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| Another photo by Serra |
EMOTIONS
Emotions were the same–up and down, back and forth. I feel like they are easing up, though. It seems like I am my normal self more often than an anxiety-ridden self. The anxiety is only there briefly.
NURSING
Nursing is going well. Still no signs of mastitis (YEAH!). Newman’s Nipple Cream is most likely to thank–at least that is where I am sending the credit. It is the only thing I did differently and I got mastitis with every other child. Knock on wood it doesn’t come.
BURPING
So last week, the burping was a difficulty. This week, it was a non-issue.
HICCUPS
She is hiccuping less frequently. Either she is getting more fat on her body so when she gets a diaper change her body temperature is less prone to dropping, or her diaphragm is maturing, or some combination of both.
DREAMFEED
The dance. That is what I call the dreamfeed. A dance put on by me to get Brinley to eat :). She eats well for every feeding of the day, but the dreamfeed is definitely a battle I fight. Or a dance I perform. I feed one side. I can usually get one side in okay. Sometimes I have to lay her down unswaddled by me so she will squirm around enough to wake up. Then I feed the one side. Then I change her diaper and give her gas drops. The gas drops often wake her enough to consent to latch to the second side. If not, I must move on to the swaddle. Oddly enough, if I swaddle her back up, she will eat from the second side for at least five minutes. Sometimes I can get ten from her.
Sometimes diaper changes can go very wrong. I remember there was a period with McKenna where in the middle of the night she would, without fail, poop as soon as she had a clean diaper on. Last night at the dreamfeed, I had a similar issue. I changed her diaper. She made sounds of pooping, so I opened her diaper up to change her again and there was no poop, but she had peed so I proceeded to change her anyway. As I had the diaper open, she peed again, and it went all over her socks and PJs–it didn’t seem to hit the diaper at all. Such magic tricks by babies will always be a mystery to me. So we had a full wardrobe change. I really just found it all amusing. It reminded me of my baby days with Brayden (boys leak through all the time!) and newborn nights with McKenna. Aaahhh memories. And gratitude they are pretty much only memories now.
SICKNESS
She still has a cold. It is getting better, but is still there.
WARMTH
As she is getting fat on her body, she seems to not want to be so warm (or not need so much help to be warm). I am watching her closely so I can make sure I keep her dressed appropriately for her wants at sleep times.
LARGER DIAPER
Up to this point, Brinley has been wearing newborn diapers. This week, I moved her to size one idapers at night. In the day, she is still doing newborn but is doing size one at night since she goes longer between feedings.
EARLY MORNING FEEDINGS
This week, a few times Brinley woke at 6 AM wanting to eat. This is what I call and early morning feeding before waketime. I decided this week to start feeding her one side and then put her back down, then get her up at 7:30. Our desired wake up time is between 7-7:30, so I want to start trying to start in that window as much as possible.
One day, she woke at 6:30. That day, we just started at 6:30. I figure that is close enough to my start time to just go with it. I then let her sleep longer between feeds to get back on track rather than waking her up exactly at 3 hours.
NAPS
Naps are great. I put her down awake and she falls asleep without protest. For her waketime length, I aim to start the nap process 45 minutes after she woke up. I typically have her in bed about 50 minutes after she woke up. Yawning is a nap cue right now, but even without the yawn, I will start at 45 minutes.
WAKETME ACTIVITIES
These are the things we do during waketime. I don’t have a set waketime we do them in since her levels of sleepiness vary at this point in life.
- Bath (actually, I always do this after her first feeding of the day)
- Get held by siblings/parents (this happens a whole lot)
- Tummy time
- Gym play
- Read stories
- “Play” on blanket
- Lay there and have me take a million pictures of her
WITCHING HOUR
There have been a few nights in her life where she has a difficulty with falling asleep after her 7/7:30 PM feeding. It seems to me to be witching hour-esq. This is uncharacteristic for her, so when that happens, we get her up and hold her until she falls asleep. We actually enjoy it because it is a quiet time that we get to just spend with her. We have held her the whole time and we have also just held her for about thirty minutes and then put her back in bed until the dreamfeed. I do wonder if she will start to have consistent witching hour nights most nights like McKenna did or if she will stick to just sporadically.
In a poll I did a while ago, 46% of people said witching hour started at 3-4 weeks old. The age it went away varies greatly, but the majority (34%) said it went away at 8 weeks or younger.
SCHEDULE
This is our daily schedule that we shoot for.
7:30–feed
8:20–nap
10:30–feed
11:20–nap
1:30–feed
2:20–nap
4:30–feed
5:20–nap
7-7:30 (time varies here)–feed, then bedtime
10:00–dreamfeed
then night feed(s).
RELATED POSTS/BLOG LABELS:
- Baby Whisperer: Feeding a Sleepy Newborn
- Sleepy Newborns:http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/2007/12/sleepy-newborns.html
- Adding Waketime to Your Newborn’s Day
- Early Morning Feedings Before Waketime:http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/2008/01/early-morning-feedings-before-waketime.html
- Witching Hour
- dreamfeed (blog label)
- newborn summary (blog label)
