Wow. It's been awhile since I posted. Morgen has been very kind to Mommy over the last week and a half. She's sleeping from 6:30/7pm – 6:30am with a feeding around 10:30pm. I'm not sure if she hit Dr. Cohen's magic 16 pounds, or if it's the fact that I switched her 10:30pm feeding to formula, but I really don't care. We're actually weaning her of the 10:30pm feeding, and that hasn't had too big an impact so far. She's been waking before 7am for a few weeks (since she started sleeping through the night), so we're trying to get that adjusted a little. She may be an 11 hour sleeper. If so, perhaps she'll be going to bed a little later…I managed to let her play in bed until 6:45am this morning, so that's progress. Though, I didn't actually sleep from 6:15-6:45am, I still felt like I was getting a bit of rest.
Morgen has had a bit of a cold for the last week, but before it impacted her ability to breathe, she'd started going to sleep pretty much on her own (put her in the crib and walk out, listening to the various coos, screeches, bangs, and babbling that precede the actual sleeping). She's needed a bit more help and soothing from Mom and Dad since she's gotten congested. All in all, she's super from a sleeping perspective. That being said, I have recently read oodles of books on sleep, and here's a list of my favorites:
The Baby Whisperer is still my fav for overall infant care concepts – the EASY plan really worked for us. The website has a ton of folks involved in the forum, and I've found a lot of ideas there. Folks respond to you quickly and have a lot of ideas. There's also a fair bit of clarification to the concepts in the books, and there are FAQs for each major discussion topic (e.g., Eating, Sleeping, Playing, EASY timing) with a ton of information – too much for me, even!
Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Ferber is the best for learning about sleep; I'm not a huge fan of his method, but we didn't really give it a chance cause Morgen didn't have a really bad time going to sleep. This morning's nap was typical: I set her in the crib (after diaper change, aspiration, closing the blinds, and reading a story). She proceeded to talk, play, and rock (something Ferber indicates is a self soothing technique). After about 10 minutes, she started to cry. I went in, put the paci in her mouth, gently laid her head down, and rubbed her back for 15-20 seconds. Then I left. That I can live with. Shoot, Jeff gives me a hug and sits with me for that long when I go to sleep before him. And sometimes I ask for second hugs before he leaves. Maybe she just wants that extra cuddle before drifting into dreamland. J I read the first version of Ferber's book since I couldn't find the latest revision in the Austin Public Library system, and I understand that the latest version is a bit more accepting of co-sleeping and other scenarios.
The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Pantley has some good strategies that are similar to the BW approach, but Pantley has more detailed information and a very reasonable timeline. She makes it clear that you need to make little changes and look at progress in terms of 10 day increments. I like the slow but gradual approach to change for Morgen. (Which is interesting, because I like change to happen fast when it's for me…)
All in all, most of the books that I read had similar concepts and information, but the three above stood out as the most worth one's limited mommy time.
We say Dr. Cohen a couple of weeks ago now, and Morgen was about 25.5 inches and 15.5 pounds. So she'd gained quite a bit in two weeks. Eating every two hours will do that I guess. It's interesting to see how we've evolved our eating schedule. Here's a typical day:
6:30am Morgen wakes and plays/fusses in crib 'til Amy drags her butt out of bed to get Lil' Bit
7:00am Morgen nurses
8:00am Morgen eats and plays with solids, we have a bottle of 2-4 oz. of formula after our food
9:00am Naptime! Hooray! Morgen sleeps for 1-2 hours and plays until she eats again
11:00am Time to nurse again, though sometimes this is a bit earlier if M. wakes up fussy or a bit later if we're going out for lunch
12:00pm Morgen eats and plays with solids again with another bottle of 2-4 oz. of formula
1:00pm Naptime again! Another 1-2 hours and playing until it's time to eat
3:00pm Time to nurse
4:30-5:00pm More solids
6:00pm Bathtime and bedtime ritual (Daddy gives M. a bath, plays "Where's the Morgen?" while he dries her, diapers and dresses her; Mommy nurses her again; one of us reads her a story or two and puts her down)
7:00pm Sleep!
As I look at that, perhaps I need to nurse her at 7:00pm if I want her to sleep a little longer? I've read that by this age sleeping and eating shouldn't be quite so tied together, so we'll give it a bit of time after weaning the 10:30pm feed and see where things end up. Plus, when she starts crawling, things may change again! J
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