He didn't sleep through last night

Hi

Well we had 2 nights of good sleep but we did not make it to 3.......

BUT I know where we went wrong.

So... it was hard fitting all of Aaron's milk into a day that started at 11:15 (the time we woke yesterday)...

But we NEARLY did it (nearly being the operative word).

Feeds as follows:

11:30 breastfeeding followed by 180 ml bottle
3:00   breastfeeding followed by 180 ml bottle
7:00   breastfeeding followed by 180 ml bottle
9:30   breastfeeding followed by 180 ml bottle
11:30 breastfeeding followed by 180 ml bottle

Footnote: Aaron CAN go 4 hours between bottles but the above is cluster feeding (in the evening) as recommended by the Baby Whisperer.

Now, this is where we went wrong...

The last 2 nights, what made him sleep was an additional bottle of about 4 oz (120ml).

I thought I was on schedule to do it, given that he went to sleep 2 nights at 1 a.m. I thought I could give it to him an hour or too after the 11:30 p.m. one above..... but as we all know babies are NOT predictable...

So... what happened... Well he drank that 11:30 bottle on my knee and was sleepy all the way through.  He was firmly asleep on my chest by 12:15 (after midnight).. I kept him with me till about 12:45 to ensure it was a deep sleep (he was already in his sleeping bag)... Now I knew I needed to give him the extra bottle but I thought where do I put him while I make it???? Now, it is fine to give a sleeping baby a bottle which is why the Baby Whisperer books call it a "Dream Feed".  For babies who bed at 8 p.m. they suggest a dream feed no later than 11 p.m.

But what did I do....? I put him in his cot, and covered him in his patchwork quilt and by 1:15 I was laying in bed next to him (bedside cot we have)...... but as we'd had such a good sleep in I was still awake at 2:15... so I may as well have got him up and given him a dreamfeed, but just because he had that really neat tucked in quilt over him and looked so cosy, I did not want to disturb him.

If it was the sleeping bag alone it would have been so easy to just grab him.

So I only had 2 hours sleep before he had me up at 4:45 a.m.  Hubby was up as he'd not been in from work long, and he was full of beans with Aaron..... does that help make Aaron think it's the middle of the night nnnnnnnooooooooooooooo...

So after his bottle he was acting like it was the middle of the day... he hasn't done THAT since he was a newborn.  He ALWAYS settles after a middle of the night bottle... so we did not return to our beds till 6:15 a.m.

Anyway I have learned my lesson.

If he is awake it is an additional 6th bottle...
If he is asleep, same thing, but as a dream feed.

It is indisputable that for us it works...... when mummy does it.

But all the goalposts will change in a couple of weeks, when we are weaning and in unchartered territory again...

The 2 weaning books haven't arrived from Amazon yet :-(

I have GORGEOUS peek-a-boo photos I will try and post later.

In case you are wondering why the bottles are so large (oz) when I am breastfeeding, it is because he had a tongue tie at birth that took 3 weeks to be snipped... which compromised my milk, as did a c-section... I have no idea how much he gets from me, but delighted that we still manage it for the comfort and bonding factor... I do know he gets milk from me, as he sometimes does 15-30 minutes on each side... he is a very large boy though... 9 lbs 10 oz at birth and fitting into 6-9 months clothes at 5 months... also, he is NOT at all fat, just a BIG boy (big head hence the c-section, and very long)...

Liska
xxx

He slept through again last night - 10 hours

Okay so I remembered something..... ANOTHER reason he slept through on Thursday night........ As it took me sooooo long to get him to sleep, out of desperation I put him in with me (hubby was on nightshift) so he had the duvet AND a 2.5 tog sleeping bag on him...

So after I wrote yesterday's post and remembered the above, I thought the bath and an additional bottle alone may not work, but I didn't want him in with me again as I don't want to create bad habits.

So...... what's a girl to do?

Well... I found the solution..... He has a duvet of his own that one of my closest friends made for him by hand - it is a patchwork quilt :-)

So I put that on him..... on top of his Ikea sleeping bag ... 2.5 tog...

See below:

He slept from 1:15 a.m. (yes it took me hours to get him to sleep)...... until 11:15 a.m. this morning................   :-)  that's 10 hours and I slept that long tooooooooooooooo...

And even though he'd gone all night without breastfeeding or a bottle he was still in a good mood when he woke up AND he had not kicked the blanket off (it was firmly tucked down the sides).

This is how neat and tidy he looked at 11:15:

He was smiling just before I took this.  Oh you'll also see that his sleepsuit has cuffs you can pull down over his hands.  Before I took the above photo I had already taken one off... they are a great idea, as with the sleeping bags their hands get cold - even with a blanket as they sleep with their arms up in the air.

I wish all his sleepsuits were like that but I think I have 6 or 8.  They are from George at Asda.

The Ikea sleeping bag he was wearing last night, looks like this:

I think keeping the hands warm with those pull down cuffs is really good so I am showing a close-up here:

Liska xxxx

Sleeping through the night

I can't believe I have blogged twice today and forgot to say that...


... AARON SLEPT THROUGH LAST NIGHT...

for the first time in over a week...  I was so excited when I looked at the clock ant it was 9:30 a.m.

This photo is him asleep but not from last night (as I was asleep then tooooooo)...

... photo's from 5th November

Sleep deprivation can be one of the hardest things to endure as a new Mum.

Last night I did bath (Johnson's Bedtime Bath), bottle (an additional bottle) and bed... it worked!

Correction, that was the night before last when he was up THREE times... No! What worked last night was simply... the additional bottle.

So... tonight I am combining both methods... he has already had a Johnson's Bedtime Bath, and will be having 2 bottles before bed.  One norm and one additional (the latter not being the full amount, i.e. the additional one last night was only 4 oz).

The "toy" on the side of the cot is Vtech's Baby Bear Sweet Dreams and Aaron loves it.  We got it from Mothercare.

Liska xx