Limiting Awake Times

Megan is eleven weeks old! And I can't believe that the last post I wrote about her was on the 15th October, wow, I am SO SLACK. A great deal has changed since then, and I feel that I have learned a lot (stuff I wish I'd known earlier) and we are all a lot happier because of it.

I was given a book called 'Baby Sense' which features a chart showing the maximum recommended times for each baby age group to stay awake. I was amazed to find that the 6-12 weeks baby should only be awake from between 60-80 minutes, before being helped to sleep. Wow, that's a very short period of time! But when I started implementing these rules, I found that Meg could send herself to sleep if I put her gently down on a fleece on the bed, covered her with a couple of blankets and then lay next to her. The dummy helps enormously with this too. It sounds funny to say it now, but I was really surprised to see her closing her eyes and drifting off, after all the hard work it had taken to get her to sleep previously. But previously I had had no idea about awake times, and she slept on the boob or was rocked and sung to sleep when she became hysterical. Basically, she was a fussy, screaming baby because she was always being stimulated until she was over-tired. The book explains that babies can't edit out the stimulation they are constantly receiving, unlike you or I, so they are overwhelmed by what they see, hear, smell, feel, etc., they can't even block out the feeling of their clothes against their skin.

So now I'm starting to feel more in control of my life, and Meg is so much more content. She hardly ever has to cry anymore as I keep an eye on the clock with regards to awake time, and can see immediately when she starts to get hungry (always bearing in mind what time she last fed). I wish I'd known this earlier, but at least I know it now, and can share the information with all of my friends who have also recently become new mummies. :D

And here are some pics of Megan I took a couple of nights ago, the hat (made by a lovely friend of my mother) seems to bring out some very amusing expressions:




This little cardigan is a bit of an heirloom - my brother and I wore it when we were tiny too, and I think Meg looks quite dramatic:

Sleep vs. Desperate Lullabies

Wow, I can't believe that the time has passed so quickly, it feels like Megan is growing and changing before our eyes! Well, of course she is, but I had no idea things would happen so fast - I've barely had time to catch my breath since the birth, and already she's five weeks old...

It's true what they say about babies - that once you think you've got a routine you can rely on, they go and change it completely... To begin with Megan was sleeping for nice long periods of a minimum of one to three hours or so, and when I put her down, I knew I would have time to have a bath, or do the washing up or put the nappies in the washing machine, or whatever. Now she may sleep for four hours, or four minutes. Nothing is certain! And the same applies to the night feeds - she was sleeping two to three hours between each feed and going back to sleep on the breast, but now she tends to stay awake after her second or third feed - which means I find myself singing desperate lullabies to a wide-awake baby at around 5:30am every night/morning. It's not been so bad, I've had to resign myself to doing nothing other than Megan-related tasks (a decision which has reduced my feelings of frustration and anxiety no end), and I can't be annoyed with her when she's so cute and smiley and playful.