What a crock of shit that rice cereal is! It did not make any difference at
all. If anything it made my poor
guy even hungrier!
The first day I gave him one tablespoon in his 5-½-ounce
bottle mid day. It did appear to keep him full for about six hours, which was
amazing! I had really high hopes!
The following night I decided to give him another tablespoon
in his late night bottle, again 5 ½ ounces of breast milk. I settled in to bed thinking, sweet
ass I’m going to get some sleep tonight!
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Every three hours he was up like clock work. I couldn’t believe it! He usually would sleep 4-5 hours during
that stretch on breast milk alone, WTF?
The next morning I called my sister, pissed that not only
had the rice cereal failed to give me and Oliver a good night sleep, it seemed
like it didn’t really fill him up either?
She said to give him more because there is no real exact amount for all
babies. I wasn’t so sure about
this so I called another friend and then consulted Dr. Google. I heard and read that it may take some
time so I gave him another bottle with a tablespoon the following night. Still up every three hours!
I talked to another friend who said that rice cereal didn’t
do anything for he son either and at six months was still not “sleeping through
the night.” Devastated was me. I
NEED SOME FREAKING SLEEP!
I called another girlfriend whose daughter is a week behind
Oliver, and asked her how Chloe was doing. She said, “Fine, she is sleeping through the night.” At that point I asked the million-dollar
question, “When you say ‘sleeping through the night,’ what does that mean
exactly.” She told me she puts her
to sleep at 11pm at night and she wakes up between 6-8am. Ah HA! I know what’s going on kind of… Oliver
goes to sleep between 7 and 8pm and wakes up for his first feeding between 1-2am. This is basically the same amount of
sleep Chloe gets, “sleeping through the night.” Oliver just sleeps through the
evening so to speak.
It comes down to, for a 3 month old baby, is the routine set
for going to sleep early or late.
Do I want a little down time and peace and quiet at night, or do I want
a longer stretch of sleep? I’ll
take the down time since I am breastfeeding and have to pump every few hours
anyway.
The bottom line: Rice cereal did NOT help Oliver to sleep
better at all. Nor did it seem to make a huge difference in his being full for
a longer period of time. We go see
the doctor in 3 weeks for a check-up at which time I plan to further discuss
solid food and more rice cereal.
My son is growing well, is super cuddly and very happy, for now that is
good enough for me. Eventually I
will get 6 hours of sleep, but it certainly is not going to happen feeding him
rice cereal.
11 comments:
Sam was a big boy too, on the 75th centil. I started feeding him before we where 'suppose' to, at 17 weeks, at that time the health visitors said to wait until he was 6mths. there was no way. i started as i thought he was ready but also thought it would help him sleep though. It didn't baby rice didn't, baby cereal didn't, baby food didn't and even 3 meals a day didn't. He was 7months before he did, we had tried everything and the night he did we didn't do anything different. Amber on the other hand slept through for the 1st time 2 wks ago at 8wks old. Her thing is swaddling if she's not swaddled tightly she will wake. problem is she's getting to big for her swaddles , i plan to do it as long as i can with the hope that she will then be use to it when i can't anymore. By sleeping through she goes down no later than 8:30 and wakes about 6:30. We've not really changed much between the 2 of them, it must just be them.
Ugh! As I sit here on my third feeding of the night. 12:30/3:30/6:30am I cannot imagine doing this for 6 months! Noooooo! Oliver is also in the 75th percentile. I know Sam was formula and Oliver breastmilk so that blows my question of formula vs. breast out of the water! Crap 7 months!
The other day my mom was visiting and she was surprised that I was waking my baby during the day to eat. I explained that if she goes for long stretches during the day she won't at night. Even so, her long night stretch is around 5 hours which from what I hear at 12 weeks is pretty typical. I feed her bedtime bottle at 11pm, she night feeds at 4am, back to bed, and then up again between 7 and 8 am. So far her longest stretch between bottles was 6.5 hours. Every baby is different, as my husband always says "do what you need to."
