Sleep

One of the popular questions I get is "Are you getting any sleep?" and the answer is always "Well yes, but..."

Anyone that has been around an infant understands this statement but it surprises me how many people have never been around and infant or who don't understand their growth pattern.

When they press for more details I try to explain: "I do get sleep but I get it in the form of four two hour naps throughout the night. The girls will eat at nine, then go to bed at ten. I'll sleep from ten til twelve, when the cycle then starts over. So it might take me twelve hours to get eight hours of sleep."

Why is this the case? Well it's because their stomachs are so small. After three hours, they are starving and that's when you hear their "newborn cry" (as my mom calls it). It's a pure and instinctual cry that just means "Owwww! My stomach hurts!!! Feed me!!!"

One visitor asked me then, "Well what do you feed them, baby food in a jar?" (sorry Richard!) my response: "uh....no....(awkward moment)....breastmilk." I could see the wheels turning then! Ha!

If I ever had a rough night, or just felt I was so tired, I would repeat what my good friend Monica told me, "Just get through the first eight weeks. It does get better."

So, for the first six weeks or so, Charles and I splight the night shifts: we would both be up for the midnight feeding, then I would get up for the three and six am and let Charles sleep (my theory was that one of us
needed to be able to drive a vehicle!). Then Charles would take the nine am feeding and give them pumped breastmilk in a bottle. That would allow me a coveted four hour block (from seven til eleven) that helped me survive the first six weeks.

Another reason that babies wake up at night is that babies have trouble differentiating between night and day (another tip from Monica). It makes sense because after all, their previous home, the womb, is dark 24 hours a day. So to help them understand night and day, we treat them differently at each time. In the day, we engage with them by talking, singing, dancing, walking etc. But at night we try to reduce the amount of stimulation by whispering softly and minimizing talk, keeping the lights down low (night lights are great),
and then putting them right back into the crib, swaddled, etc after feeding and changing them. I've been doing this part since day one; I mean when I'm half asleep I don't want to talk or turn the lights on either.

Two weeks ago, Charles and I instituted what I call "the bedtime routine." It basically means that after the last feeding of the evening (whether it be 7, 8, or 9), we give them a warm sponge bath, give them a little baby massage with baby lotion, put them in warm, clean jammies and diapers, turn down the lights, swaddle them, and then read them a book or rock them until they show us the sleepy eyes. Then we put them in their crib for the night sleep.

It surprised me how quickly after we instituted the "bedtime routine" that the girls increased that first nighttime nap from two to three, sometimes four (last night was 5 hours!) Monica, who currently has a five month old, told me something that stuck in my mind: if you can just get four hours in a block, then all the other naps don't seem so bad.

Now, the bedtime routine (and their age) has allowed the girls to make their own four hour block of sleep instead of Charles having to use the precious, stored breastmilk.

Thank goodness!! Because I do love to sleep! :-)