And for 3 days Eliza managed to sleep through the night....almost. It's just that she could last from her last feed at 1030pm to the next morning at 730am. wah..and at 730am she also doesn't drink much, weirdly. Another pattern is that before her milkmilk she'll do a mega poo. the 1st day, she pooed and it leaked out from behind her diapers and (luckily) on to the nappy cloth i put below her while she was drinking milk. i had to stop all feed to change her and wait for her pooing to be complete.
the 2nd day, i knew better and quickly brought her to the diaper change table once she had that 'mmm' look on her face. but but but...alas when i thought she was done, i lifted up her legs to clean the butt, she shot an explosive splash of poo. it got on to the lamp i put beside the table, it got onto the floor...and while i was thanking God that it didn't get right on me...i looked further to see it on my bed comforter!! it wasn't like droplets...but a whole blop of it! when i turned back to complain to her she gurgled and coo at me...as if she's relieved she got all that out. how could you get angry at her?
Back to sleeping thru the night...
the day i discovered she could drink 150ml was the day she made it thru the night w/o milk. i was trying to push her early morning milkmilk to from 4am to 5am till 7am, even though few days ago she couldn't tahan at 3am and had to drink. that night i patted her back to sleep at 3am and when i next woke up it was 6+am..and she was sleeping like a log. it's been 3 days so far..so i'm hoping she'll con't this. only qualm is that she still wakes up at night, needing me to swaddle her and give her the pacifier. sometimes when this doesn't work, i'll flip her over to sleep on her tummy and she sleeps much better. her flying arms and legs doesn't help in keeping her asleep at night.
Principles i try to keep to help her sleep thru the night (mostly learned from Gina Ford)
- make sure baby drinks her daily milk intake from 7am - 11pm
(so i always give her more than she usually drinks, sometimes she finishes it sometimes she doesn't leaving 20-30ml. only recently she could finish 150-160ml at one feed..think that helped)
- have a bedtime routine
(i personally feel this is very important. i have started this at least 2 weeks before i started work...and bedtime gets easier in a way. i think it's also because she's sleeping less in the day and by 830pm she's nicely tired and ready to sleep. occasionally it gets messed up like when we brought her out for dinner with my '81 batch..but we still wiped her & changed her, turned on lullaby and swaddled her...and pacifier :7 )
- if baby wakes up at night, try giving her cooled boiled water, or feed little milk so that she'll take more during the 7am feed...or as one mummy from the forum did, push the drinking milk time later and later. ie don't immediately feed her when she makes noise.
(i think this works more for older babies..not those few weeks old..cos they do really need to drink milk. there's more detail on how to drop that feed in the GF book. but frm 8 weeks onwards babies are able to last thru the night. i tried dragging her milk time until she really sounds very hungry..how? using pacifier lor. it's a wonderful tool..more on it next time. i tried giving her cooled boiled water but she got angrier and ok..no choice gave her her milkmilk)
- minimize stimulation near bedtime
(i'm not sure if that helps in the sleeping thru the night but it helps to get her to sleep. usually if we play too much b4 bedtime, she tends to cry a lot more...esp when it's not me carrying her)
- nap at most 3 1/2hrs from 7am - 7pm
(this i found it hard cos Eliza tend to take two afternoon naps. we make sure her mid-afternoon 12-2pm nap is the longest. recently she either didn't sleep at the late aftnn nap or slept only 15-30mins and was able to get to sleep easily by 830pm)
- always start the day at the same time
(i read this from GF & Babywise and while GF method is 7am..i felt it's too early for me so i adjusted mine to 730am instead. so regardless of how messed up yesterday's timing is, or how early baby last drank milk, or how deeply asleep she is, i will still start her day at 730am. i'll flip her over on her back, unswaddle her and say gd morning to her. sometimes after stretching, she'll smile at me and coo, othertimes she'll be unhappy and cry but that's usually cos she's hungry)
- dreamfeed at 1030pm
(there's still this last feed before the long stretch and usually she'll take this in a half-asleep state even though GF method writes that bb should be awake at least 1hr during this feed, but most of the time Eliza's so sleepy she's like so nuanua it's hard to get her to budge...but can still drink her milk quite well, just that it's hard to get a burp out of her. this will prob be the next feed to drop much later when she starts on solids)
so much for that....back to work tomorrow! it's 9:23pm now...she's been sleeping since 830pm...nice to have baby sleep early..gives mummy some downtime. hope she sleeps well tonight.
this was the 1st time Eliza was cranky during church service..she frowned when LL & E wanted to play with her...sleepy definitely
this time at chruch was better...i spotted her tasting her fingers!
thursday: glad to be home with BB after my week's work...i was so sleepy and wanted a short nap in the early evening but she wasn't!! i put her with some toys beside me and wanted to doze off...she was so gurgly that we took photos instead
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