Hi there,
I've been following your blog for a while now. My son was born on January 31, 2012, so pretty close to Oliver.
William is breastfed, but gets one formula bottle a day, around 3pm.
Will eats around 9-9:15, and is usually asleep by 9:45. He is up again anywhere from 1-3, and then 4-6, and then I can usually nurse him lying down and get an extra couple of hours in.
His best night ever was asleep at 9:30, up at 2:30, and then up at 6:30. He has one time made it until 3 (but then was up at 5, so it still sucked. :) )
Last night, he was up at 1, up at 4, up at 5, and then in bed with me. lol.
It is rough and I feel your pain.
I'm so terrible that not only do I wake up Ollie for feelings I'm now trying to keep his naps to an hour. I'll pick him up while he's sleeping and hold him until he wakes up. But if he's really tired or in a growth spurt I'll let him sleep.
Hi Katie! And congratulations on William! Holy crap you really do feel my pain! I do the same thing when Ollie is up at the ass-crack of dawn, put his little ass crack in bed with me!
I absolutely feel your pain!!
William was also pretty colicy, and soooo gassy. He will scream in pain from the gas. And nothing helps. Not bicycling the legs, drops, baths, nothing. He is getting better, but the gas wakes him up from his naps. Plus, he wont sleep in his bouncy chair, swing, or on walks. We can sometimes get him to sleep in the car. But the best bet is in his bed swaddled, or in my arms.
Today he luckily fell asleep in the car and miraculously stayed asleep for an hour and a half. Woke up and played. Went to sleep in his bed and woke up with the gas. Then refused to go back to sleep. Then fell asleep in the baby carrier. Woke as soon as we got home, then refused to go to sleep in the car, to the park, on the walk, or on the drive back home. Instead, he screamed the whole time.
It is now 7:00pm and he is asleep. lol. the worst time ever to be sleeping, but he was so tired.
My poor boy. I think tonight will be rough! Good luck tonight!
Oh my... You got it baaaad! Ollie will not sleep anywhere but in a dark room. I have blackout curtains in the nursery and my room now and it has worked wonders for day naps. Sometimes he will fall asleep in the car but he has to be suuuuuper tired!
And lol. Ollie went down at 7:15 too. Looks like will both be up for the day at 5!
Some suggestions that might or might not work for you, based on my own experiences: I feed Noelle every hour and a half to two hours normally during the day because I like her to get the majority of her calories during the day instead of night. I rarely let her get to three hours between feeds. She often doesn't display too much hunger when I feed her. I know you hate feeding every three hours even, but... I've been mostly getting from nine pm (her bedtime) to four or five am breaks. And then, Noelle goes right back down until six to eight. At which point she picks up her crazy food schedule again. Some people suggest that the more calories babies get during the day, the less they need at night.
Which leads me to number two -- if you are giving bottles, dream feed the heck out of your baby. Noelle will not dream feed to my incredible horror and I can't force her to nurse, but Nathan totally did and that meant that when I was going to sleep (around 1 am back then), I'd dream feed him then and he'd sleep until at least eight in the morning. Oh, glory days. Just stick the bottle in their mouth and gravity forces them to eat.
Thanks kitten! I have heard that more frequent feeds coupled with good naps will make a baby sleep better at night. I rarely let Ollie go more than three hours but it's usually spot on three.
I do give him dream feeds for his late night bottle but let him wake me up through the night. I may just try to do a 3/4 am dream feed and see what that gets me.
Thanks again!!
We realized a few weeks ago that James could sleep through the night... but he was sometimes waking up out of habit. What we try to do now is if he wakes before 3am we go in and try to just rock him back to sleep (no diaper change and no food). Obviously if after several minutes he continues to fuss and act hungry we'll feed him. But it works about 50% of the time. He's learning that he can get through more than 3-4 hours at night without food. We put him down around 8:30pm and on a good night he'll sleep until 5 - 6am. It's not super consistent but we know he can do it :)
Post a Comment