Updates

I've been trying to not post too many baby stories, to post things other than the daily journaling stuff. But today, that's what ya get.

When you have a baby, they tell you in the hospital that you need to wake them up every 2 to 3 hours to feed them, even if they're sleeping. There are a lot of reasons for this, to establish mom's milk, to make sure the babies are getting enough. Etc. So since we came home from the hospital, that's what I've been doing-- setting my alarm at night in 3 hour intervals and waking sleeping babies to feed them. Sometimes they'll wake me sooner, but a lot of the time they were waking up right at the 3 hour mark. Since my milk has been too heavy and I've had to pump first before feeding them, that's meant a lot shorter sleep times for mommy.

But Maia, and sometimes Sean, had been giving me signals that they were ready to maybe sleep longer. Maia would go where she would refuse to wake up, no matter how hard I tried, and then, even if she would wake, she'd nurse for like two minutes and go back to sleep. Frustrating for a tired mommy!

So yesterday I asked the pediatrician when I could start letting them sleep till they wake up on their own at night. This is the way we build the whole "sleeping through the night" fantasy. She told me to start now-- that my babies are gaining weight well and my milk is fine so I should let them set the schedule at night. During the day, they've already been doing that for the most part, but at night, we'd been still waking up in those bursts. And if Maia was awake & hungry, and Sean wasn't, I'd wake him to feed him.

So last night, that's what I did. I only fed whatever baby woke me up with hungry noises (and only once was that hungry noise an all out siren wail-- from Maia after her longest stretch of sleep.) What that meant was that, ladies and gentlemen, I actually got the most sleep last night that I have had since the babies came out of the hospital!! Maia slept on 4 hour stretch!! (In the midst of that was one of Sean's 3 hours, so I didn't sleep that whole four hours, but it wasn't bad.) Also, the babies didn't have any trouble with my over active milk supply (at night, because they are sleepier, they nurse more gently and my milk doesn't come out so hard) so I didn't have to spend twenty minutes before feeding them pumping, wandering around the house sounding like a femme-bot. (That's what the little breast pump I use sounds like-- "wheeze WEEEEeze....wheeze WEEEEeze....."

This weekend, Andrew & I are doing our first road trip as a family. Yes, we're dragging the babies up to Shreveport. We'll see how that goes.

Now, Maia is calling from the other room. So back to mommy land. :)