The last week has not been fun. But, the past 16 hours have been an amazing improvement. Read on for more details...
WAKE TIME
We were really struggling here. Due to constant waking early, Owen was always tired. I never knew when to put him down for naps. After a good car ride nap yesterday, I started really focusing on getting him down exactly 60 minutes after he woke. It worked great for his last two naps yesterday, and first nap today. He still fights it, and might cry and squirm, but it seems he needs to throw a little hissy fit to fall asleep. 5 minutes of fighting it is much better than the hour of screaming we were getting. So - the next couple days I am going to focus on this, and see what happens.
Feeding
After Owen eating two four ounce bottles in 2 hours time yesterday, I had a thought. Umm, hello - what if he's still hungry and that's our sleeping issue? So, again, once we got home from our errands, I made a change. I bumped him up to 5 ounce bottles. And again, so far he seems to be doing better. If my baby was a freak for a week because I wasn't feeding him enough, I will ... well, I just feel like a bad mom!
GAS
Same - gas drops at every feeding. He still farts. All. the. time. And we've really been working on getting his burps out. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes of patting him on the back, and then a huge one will come out.
NAPS
They were lasting only 20 minutes at a time. He was even rejecting his bouncey seat. But - with the adjustments already discussed, he's had 3 good naps. I'm working on the routine of swaddling him with his arms out, rocking and singing, then laying in pack and play. So far they've been like this:
Yesterday Afternoon Nap: 10 min. in pack and play, 60 min. in bouncey (bounced on and off)
Yesterday Evening Nap: 15 min. in pack and play, 45 min in bouncey
Today Morning Nap: 45 (!!!) min. in pack and play, currently in bouncey...
Again - it appears that my child wasn't napping because I a.) wasn't feeding him enough and b.) wasn't being consistent with wake-times and routines.
All of these things I knew were important, and I just chose not to go with them for whatever selfish reason of summer fun... not cool mom, not cool.
NIGHTTIME SLEEP
Same here - except he has had a couple nights of sleeping through the night! But most nights, he gets up once to eat. However, he now is fighting returning to his pack and play and loves to sleep with me in our bed. Which is great because he goes back to sleep for a long time - but I only get light sleep because I'm worried about him ... I always lay him on a diagonal so his head is far away from me and his feet are curled up into my side, but it still makes me nervous.
OUTINGS/EVENTS
We've been busy busy busy --- at first Owen did better on outings and car rides. Yesterday, not so much.
SAHM
My summer as a SAHM is quickly coming to an end. I am excited to get into gear of teaching a new grade -- but am starting to get really, really anxious about sending the boys to daycare all day. Thankfully we have an amazing daycare provider, and I know they'll be fine... but it's more me being sad that I'll miss out on so much Owen time that I was able to have when Henry was young. I know, I know, poor me. At least I have a job that we needed me to have. And at least I have two amazing boys to love and miss all day.
And now - for Owen's photo frenzy :)
Great pictures! Sorry about the sleep/feeding issues. Don't feel bad...it's not like they say, "hey mom, a little more food please". It's so hard to figure out what the issue is...a week is actually pretty darn quick in my book =) I know how hard it is to think about them going to daycare all day {{{HUGS}}} You're right though, we are seriously lucky to have these problems!
ReplyDeleteAmazing how much Owen looks like Henry to me. That's great improvement on naps! Sorry you're going to miss having that time with Owen but you're right...you have a good job and incredible boys. Good luck on teaching a new grade!
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