So I get up for a middle-of-the-night feeding, and he scarfs down like 5 ounces and he’s out. OUT.

I still attempt burping, for up to 10 minutes sometimes, and even burp standing up and jiggling a little in hopes of getting a burp so I can put him down.

But I get nothing.

So I figure he’s out for the count—and I gently lay him in the crib. And before I can even step back from the crib—like within 5 seconds—he has spit up!

EGADS.

So then I have to start the process over, because he’s now awake again.

Stinker!

I really wish Owen would take a decent nap. It seems he’s been king of the 10-20 minute catnap today. 🙁

But maybe he will sleep well again tonight.

Owen fell asleep about 9:30 and got up at…well, technically he didn’t get up. But he was making lots of noises in there that were keeping me up from about 4am…so when Tom’s alarm went off at 4:30, I decided it was time to go feed the boy. More of a preemptive feeding so he didn’t get to his snorting “I’m hungry” cry.

Unfortunately, Owen wasn’t really into it, and only ate about 2 ounces in 30 minutes—when he’s really hungry, he can finish a 6 ounce bottle in half that time! So, at about 5:15 I put him back down and he fell asleep again until about 7:15! (Unfortunately, I was wide awake, so I’ve been up since 4:30.)

BUT YAY OWEN! Let’s keep this up!!

So Owen decided yesterday to take his regular naps…and of course, compared to the day before when he took none, it seemed like he was taking even more naps than normal! So we were worried that I would be up at all hours.

But I wasn’t!

Tom put him down and he was out by about 9:30. I woke up at 4am and he wasn’t up yet! I did turn on the video monitor to make sure he was still breathing :>> and then went back to sleep.

I got up a little before 5 when Tom’s alarm went off, and I pumped while Tom went in to get Owen (because by that time he was up and hungry). Then Tom was off to work, and Owen was back down by 5:30…and he slept until 8!!! (Of course, I went back to sleep, too! I had debated staying up, but figured I deserved more sleep after two months of sleepless nights.)

Knock on wood, I hope this lasts…

The boy didn’t take any naps yesterday—well, none more than 10 minutes and then he only did that maybe twice. So, he was getting very sleepy about 7:30 so Tom started to feed him his bottle and he was OUT.

Of course, as usual, he woke up for a bit after the bottle—spitting up, not wanting to eat, totally wide awake—so Tom brought him into our room. After about 15 minutes with us just hanging out, Tom decided to try to feed him the rest of his bottle…and he was completely out before he could even eat an ounce.

Then, he slept…6.5 hours!!! When I got up at 3am with him, he quickly ate his 6oz bottle and was OUT again…and then slept another 3 hours!!

I guess nights work better when he stays up all day! Now, it will be interesting to see if the same thing happens today…on it’s own (or if I have to try to keep him up).

Ugh.

Two nights.

Two nights is all the 6+ hours of sleep lasted. I even knocked on wood—a few times—but it apparently didn’t help.

You see, I thought “Since he has slept 6+ hours for two nights, I will keep him up a bit later, then put him to bed around 11 or so, which means he will sleep until 5 or 5:30, at which point I could technically get up for the day (about the time Tom gets up).”

Ha.

Ha ha.

Nothing went as planned. XX(

Owen fell pretty sound asleep, downstairs, after his 7:30 bottle (which was about 8:30, the time we’d normally start putting him to bed). So I let him nap, thinking that he wouldn’t sleep that long, and even if he did, it would really only be a nap—he takes naps all day and doesn’t sleep that long.

So come 9:30 ❗ I started waking him up, because we had to start his last bottle—remember, the process takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Well, he woke up, but he wasn’t really UP up. So I go up to his room to feed him his bottle and he did pretty well…for a while. He was being a little cranky—squirmy, not wanting the bottle, crying, etc. and I was still dealing with him when Tom went to bed at 10:30.

The next hour was spent trying to feed him, burp him, and calm him down, all while getting clawed with those little baby daggers people call fingernails. It was 11:30 when I was finally getting to bed. It took TWO HOURS to get him to sleep.

BUT! I thought… at least he will sleep for 6 or so hours, right?

Ha.

Ha ha.

If only.

I heard him stirring around 1:30 but let him fuss a little and he was fine. At 3am I could no longer ignore it, and got up to feed him.

He sucked down the bottle pretty well, but then…spit up. Quite a bit. Wonderful. (We have almost gotten rid of that for the most part, with more-often burping while feeding, but it’s not foolproof.) So that was frustrating. Then he was fussy and didn’t want the bottle. Then he wanted to eat more, but he was still so squirmy it was hard to give him the bottle. I tried to burp him and that didn’t work. Finally he took most of the bottle and I burped him and he calmed down…so I swaddled him (fighting through the first few minutes where he doesn’t like it), rocked him, and put him down. He looked so dead tired, sweet, and innocent.

If only.

Then I started to pump (I only need like 10 minutes) and I think I got to maybe minute 6 before he was squawking and too restless for me to ignore (of course, I can’t see him, so all the noises he makes sounds ever more wretched and I imagine the worst—like he’s spitting up gallons or choking or something). So I hurriedly quit pumping, put myself back together, and retrieved him. Now he got the hiccups. And wouldn’t give me a burp. But wanted more milk. But was still almost too squirmy.

ARGH!!!! >:XX

And just when I thought things were going well, and he was calming down? He’d spit up. Then he pooped. (He hadn’t pooped all day so I was kind of expecting it, but it still was something I didn’t want to deal with in the middle of the night, as it requires more light, LOL.) So I let him go for maybe 10 or so minutes, to make sure he was done…so I changed him. Fed him some more…got him calmed down…and damn if he didn’t POOP AGAIN!! THE DEVIL!

