My queendom for a three-hour stretch

I was going to LOSE IT yesterday. Emma slept MAYBE an hour and a half, in twenty minute chunks, all day long. We were even at my parents' house, and the Grandparent Magic was not working. The night before she'd woken up EVERY HOUR. The day before that she slept MAYBE an hour and a half, in FIFTEEN MINUTE chunks. 

When Phillip showed up at my parents' house for dinner last night I felt like I might start sobbing right there. I mean, even with help, even leaving her with my mom while I ran some errands, I STILL felt crazy. The Tired Crazy is more easily identifiable now, and I knew that I had to go to bed as soon as I got home and just cross my fingers for the night. 

AND SHE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. 

Not PERFECTLY. We didn't get home till 9:30 and Phillip just told me she was sleeping on the COUCH between eleven and midnight while he worked on his laptop, but I did not wake up to feed that kid until 5:30 in the morning, when she ate and then went back to sleep till 8. THAT IS A WIN.

I am not entirely sure, but I think a Pretty Huge Factor in all of this is the fact that EJ drank 8 ounces before she went to bed, when she usually drinks 4. ?!?!

I haven't paid much attention to WHEN I do things with Emma, and now it's getting to the point where I feel bad about it. This is another problem I have with breastfeeding. I just do it WHENEVER. I am never sure how much the baby is eating, I rarely have it together enough to know how long it's been since she last ate, at night I just stick her next to me and when she wakes up I stick a boob in her mouth. This is... no longer okay. 

SOMETIMES I think it's okay. I mean, at least I know that if I have to wake up every hour, I get to be IN BED and HALF ASLEEP when I do it. But then I think: if I were getting OUT of bed and making sure she was really eating instead of snacking, maybe it wouldn't BE every hour, right? BUT WHO KNOWS! Let's stick with the KNOWING I get to stay in bed! 

And even worse than that is the not sleeping during the day, or the falling asleep for ten minutes, only to wake up right when I put the first bite of lunch in my mouth. Three kids into this I believe that sleep begets sleep, but three kids later it's clear I still have no idea how to establish naps. 

And have I been starving her this whole time?! She doesn't COMPLAIN about being hungry. There are times when she wakes up and it's obvious she wants to eat right that second, but otherwise? I'll feed her on one side and she seems good, so I don't feed her on the other side. Or she pulls off and messes around and I think she's just not hungry. I DON'T KNOW! And of course I have no idea how much she's getting. I don't know why this didn't feel like a problem with the other kids - at least, a problem I had to DO something about. But last night when I made her bottle I just gave her six ounces for kicks and I was floored when Phillip said he made another two ounces and she drank that too. 

Blargh! 

This is my fault too, you know. I've been staying up WAY too late, doing super important things like deciding what color the links should be on the Blathering website. Also playing Words With Friends which, I swear, I am the last person in the internet to play that game and how did that happen?! It's awesome! Even though I AM REALLY BAD AT IT!!! But I just really value this no-kid time, when it's quiet and I CAN play Words With Friends or read more than two pages of a book or figure out how to do image mapping which is something everyone else learned to do in 1994. THAT feels as important as sleep!

Except, I suppose, sleep is a biological necessity and I need more of it. The Tired Crazy makes that dreadfully apparent. 

Comments

[AmyRyb]

I have no idea if this will really help or not, but just in case it does...might it be worth pumping and feeding Emma from a bottle (at least all day for a few days--please maintain your in-bed-ness at night!) so you can track her feeding and see what works? I know that it means pumping and possible waste of breast milk, but I thought it might clear up some of the unknowns. I dunno. Just a thought.

[Jesabes]

I also stay up waaay too late. Deliberately. Time doesn't get away from me, I'm always aware of how late it's getting and how I should sleep, but I also feel like I need the time. It IS as important as sleep. Or almost as important. Whatever.

[Sarah in Ottawa]

If she were hungry, if you'd been starving her this whole time, you would know. She wouldn't be gaining weight, she'd be sobbing ALL THE TIME. You'd know.

I would bet cash money that she's on a growth spurt and also doing something developmental right now and that's why she's not sleeping/eating tonnes. You are doing everything right. It SUUUUUCKS when they're on these spurts, but don't start second guessing yourself. You are doing all the right things.

[Sonya aka Glam-O-Mommy]

I didn't breastfeed (I know-bad mommy!) so I'm CERTAINLY not an expert, but I do seem to remember reading something about cluster-feeding? It seems like you feed your baby an extra feeding a little later in the evening before you put them down for the night in hopes that the extra milk helps them sleep through the night, or something like that. Since it seems like maybe the extra ounces helped Emma last night, maybe that's the way to go. I'm sure you could use the Google machine to find out for sure if that is the right description! :)

[Elsha]

With Will, Brian and I finally worked out a system where he would take the baby from 9 to 11 pm. I would go to bed (even though I wanted to be doing all my wind down in the evening things) and it was SO much easier to get to sleep knowing I wouldn't have to deal with the baby for at least 2 hours. If he woke up Brian fed him a bottle of either formula or pumped milk and then worked on getting him back to sleep. Knowing I could get at least 2 hours of sleep every night kept me sane.

[Marie Green]

I have the "not going to bed" problem, absolutely. Most nights, I am FIGHTING sleep, my eyes feeling grainy, forcing myself to STAY AWAKE and keep reading/watching Hulu etc. Why do I do this?

When I woke up this morning I thought to myself: "The trouble with infants is that you never wake up feeling rested." Yanking myself out of bed every morning by sheer force of will gets O-L-D after awhile.

