Living on a Schedule

(my little muscle man)

Now that the little one's growth spurt seems to be over (or at least slowing WAY down), I feel that its time to get on a set schedule. Jacob has been on a 2.5-3 hour schedule from beginning of feeding to the beginning of the next feeding since pretty much the very beginning. He had trouble during the daytime at the beginning when he wanted to sleep longer spurts and then be up during the day. The hospital nurses as well as several friends suggested waking him up during the day if he's trying to go longer than 3 hours between feedings. This was suggested to help him get enough feedings during the day as well as for me to keep my sanity. It didn't take more than a few days of this before he was starting to tell the difference between nighttime sleep and daytime sleep...and then he got put on bili lights. This threw everything off. He needed to be under the lights pretty much at all times unless he was eating or getting a diaper change. But, he wouldn't go in the bed unless he was already asleep. This meant rocking him to sleep 95% of the time to get him to sleep faster so we could get him right back under the lights. He couldn't be swaddled and so he'd wake himself up before too long and we'd have to do it all over again. I love my little boy, but it was really difficult having to rock him to sleep, just to put him under the lights that made him (and I) so crazy. This went on for almost a week, so by the end of the bili light era his sleeping habits were sporadic at best. After a few days, he started getting himself back on a 2.5-3 hour schedule, but at this point I was still letting him lead the feeding times--by waiting until he started crying to feed him. I thought this was the way it was going to be and I was lucky my baby was living on a schedule all on his own. I began rereading the posts on creating a schedule over at babywisemom.com and realized that although Jacob was feeding on demand at pretty regular intervals, he was not living on a schedule and this was making him and I very unhappy. I was having some little mommy breakdowns in the middle of the night because he would start crying right after going down, which I found out was because he was unhappily eating and therefore spitting out a lot of milk instead of swallowing it. I have been dealing with an overactive letdown, which is the main reason he was spitting out a lot of milk. I would let him get hungry enough to cry, which for him was too hungry and so he didn't want to work at regulating my milk flow. So, he would gag and choke on the fast flow, spit out the milk, latch and unlatch, and not get enough milk in his belly.

At babywisemom.com, she suggests picking a wake time for the morning, a sleep time (for the first sleep at night that will eventually become the baby's bedtime when he's sleeping through the night), and then deciding when feedings should occur based on those times. So, I did this. I chose a wake time that was a little earlier than Jacob was sleeping in until and a bedtime that was a little earlier than I was putting him down before. I then set his wake times for every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day and then 4.5-5 hours at night. We started at night and I woke him after 5 hours of sleep to a happy feeding session and very little spitting. His next sleep was really great- he went down easily and stayed asleep until I woke him. It continued this way until we decided to go grocery shopping in the middle of his 2nd nap. He was woken up for about 10-15 minutes while we got him dressed and in his car seat and then his next feeding was about 30 minutes late. He fussed through that whole feeding and didn't want to have wake time or go down for a nap after eating. Once I finally got him down he only slept for about 45 minutes before I needed to wake him again, but when I woke him he was happy and ready to eat. This continued all evening. Last night was not on schedule from what I wanted after the first feeding. I thought I'd let him have a "dreamfeed" for his first night feeding (basically, just letting him stay asleep through the feeding) but he obviously didn't get enough to eat because he woke up 2.5 hours later. I am going to ry the dreamfeed for his middle of the night feeding tonight and see if that goes any better, but my boy may just need to wake up for every feeding. All in all, living on a schedule has made everyone in our house much happier, especially Jacob who is barely fussing and eating incredibly well now. This makes me feel like a more accomplished mother because I'm able to better serve my baby through anticipating his needs and interpreting his sounds/cries.

Is it just me or has he changed SO much?!?

1 day old

3 weeks and 1 day old