When all was said and done, between all the spitting up and poopy diaper changes and everything else, I was up for TWO HOURS with him. I made it back to bed just as Tom’s alarm was going off. He apparently thought better than to ask me how the night went (which he usually does). |-|

So, the sweet little thing that slept for 6 and 6.5 hours the previous two nights—and who had gone to sleep fairly easily in the first place—had decided that 3.5 hours was plenty.

He did end up sleeping about another 3 hours after that, but two stretches of three hours each is NOT the same as one long stretch of 6 hours. So I will be MUCH more cranky today than I have been the past two days.

He’s technically eight weeks old today (the two month photo will come on April 3) and he slept for…SIX HOURS STRAIGHT last night! 88|

Except after that, he was a major crankpot fussbudget and was hungry every 20 minutes—well, I suppose he was continually hungry, but how could I have known he would want SEVEN OUNCES?—so I was up with him on and off for almost 2.5 hours. XX( (I hate it when I’m up so long with him, that I cycle through dead tired, wide awake, then back to dead tired again.)

When he finally went back down around 5:30am, he was soooo quiet (and it happened SO abruptly) that I was sure he had stopped breathing. Of course he hadn’t—he had just finally crashed. I got another two hours of sleep, and he was up and smiling at 7:30!

Anyway, knock on wood that this actually happens on a regular basis from now on.

He was up every two hours last night, which means after feeding for an hour or so, I got an hour of sleep at a time.

I am exhausted.

So, YAY! Last night was wonderful!

And by wonderful I mean he slept well, ate well, and went back down well! ❗

He got fed and went down at 10:30 and I didn’t have to get up again until 3am! He went down at 4, then was up again at 6:30! And then to make it even better, he went down at 7:30 and slept until 9:30!

HEAVEN!

Of course, he kind of made up for it by being completely fussy for the next three hours, LOL, so I couldn’t get much done around the house—but I’ll take daytime fussy vs. nighttime fussy anytime!!

Let’s just hope this continues…

So yesterday Owen slept in until almost 9:30 and then slept most of the day. YAY, I thought, as it allowed me to run my errands (I had to return the hospital’s breast pump and get a few groceries) and rest a bit.

But then night came.

Our least favorite time.

And other than sleeping from 9:30-midnight, that was about it. I fed him from midnight-1am and then was up—off and on, feeding and calming—for the NEXT THREE HOURS. XX(

He finally went down sometime after 4am and then I heard Tom feeding him (well, I heard Owen screaming to eat—and then quiet) around 6:30.

We have GOT to get him on the correct day/night schedule…

Last night at about 4am, I told Tom “No more babies.” It was that bad. :no:

Now, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that bad but it was bad enough at that moment I was totally serious.

We went on our date night dinner (our first night out since he was born) last night and Owen apparently slept the whole time, plus ate his 4oz bottle. We got home at 7:30 and he was ready to eat. Out of the next hour, he nursed for about 25 solid minutes and was DEAD asleep…nothing I did would wake him up. So at 8:30 we started to go to bed, telling the grandparents to bring him up when he woke up/got hungry. We got to sleep about 9:30 and were excited when they didn’t come up until 12:30. THREE HOURS! YAY!

So then I fed him from 12:30-1:30. And then didn’t get back to sleep until 4:30. >:XX He was crying/screaming and then dead tired, so I’d put him in the crib, which would last anywhere from 2-10 minutes before he was screaming again. I tried feeding again, and that would last maybe five minutes and he didn’t want anything to do with it. I even broke down and got his pacifier (I only give it to him when I know he’s just eaten and not hungry) and that worked for maybe 10 minutes until he spit it out.

FOUR HOURS I tried to get him back to sleep and he was having NONE of it. I was a wreck.

I was up at 6:30 to feed him again (so, he slept for about two hours) and put him back down about 7:45 and he was crying again. My stepmom got up about this time and took him downstairs. I heard a few cries, but for the most part? Totally asleep. And it’s 9:57 and he’s still sleeping.

I really hope this ends soon and he starts to sleep more and/or get on the real night and day schedule, because this is making me insane. :'(

Last night took about an hour to get him to fall asleep—but he was in his crib!

An hour later, I was up feeding again…but then he slept for three hours 😀 and I had to wake him up to feed him!

After that, he slept another three hours 😀 and I got to sleep in until 9:30! (He then fed for almost AN HOUR! 88| I’m not quite sure what to make of that…but sometimes it just happens.)

So, overall, it really hasn’t been that bad. Once I made the decision to only let him cry for seven minutes, I can handle it better. If he hasn’t calmed himself by then, I go back in and try something else.

Not too bad, considering my expectations weren’t terribly high.

We had watched the happiest baby DVD so fed him then tried some of the 5 S’s (swaddling, side/stomach, shushing, swinging, and sucking) and put him down. He cried off and on for a few minutes then was out. YAY! For an hour. :no:

Sidenote: how the hell can he sleep four hours after a morning or mid-day feeding, but only sleeps an hour after a midnight feeding? Research apparently suggests that it takes babies a while to learn day from night, and it should begin to resolve itself soon.

So then I was up for almost an hour feeding/changing/comforting…and he was out…for another hour. :no: Another hour of duties…and he was finally out for about three hours. :yes: After I fed him, Tom took over and I got to sleep another two hours (until 8am).

So it worked, and he’s out of our bed. I’d hoped he would sleep in longer spurts (since I know he can during the day) but it went better than I’d expected.