Sleep

I am trying really hard to discourage C from getting up twice a night to eat. That in it’s self sounds bad but think about it. She is almost 6 months old. Does she really need to eat every 4 hours??? Nope. I know that for a fact for several reasons. 1) Lately about once a week she sleeps 7, 8 or 9 hours before waking. 2) Sometimes when I feed her at 1am she makes it to about 8:30 sleeping and still does not want to eat right away when she gets up. 3) We have started the rice cereal and I am finally getting her to eat about a tablespoon a night. I know that does not sound like a lot but it is with her little belly. No matter what I do during the day-naps, no naps, long naps, short naps, bottles from Linda, nursing all day- none of it seems to help. I am pretty frustrated by it and I am determined to put my foot down and put a stop to it. I decided I would not feed her until 1:30am (6 hours after going to bed) and I would not feed her again until 7:30am (6 hours after that). I think that is pretty reasonable. The books and doctors say at this age she can easily go 6 hours. Last night she woke up around midnight and fussed* until I gave in at 1am and fed her. Then she woke up again at 6ish and fussed until around 7 then she fell back to sleep. Sleep she obviously needed because she slept until 8:40 when I accidentally woke her before I left for work. Which is just another example of how she does not need to eat. If she did, she would not have fallen back to sleep and sleep through the ruckus of Jack and his morning begging ritual and John, Av and I getting ready in the morning.

*Fussed, when I say she fussed it means she cried in and out, sometimes harder sometimes no crying at all and sometimes just complaining. In no way was she ever close to hysterical. I don’t want anyone to think I left her hysterical for an hour. I would go in immediately if she was hysterical. John did go in once to try and put her back to sleep but it just makes her mad, real mad. He came back and said, "why did you send me in there?" heheheh That was the only time she really cried hard.

Wish me luck! I will win this battle.