Newborn Summary: Week 6

(I wrote this last week & then never edited & published it. Whoops!)   First of all, I need to get back to posting on this blog! With the holidays, our week was a little crazy and I don't even think I opened my computer!   Nursing: Nursing has been about the same this week. I tried a few times to offer both breasts for feedings. Sometimes she will take the other one, sometimes she won't. The biggest thing this week was a growth spurt on Sunday. She ate every 2 hours the entire day.   Burping: Also about the same. I try to burp her after every feeding except the middle of the night. Sometimes she burps, sometimes she doesn't.   Reflux: She spit up several times this week, but several times over the course of a week really isn't bad.   Waketime: I'm doing about 1 hour of waketime at each cycle. At night she will go longer before bed. Sometimes I can't get her to go a full hour, so she goes down early. I've been trying tummy time each wake time, but she usually doesn't like it very much right now, plus she rolls over! See the milestones section for more on that, but I try to do tummy time on the boppy now or on the couch because she can't roll over on either of those.    Witching Hour: She's usually pretty fussy around 5:30-6:30. She'll take a catnap during this time, but that's been harder to get her to do lately. I'm hoping in the next few weeks we can stretch her schedule a little bit to where she wouldn't need a nap during that time, but I'm not sure. I think Isis kept that catnap for the first 4 months or so.   Swaddling: I am still swaddling her with her left arm out. I have let her take a couple of naps without the swaddle, but she only sleeps about an hour and wakes up after 1 sleep cycle, so I don't think she's ready yet. I'd like to try to drop the other arm next week, but I need to give her some time after the Thanksgiving festivities to get nighttime back to normal.   Nighttime Sleep: She did awesome overall this week! We decided about halfway through the week to drop the dreamfeed at 10pm. My reason was first of all that I didn't do one with Isis & I just don't think they're necessary. I also didn't want to have to deal with dropping it. I don't mind having 1 feeding in the middle of the night for a while, and I'd rather do that than have to be home to feed her at 10 if we go out or something. We did have to push our nighttime routine a little Thursday and Friday because of the holidays. Here's her breakdown for each night:   Night 1 - Friday Night - I fed her at 7:00 this night & then put her to bed. She cried while we put Isis to bed and then went to sleep. I did a dreamfeed at 10pm. She then woke at 3:30am and 7:00am. She had 1 feeding after we went to bed (3:30am) and her longest stretch was 5.5 hours from 10:00 to 3:30.   Night 2 - Saturday Night - I fed her at 6:45 and did a dreamfeed at 10:00pm. She had cried again while we put Isis down and then slept until her dreamfeed. She woke at 2:30am, 5:40am and then 8:00am. I thought it was weird that she woke up twice during the night like that and I was right because it was followed by a major growth spurt. She ate every 2 hours on Sunday. Anyway, she had 2 feedings after we went to bed (2:30 & 5:40) and her longest stretch was 4.5 hours from 10:00 to 2:30.   Night 3 - Sunday Night - I fed her at 6:45 and then she woke again to eat at 8:30. I was worried we'd do every 2 hours through the night like we had all day, so I didn't wake her for a dreamfeed because I assumed she'd wake herself for one. Instead, she woke at 2:00am and then at 7:20am. I was very happy to have a good night after such an exhausting day! She had 1 feeding after we went to bed (2:00) and her longest stretch was 5.5 hours from 8:30 to 2:00.   Night 4 - Monday Night -I fed her at 6:30, put her down at 7:15, she cried & then slept until her dreamfeed at 10:00pm. She woke up at 4:30am and then at 7:30am. She had 1 feeding after we went to bed (4:30) and her longest stretch was 6.5 hours from 10:00 to 4:30.   Night 5 - Tuesday Night - I fed her at 6:30 and put her to bed at 7:15. She kindof fussed and slept and fussed and slept until I fed her at 9:15. She woke up to eat at 3:30am and then 7:00am. She had 1 feeding after we went to bed (3:30) and her longest stretch was 6.25 hours from 9:15 to 3:30.   Night 6 - Wednesday Night - I fed her at 6:45 and then put her to bed at 7:15. This was the night we decided to try not doing the dreamfeed. She slept until 4:30am and then I woke her for the day at 8:00am! This was a major success for our first night without a dreamfeed! She had 1 feeding after bedtime (4:30) and her longest stretch was 9.75 hours from 6:45 to 4:30!!!   Night 7 - Thursday Night - This night we did Thanksgiving at my grandfather's house. We met them for dinner at 6:00. My mom fed her a bottle of breastmilk around 7:00. She kinda napped at dinner and then I fed her at 9:00pm when we got home & put her straight down. She woke up at 2:30am and then at 7:00am. She had 1 feeding after we went to bed (2:30) and her longest stretch was 5.5 hours from 9:00 to 2:30.   Naps: Still not consistent. She will take the 1st nap fairly consistently in the crib, but she doesn't always sleep the whole time. Usually if her first nap is bad, her second one will be better. She does nap every day and now especially since I've found that she will nap in the swing, I'm able to get her to sleep somewhere for naps everyday. She also naps in the car if I need to run errands. I just always try to plan my errands around a nap so that she can nap the whole time I'm out. If I remember correctly with Isis, once nighttime sleep got really consistent, naps became more consistent after that. So I probably still have another month or so to go with that.   Sibling: Isis has just gotten so sweet with Lux lately. She is always patting her and shushing her and trying to be sweet to her. We are still having to talk to her about being whiny & fussy to get attention, but it's gotten better.    Schedule: We are trying to follow the same schedule I shared last week. I have noticed that she sometimes doesn't eat very well after 3 hours like she used to. A couple of times, I tried stretching her to about 3 hours 15 minutes or 3 1/2 hours and she eats better. I may try to get more consistent with that, especially because we weighed her after her growth spurt & she was more than 12 pounds! So I think she'd be okay with 6-7 feedings a day rather than 7-8.   Mom Stuff: I actually got really honest with myself this week and admitted that I'm having a harder time than I'd like to admit. It's not the same as it was with Isis where I'm weepy or sad or anything. It's more feeling overwhelmed, having some anxiety and lots of mom guilt. I'm going to talk to my midwife about it at my 6 week appointment on Monday. It's not too bad right now, but I don't want it to get worse and I want to stay on top of it. Lewis has brought up concerns with me too that lets me know that it's affecting him & our family as a whole. There's definitely a pride issue there - being a mom & not wanting to admit that you're a mom who needs help feeling okay, but I think honesty is important. I also think it's important to be honest about it to others. I think too often moms put on this happy face and act like everything is perfect when really it's a struggle. I think we'd all feel more unified if we admitted when we have those struggles. So there ya go, I'm having some struggles. I'm going to be proactive in overcoming them.   Milestones: She started smiling right around 5 weeks. She will track things with her eyes. The one thing that I've been worried about is that she doesn't hold eye contact with me a lot. She does make eye contact when she's nursing sometimes, but not otherwise. I looked it up and it's a 6-8 week milestone, so I'm going to keep watching for that one.