Despite the fact that we all had the sniffles over the holiday weekend, we took the 4 days to change Mya's sleep patterns a bit. Early last week, she had 3 or 4 really wild nights (as earlier blogs attest).
I decided to introduce some rice cereal mixed with breast milk for a 6 pm feeding. I also decided I would no longer feed her at every waking (increasingly impossible when she was up every hour!). I am willing to feed her after 3 am if she wakes up. Lastly, I'm beginning to do a "dream feed" which means that I wake her up around 10 pm just before I go to bed and get her to eat as much as her sleepiness will allow. (A little rub under her chin gets her eating again).
These new ideas haven't produced great changes in her sleep yet, but everyone is a lot more relaxed just because we know what to expect. Last night she slept from 7:20 pm to 1 am (not counting the forced waking at 10). When she wakes before 3 am, I go in to her room, give her back her soother and lay my hand on her chest until she settles. Lately, she's been settling herself back down in 10 or 20 minutes without any crying (just fussing).
Now that I have some clear cut approaches to her sleep, I'm no longer so torn over what to do with her when she wakes. It's hard to make good decisions when you're exhausted, a baby is crying and it's 1 o'clock in the morning.
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