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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Hallelujah!

I seriously hope this doesn't put a hex on the whole damn thing but here goes. . .

I just couldn't help it. I had to brag that my girl Katie has discovered how to go 6 hours in between feedings overnight! And this habit has stuck THREE nights in a row! And this morning, which would have been the fourth night, she went over 8 1/2 hours!

So, here's the story: Last night when she woke up, Brad went to grab her from her crib and change her while I tested my blood sugar (our normal routine, see below). I looked at the clock and I just about fell outta bed! It was 6:33am?!?! I grabbed her timer and, sure enough, it had been 8 hours and 49 minutes since her last feeding.

Naturally, the first thing I did was panic. Why is it that just when you get what you are wishing for as a parent (the baby to mellow out, the baby to sleep more, etc) the first thing you do is worry?? I even considered testing her bloodsugar to make sure she hadn't gone low. (Which I did, by the way, within the first week or so after bringing her home when she slept 6 1/2 hours in between feedings out of the blue! Of course her sugar was fine (94) and I felt stupid. Although it made me feel slightly better that she didn't even blink when I pricked her little heel.) Anyway I quickly reminded myself that if she was hungry she would have let us know and one look at her big grin confirmed that she was fine. The only down side was that she wasn't really interested in going back to sleep this morning after she was fed. But after getting 7 hours of sleep in a row, who am I to complain??

So proud of my girl . . lets just hope it sticks!!

Taking a nap on daddy is so comfy!

My sleeping beauty!

FYI: You may notice that I'm going out of my say how long she went "in between feeds" rather than how long she slept. I'm doing that because technically, she doesn't sleep this whole time. I start the timer at the beginning of her last feeding of the night but she usually doesn't go down for the night for another hour or two after that. For example, I usually feed her for the last time of the night around 9 or 10pm. At this point, I hand her over to Brad who takes over for the rest of the night until she goes to sleep.

I'm usually up for a little bit winding down before I go to bed. Katie is also up for a little bit before she's goes to bed and then Brad joins me. (This routine usually allows me to get a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep during the night, since I'm SUCH a light sleeper otherwise and Katie takes a while stirring and sleeping off and on until she's down for the night.) Overnight, I take over so that Brad can sleep since he has to work. When Katie wakes up his only job is to grab her from her crib and change her while I test my blood sugar and grab a drink. (When you're breastfeeding you gotta stay hydrated!) Then he hands her over and goes back to bed, while I feed her and get her back to sleep. This process can take anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour.

Anyway, my point is just because she goes 6-8 hours between feedings doesn't mean I sleep that whole time. Usually if you shave an hour or two off that you'll be close to how long I got to sleep! ;-)

3 comments:

  1. Our little one is sleeping 8 hours some days too lately! Usually it's between 6-8 hours depending on how much she ate before bed. unfortunately, she eats at 7-8pm last and refuses to wake up or sleep feed at 9-10 again :( But, that means she falls asleep around 8, and is in deep sleep by 10 when we're ready for bed so she doesn't wake up anymore really. Then she will wake up between 2-4am for a feed and then some nights she's up around 6am while other she sleeps till 8 am. It's AMAZING isn't it?!?!?! And yet so sad lol that we feel so well rested.

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  2. Wow Layne - fancy a second life as a childcare guru? You can be my mentor!

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  3. How funny, I'm thinking all the same things! I feel like every time someone asks me if he's "sleeping through the night" and I say he's going 6 hours, I have to qualify that I am not actually getting six hours of sleep.. so, don't stop pitying me yet!! Ha ha! I must confess I checked Henry's sugar once too.. I swear for the first few weeks he was FULLY saturating every single diaper.. and I really have changed a lot of diapers! It really seemed to much, it was even my non medical husband who said, wouldn't he be dehydrated or something if there was problem? true, true, but I couldn't relax, so I checked, I told myself I would just do it once. 77. :)

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