tank him up

Baby L is definitely proving to be different than K in so many ways. One difference is definitely their eating habits and how my body has reacted.

With K, my milk came in at about 5 days, whereas with L, it was coming in while I was still at the hospital! The first night home was miserable as my milk officially made its appearance but I was glad for L - it would help him get over his baby jaundice ... if that was what he had. Unfortunately it was breast milk jaundice so it was actually making his jaundice worse. A bit ironic, if you ask me.

L has been gaining weight like crazy (compared to K, at least). I can tell because my arms get sore and tired while I feed him. He's no light 7 pounder anymore. In fact, when I weighed him last on the scales with me, he was over 9 pounds! K was 9 pounds 15 ounces at 2 months - I think L will surpass that for sure. He definitely likes to eat.

I've really been pushing what the Baby Wise book suggests - sleep, eat, awake, repeat. It worked wonders for K - she slept about 7-8 hours at 5 1/2 weeks. I liked that. And I would love to sleep more than 2 1/2 hours at a time real soon but I'm not sure if that will happen with L. Even in the Baby Wise book, it says that boys are a little slower to comply to the Baby Wise method and start sleeping through the night.

So I google searched it a couple of nights ago and what I found was astounding! I was a little worried that L was being a little slow about increasing his time between feedings at night with only one stretch of 4 hours at 3 weeks. But apparently, there are a lot of parents out there who are still feeding their kids in the middle of the night at 6 months, 9 months ... there was even a lady who said that her 17-month old wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle of milk. Are you kidding me? If I was still getting up with K to make sure she ate/drank in the middle of the night, I would for sure be feeling insane from the lack of continuous sleep I'd be getting! In fact, at 6 months and still giving the baby 1 or 2 feedings in the middle of the night would do me in for sure. I'd probably never have another baby again. My sleep is too important to my normal functioning.

And it should be to other mothers out there too. But let me give you a hint - if you are a mom and you are waking up with your baby in the middle of the night to feed him and they are over 6 months, I can guarantee you that your baby can sleep through the night if you train him to. A lot of parents (that I read about) thought that it was cruel that mothers wouldn't feed their children in the middle of the night at 2 months, 3 months, 9 months, etc. but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that K was just fine at these ages without middle of the night feedings. If she wasn't, she would have woken up to let me know. Babies can do it. Sure, they're small, but they need their sleep too.

So I tried to tank him up during the day. I've heard that giving an extra feeding during the day can help so they don't eat as much at night. Well, I only tried it once and it didn't work at all.

Last night, however, he went 4 hours and 3 1/2 hours between feedings which was awesome!

I'm no longer trying to shoot for 7-8 hours of straight sleep at 5 1/2 weeks but if it does happen to work out that way, I won't be disappointed.