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Friday, April 5, 2013

A post about not sleeping and pictures of Axel's blessing day

If you've read this post and this post, you might have come to the realization that I am sleep deprived.


I struggled with sleep loss after I had Olivia, and she was a good sleeper!  Axel is less good, but when I spend some time googling things like "breastfed baby sleep through the night" I realize he's better than most of the babies I'm reading about.  He sleeps from 9pm-6am with just two feedings (sometimes one!) and sometimes he sleeps even longer than 6am, but not lately.  And in between those two feedings he wakes up several times with gas, especially if I have a hard time getting a burp out of him at 2am.


I'm glad I didn't start giving advice about getting your baby to sleep through the night.  I would sure have egg on my face right now.  But that's the frustrating part.  I know exactly what to do to get a formula fed baby to sleep through the night.  Easy!  Because its easy to control the amount they are getting at each feeding.


But Axel wasn't gaining weight as fast as the doctor would have liked.  Plus he would only take two ounces from a bottle (making me suspect he was used to eating only two ounces a feeding) and six feedings times two ounces equals 12 ounces, about half of what a baby needs!  Plus he was fussy.  I'm like 95% positive that he was fussy because of gas (isn't that what colic is?  Gas or reflux?).  He would scream in pain and then toot toot toot.  I know the difference between a hunger cry and a pain cry.  Still, those three things (weight gain, bottle feeding and fussiness) stack up to look like my baby isn't getting enough to eat.


All this to say, I would rather feed Axel in the night than worry about his weight or health.  We're going to the dr for Olivia's check up next Monday and we'll have him weighed while we're there.  After that I'll make the call.  I sleep trained Olivia at 3 months and Axel is only a little over 2, so its not like I'm behind but with Olivia things were starting to look up around 6 weeks (she would sleep from 9pm-4am).


So I guess my question is, how do I get Axel to eat more during the day?  Is that even possible?  Will gas eventually stop waking him up All.Night.Long?  Please tell me stories so I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

2 comments:

  1. I always turn to "healthy sleep habits, happy child" for my sleep advice. It's never failed me yet. I tried to sleep train Luke at 3 mo, and he wasn't ready, so we waited another month and a half and he did great after that. Each baby is different....I'm scared about my next one since Luke was so great!
    Colic isn't just gas, but it will make it worse! Do you pump his legs up and down to help him move the air bubbles out faster? Travis was the master at getting Luke to toot in the middle of the night, haha.
    And nursing- it's hard to know if they're getting "enough", but I'd say he is probably getting more from you than from the bottle. Unless you feel like you're not producing a lot? Newborns are so hard. I'm a slave to sleep too (not looking forward to the nights coming up!) hope it gets better for you soon!!!!! :)

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  2. Oops sorry. That last comment was mine. Didn't realize my husband was signed in on my ipad! Sorry!

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