Schedule - Week 4

So I forget now where my daughter was at this point in time in her life, so I thought I would take a couple of moments to reflect on how Sven’s schedule is shaping up. In general, although we’re having trouble with the sleeping, the eating regulates our schedule. In general, he feeds about every 3-3.5hrs from the start of one feed to the start of the next. I have rarely been able to get more than 8 feeds a day for either of my kids, but because I have the scale and I know how much food they’re getting, this doesn’t concern me. So in general my day looks like the following:

1:30am – Wake, Eat, Sleep
3:30am – Wake, Eat, Sleep
7:30am – Wake, Eat, Sleep? We consistently have problems with him sleeping in his crib for this nap. I usually end up putting him in the swing. I agree with the Babywise mom here. At this age, I think its more important to get him sleep than to be stubborn about where he sleeps. I always try to get him to sleep in his crib, but inevitably after 20 minutes of being in his crib he begins to cry. Usually I am very desperate for sleep at this point, so the swing it is! Important point here though is that I usually have him swing to calm him down for the first 15 minutes, but then I go in and turn it off. People (babies included) don’t sleep as well or deeply when in motion (see Dr. Weissbluth’s book for reference).
11:00am – Wake, Eat, Sleep? This nap is pretty spotty too. Sometimes he will sleep in his crib, but I have been finding this one has been in his swing a lot.
2:00pm – Wake, Eat, Sleep. Now that I think about it, the daytime naps are most challenging. We do have room darkening blinds and a humidifier that makes white noise, so I’m not sure what the difference is during the day.
5:00pm – Wake, Eat, Sleep?
9:30pm – Wake, Eat, Sleep. So its after this cycle that I will mentally “let” Sven sleep as long as he wants. He is basically 11lbs now and gaining weight well. My milk supply seems good, although I do generally pump once a day after a morning feed to keep the girls empty and producing milk at a fast rate. At this point Sven hasn’t slept much longer than 3.5 hours…and that was on a challenging day where he really took no nap.

I keep hoping that soon he will miraculously sleep for a 4-6 hour stretch, but when I look at my daughter’s baby book, that didn’t happen for her until 9 weeks. So…we’re about halfway there. Well, as long as he actually sleeps when he’s supposed to and I’m not up all night addressing his needs, then I will survive.

Smile Sidenote
I think Sven gave me his first, non gaseous, non reflex social smile today. Wow that was nice. I think I’ll need to see it again to be sure.