Levi apparently hasn't heard of a little thing called "sleeping through the night." He has yet to do it. In fact, he's not even close, which means his mommy is on the brink of some sort of meltdown or comatose state. Last night he was up every two hours.
One of my books says something like, "don't let your 3-month-old breastfed baby go longer than 9 or 10 hours at night without a feed because it might affect your milk supply." Uh, seriously? It amazes me that there are 3-month-old babies who sleep longer than that because I have yet to experience such sleepful bliss. My sister has one of those babies so I do not solicit her advice on how to get a baby to sleep through the night. :-) Levi acts like a two-week-old at night, and I can't figure out why.
I'm working with a lactation consultant and Levi's pediatrician to figure out why he wants to eat all the time (apparently big babies tend to do that more than little ones) and won't sleep. We did figure out his reflux is acting up again, and the next step is to take dairy out of my diet for a while and see if that's the culprit.
At this point 5 hours of sleep in one chunk sounds like a spa retreat.
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Praying for you girl. My nephew was just like that, and my sister was thrown for a loop because my niece had slept through the night right from the start. He did have the reflux issue too. And he ended up sleeping many nights in his car seat because it put him at the right angle where the reflux didn't wake him up. My sister was resistant to the sleeping in the car seat thing, but he was more comfortable, and they both slept more!
You know what I have to laugh because I was thinking of the same thing Heather above me just mentioned. My oldest son LOVED to sleep in his car seat, he was so small (born early) and feed ofter for a YEAR. But when he slept in his car seat right beside my bed we both slept a little bit longer.
Also make sure he is eating a good 20 mins each meal, don't let him snack so he only eats a little and then wants more in an hour. But I am sure you have already thought of that.
Praying for you girl, I have been there and life is blurry for about a year =))
I meant "often for a year" instead of ofter...ugg.
I am definitely no expert, but I can't agree with you more that a 5 hour chunk of sleep would be heavenly.
Hunter had reflux too. I know that many doctors discourage feeding food to such a young baby, but have you considered pumping for the evening feedings and adding enough rice cereal in the bottle of breast milk to make a "slurry" consistency? We did that with Hunter, and it worked tremendously.
Also, my sister had 3 very big babies, and one tiny baby, and one problem she noticed after her first baby was that she produced too much of the yummy milk and not enough of the nourishing milk and the baby wasn't being satisfied with the feedings, but wanted more because it was like eating dessert. She had to pump for a few minutes to get rid of the dessert-like milk so the baby could get the satisfying milk.
While I know there are so many mixed feelings about Growing Kids God's Way by the Ezzo's, one think I did take from them was that you must have your child on a "schedule" -- for instance, do NOT let your child fall asleep while breast feeding. Do everything you can to stimulate them and keep them awake during that time. Then, 30-40 minutes later, lay them down for their nap. That teaches them that eating time is for eating, and sleeping time is for sleeping.
Finally, hold off one more month. It seems like the big turnaround is at 4 months, and suddenly their schedules start to right themselves and make it easier to sleep through the night.
Hope something here helps! Hugs and kisses, and prayers!!!
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