prove your 50/50 theory)
here's hoping it works for you, though!
We've moved from demand feeding to the routine outlined in the Contented Little Baby book - which also has you waking her up around 10-1030 for a final feed.
It's not easy to wake her - takes me a good 15 minutes to get her awake. However she does wake and feed (from a bottle of expressed milk) and go back to sleep.
The difference imposing the regular structure has made is astonishing. We have our lives back, we have predictability, and my wife and I have time together again. Most importantly, the baby is a lot happier too. She's almost never grumpy during the day, and mostly gets to sleep when it's time. The difference is night and day.
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