Saturday, February 26, 2005

Sleep Research

Jack will be 3 months old tomorrow, so I spent the morning doing a bit of reading about sleep habits of babies at his age. I know this is supposedly a milestone, where some mothers say their babies become significantly easier. I'm not too hopeful, but you never know. (I mean, how is he supposed to know he's 3 months old?)

So apparently, he is supposed to be taking 3 naps a day for a total of 5 hours – this is pretty consistent with what Anne told me to do a month ago and so we've been working on that for a while. Then at night he should sleep 10-11 hours and maybe get up once to eat during that time. I realized I didn't have a good idea of how long he was sleeping, so just as I did with the whole feeding fiasco when we first brought him home, I created an excel spreadsheet to track his naps today.

It appears he is not getting enough sleep during the day. I still don't think that is why he is getting up so much at night, but it's good to know. I just put him down at 6 for a final nap that would need to be almost 2 hours long for him to get the prescribed nappage. Maybe tomorrow we will be more successful.

As for night sleeping, since he doesn't need to be getting up so much, I am going to try and not feed him as often tonight and see how it goes. For example, last night he ate at midnight, 3 and 6, but he was also up at 5 and I didn't feed him. So maybe tonight if he gets up at 3 I'll just try to get him to go back to sleep. He can be very persuasive when he wants to eat, however.

I gave him the ball to play with again. And again it made him very angry that he couldn't get it in his mouth. Here you can see how much fun it is before he gets mad:

ball 2

Joe has been concerned about the dogs. He thinks they don't get enough attention, so he often comes home and babies them a little too much. This, of course, makes me crazy. So here, just for Joe, is a picture of what me the dogs and I do while the baby is napping:

dogs

See Joe? They are happy and fine. (Please notice I finally painted my toenails. The last time they were painted was in the hospital, so they were due.)

In unrelated news, my nephew fell down and hurt his head. I have never seen a more expressive child than this adorable little guy. (Sorry to Vincent, but he just looked too cute and sad to pass up.)

misery

Joe's trial starts Monday, which means the boy and I are on our own for the weekend. We are very excited for him though – it's his first trial and he's getting some fantastic experience. I just wish he would let me go and watch.

Comments:
Well you are holding the dog, but you don't look all that happy about it. Maybe you should warn yourself before you take a picture?!?!
 
The picture does look somewhat staged. The pinscher does not seem convinced about the setup.
 
The toes look Marrrrrrvelous!

I would not worry about Jack's sleeping habits being different than "other" babies - each is different - he will find his rhythm.
 
A sidenote about the dog picture above: It may not be clear simply from viewing this photo exactly how comfortable and enveloping that couch is. I have slept on it, relaxed on it, and fought demons from it on many occasions. It is an excellent fort in which to hang out with beagles and pinschers.
 
I would like to recommend a magazine and its website: Mothering. It has fantastic information on raising babies. People will also tell you cereal will help your baby sleep through the night. Another myth. Babies will sleep through the night when they are ready. He is waking up because he "needs" to, he's hungry. I'm glad you're breastfeeding, try Mother's Milk tea from Traditional Medicinals, it promotes healthy lacation. It is not safe to drink alcohol while breastfeeding, it passes on to your baby. Take care and Best Wishes.
 
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