Sleep is a beautiful thing. It is magical and awe inspiring, at least for parents of a baby that was sleeping and now isn't. Oh little guy why wont you sleep? I thought I had him on a schedule of some sort. I followed the guidelines my pediatrician gave me. And one day it worked the next not so much!
He would go whole night of sleep for several days in a row, then all of a sudden no sleep or very little. But, last night I may have discovered a link to him being up. A. When I got home from work I would cuddle with my boy and he would sleep. B. I would give him his bottle of the evening too early. C. He was gassy and finally D. He is starting to teeth.
Cuddling for me is a stress reliever when I get home. I miss that little giggly baby boy and all I want to do is hug,kiss, and never let go of him. Well, that is all fine and dandy, but, he would ultimately fall asleep. Big problem there, because that is a factor in my no sleep and my not sleeping kid. So, while I do hug and love on him I do not let him sleep when it is 6:30pm. It helps. Especially when he had a nap 2 hours prior. So, we play more sure,tummy time and him with his gym.
Bottle time. My goodness, who would have thought this would be a factor? But it is. I would get home and see he is making some sign of hunger and try to shove a bottle at him.I started to wonder why he would only eat 2 to 3 ounces. Still being on breast feeding 2 hour regiment I got myself used to it and the boy. But formula fed babies can actually go longer in between feedings. It takes more time for the formula to digest, and my son has gone 3 to 4 hours in between feedings on formula. So, I make sure of his last bottle and wait. Sure enough he went through the night by letting him go a few hours between eating. He didn't wake up wanting a bottle at 2 am. Of course ask your pediatrician about feeding, mine said formula fed babies can actually go 4 to 5 hours before a bottle. And of course there are exceptions, thanks growth spurts.
Gas! Oh my God, the gas!!!! My little man had trouble at night due to gas. We found out part of the issue was the formula. He was on Similac Advance which is a great formula, however, we had to switch him to the Similac for gas and fussiness. It is the orange container, and is a soy based formula. He loves that stuff and never pushes a bottle away anymore. I'll touch more on the formula woes later.
Teething. I'll be honest that part scares me. My nieces were just fabulous when teething. I recall the drool, everything is chewable, and the beautiful tube of ora gel. I know teething well, but I didn't realize it would start now. The things I learn, and teething can start at 2 months! And little guy has the beginning of teething, I know, I have the puddles of drool to prove it. As well as my little guy has his hands in his mouth a lot! Nom nom nom, hands, nom nom.
Last night we got a whole night of sleep by sticking to our schedule. It was glorious. My husband got up on time, I had energy as did he, and baby was in a great mood(yesterday he was Oscar the Grouch). We were not the zombie parents today,nope! We were well functioning parents who had coffee, coffee we could enjoy, and not for fuel consumption. This whole sleep thing, I could get used to. How are you dealing with sleep now?