Oh, and Olive only ever gets one side, day or night. And she's up every hour or two most nights too. At least I can latch her on and fall back to sleep... I know I'm getting more sleep that it SEEMS like, because on her sporadic "Thrashy Nights" where she beats me up all night, I wake up SOOOOOO much more tired.

[Colleen]

My oldest breastfed like that. Never seemed too hungry and would dawdle while feedings. We were also at the all night buffet. It was exhausting. He was also a sporadic napper during the day. I started pumping to save to give him extra and figure out how much he was getting (hated pumping!) When he started getting more, it did help him sleep longer. Good luck. My four year old finally stopped napping this week and although I'm lucky he did it this long, I'm still very sad at the lack of free time. I know I'll be adjusting by staying up later at night.

[Erica]

Hi Maggie! Long time reader, infrequent commenter. Everything I have to say should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, because my kids are undoubtedly quite different, and my experience is probably nothing like yours.

That said, I'll second the comment about that your daughter is surely getting enough food, because she'd be crying a lot and not growing much if she were not. Also, I'm guessing that you'll be seeing the pediatrician soon for a check up (I know this because our third baby is only a week or two older than Emma), so you'll get some concrete data on how she's growing soon. :)

All three of my kids have gone through times that they only nurse on one side, but there have also been times that they got really hungry for a while and would take the other side if offered, so you could try that (you probably already have done that, but whatever).

I totally agree with the this-isn't-a-great-situation-but-something-else-could-be-so-much-worse feeling. However, with two of my three kids they started sleeping poorly around 3 to 4 months (while still sleeping in our room), waking up a lot more than they had previously. I theorized that just maybe they were being light sleepers and that the noise of other people in the room shifting around or waking or going to the bathroom was waking them, so I moved them into their own rooms and presto! they went back to good sleeping! So even though it might sound like a horrible idea to move Emma, it might work.

[Redbecca]

Kiddo was a 15-minute napper until he was...I can't even remember. I've blacked it out to preserve my sanity as we try for baby #2. I think he was about 9mo before he figured out that sleeping in larger chunks during the day was a good thing, and he dropped his morning nap when he was about 1yo, and his afternoon nap around 2 and 1/2 (except for the occasional one in the car).
And he refused to breast feed and I pumped, and he was a voracious eater. So I was constantly pumping during those first few months. Like, almost non-stop for the first 3 weeks until my supply caught up with his appetite. It was awful. So he'd go down for a nap and I'd get to choose: a nap (and it takes me at least 5 minutes to fall asleep), a shower, or washing pump parts. And he didn't like to be put down, either. Aaaarrgh. BUT he slept at night. He still woke for one or two feedings (and having a large bottle of pumped milk helped SO MUCH in this department), but he would go down at something crazy like 7pm and not want to be up for the day until 6 or 7am.
Here is what preserved my sanity: My husband and I took turns at night - we took 4 hour blocks. During your 4 hour block you had to get up with the baby as many times as he woke and needed things. After your shift was over (or before it started, obvs), you got to sleep for the other 4 hours unless something BIG happened like projectile vomit or whatever. If we'd been exclusively breastfeeding that wouldn't have worked but since we were on the bottle or nipple shield from day 1, it worked for us. If you chose to stay up for extra personal time during the first 4 hour shift (we switched shift #1 and #2 every other night) that was your biz but you couldn't complain about lack of sleep because of it the next day lol.
I count my lucky stars he wasn't my niece, who slept in 15-minute spurts at NIGHT for about 3 months straight (and continues to be up for the day before 6am and she is 6yo). I still don't know how my SIL and brother survived that!
All this to say, I totally feel you on EJ and I totally get it. I guess first try a bigger bottle feed before bedtime and see if it helps. Can't hurt!

[HereWeGoAJen]

Oh, the not sleeping sucks. SUCKS. Elizabeth has been doing it. It sucks and it is still way better than what you are currently doing. I hope it gets better soon.

[RLM]

When my son was tiny, a wise lactation told me that if you put your pump pieces in the fridge between uses, you only have to scrub them down once a day instead of every time. They're being refrigerated, not sitting around at room temperature, so you don't have to worry about spoilage of the milk in them.

[Ursula, otherwise known as the neighbor]

Caveat: I slept with both my kids and nursed on demand for WAAAAAYYYY too long, but I always remembered the super wise comment a dear friend of me said when I was complaining about waking up constantly to nurse... she said, "Well, if you were sleeping with a pizza in your bed all night, you'd probably wake up to nibble a few times a night, too!" So, um, I second the suggestion to move EJ into the other room!

Another thing you might try (and you might already be doing this?) is to try to get into the rhythm of not nursing her to sleep (again, not something I ever did well), and then nursing when she wakes up really hungry. That way she starts to get used to not using you as a human pacifier to go to sleep and when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she might be more likely to put herself back to sleepyland if she isn't really hungry.

But my best advice is that you have already successfully managed to get two great kids to sleep through the night, and while you may not see how amazing that is now that you are sleep deprived, that is why you have friends to tell you so: YOU ARE AMAZING!

[Carrie]

I have an 8 week old... my 4th child... and I have recently decided the same thing. Snacking half asleep all throughout the night is not a great habit and promotes a really bad circular hellish routine, however out of desperation, that's what we've been doing. I really need to make myself stop. Last night I did and he only one up at 3. Amazing. But tonight when he wakes up 14879 times, will I still be able to hold out? I don't know. But I'm going to try. Really, though... the poor 4th child. Actually, more accurately, it's the POOR FOUR CHILDREN. I feel like I'm in a haze all day and my really, really difficult, notatallwhatIordered 4th child cries all day and I just pop the boob in for 3 minutes at a time all day and we just live in this crazy world that makes going back to work (part-time) sound like a dream. This too shall pass!