Six months
Three months have gone by since I last posted. So much has transpired! I’ve been exclusively pumping and feeding expresses breastmilk; baby is sleep trained; I’m back at work and baby is in full time daycare; and I definitely have (and had) postpartum anxiety.
There is a WORLD of information out there for exclusive pumping. I switched to pumping exclusively after the last post and am still going at it now at 6 months. Because of all the problems we had, I ended up regulating at a level of milk production that was lower than what she actually was wanting to eat. So I was an undersupplier and adding in a bottle or two of formula. From months 3 to 5 she was drinking about 16-21 oz a day. Just in the last month she started consistently taking more per bottle, but she also dropped a feed since we were using eat-wake-sleep and she dropped a nap. I pumped 8 times a day until mid-June (around 5 months) and then dropped down to 7 pumps per day because I couldn’t stand waking up for a middle of the night pump around 2 am since baby started sleeping longer! Then I dropped again to 6 pumps per day to reduce my stress of trying to fit two pumps in at home in the evening. Now I’m still doing 6 pumps per day:
Home pump at 6am
Commute pump at 8:30am
Office pump at 11am
Office pump at 2pm
Commute pump at 5pm
Home pump at 9pm
Another WORLD of information out there is on sleep training and teaching a babe how to fall asleep independently. We sleep trained babe via extinction at around 10-12 weeks, but we kept all night feeds. We dropped the swaddle, moved her out of our room and into a crib, and started extinction all at once. She struggled with the bedtime I enforced and definitely treated it as a day nap. I could tell because she was waking up after 45 minutes, which was a day time sleep cycle for her. Because I was still worried about her intake, I decided not to cut out any night feeds yet. We tried a cutoff of every 3 hours for a feed, but it worked better for her to have the first night feed cut off earlier (2 hours since last feed) and she stretched out the remaining night feeds all on her own at around 4 months. Just recently at 6 months has she started stretching that first sleep cycle after bedtime into a longer night time sleep cycle. Good job, baby!
The initial sleep training was really hard because she was still struggling with uncontrolled reflux, so it’s quite possible that she was truly uncomfortable rather than just protesting the newly imposed practice of falling asleep on her own. I was always second guessing of what was wrong and if I should check on her. Following age appropriate wake times was a crucial key to setting her up for success! But following wake times also wreaked havoc on my mental health. I was constantly plagued with anxiety about her schedule. And even when I followed wake times as best as I could, any protesting she did made me second guess myself again. It was brutal. Appointments also made me crazed with worry, since I didn’t have instant access to her crib. She would also inevitable fall asleep in the car when we were five minutes away from home. I felt like an insane sleep nazi. I’m pretty sure I was an insane sleep nazi.
She started daycare at a center at 15 weeks and I went back to work at 16 weeks. It was really difficult for me to communicate my hopes for Charlotte for naps and bottles to the daycare teachers. I was angry every time I received the daily report and I saw wake times that were too long and not enough feedings, but I didn’t want to be the crazy first time mom, either. So I just seethed inside. It is very much like getting a terrible haircut and telling the hair stylist that you love it even though you hate it.
Daycare wants to bump her to two naps a day now at 6 months, which is way too much wake time in my opinion, but I’m learning to let it go. I just put her down for early bedtime to help her make up that sleep she’s missing out on. She does still get up one to two times a night for a bottle (once early on between 8-11pm, and then one later on between 12-3am). Early bed at 6pm and wake up for the day at 7am. The extremely long wake times at daycare have actually helped my anxiety. I see that she is still thriving, and I tell my brain that if she can thrive on such a terrible schedule, anything I do to mess up her ideal wake times by a few minutes will be fine.
There is a WORLD of information out there for exclusive pumping. I switched to pumping exclusively after the last post and am still going at it now at 6 months. Because of all the problems we had, I ended up regulating at a level of milk production that was lower than what she actually was wanting to eat. So I was an undersupplier and adding in a bottle or two of formula. From months 3 to 5 she was drinking about 16-21 oz a day. Just in the last month she started consistently taking more per bottle, but she also dropped a feed since we were using eat-wake-sleep and she dropped a nap. I pumped 8 times a day until mid-June (around 5 months) and then dropped down to 7 pumps per day because I couldn’t stand waking up for a middle of the night pump around 2 am since baby started sleeping longer! Then I dropped again to 6 pumps per day to reduce my stress of trying to fit two pumps in at home in the evening. Now I’m still doing 6 pumps per day:
Home pump at 6am
Commute pump at 8:30am
Office pump at 11am
Office pump at 2pm
Commute pump at 5pm
Home pump at 9pm
Another WORLD of information out there is on sleep training and teaching a babe how to fall asleep independently. We sleep trained babe via extinction at around 10-12 weeks, but we kept all night feeds. We dropped the swaddle, moved her out of our room and into a crib, and started extinction all at once. She struggled with the bedtime I enforced and definitely treated it as a day nap. I could tell because she was waking up after 45 minutes, which was a day time sleep cycle for her. Because I was still worried about her intake, I decided not to cut out any night feeds yet. We tried a cutoff of every 3 hours for a feed, but it worked better for her to have the first night feed cut off earlier (2 hours since last feed) and she stretched out the remaining night feeds all on her own at around 4 months. Just recently at 6 months has she started stretching that first sleep cycle after bedtime into a longer night time sleep cycle. Good job, baby!
The initial sleep training was really hard because she was still struggling with uncontrolled reflux, so it’s quite possible that she was truly uncomfortable rather than just protesting the newly imposed practice of falling asleep on her own. I was always second guessing of what was wrong and if I should check on her. Following age appropriate wake times was a crucial key to setting her up for success! But following wake times also wreaked havoc on my mental health. I was constantly plagued with anxiety about her schedule. And even when I followed wake times as best as I could, any protesting she did made me second guess myself again. It was brutal. Appointments also made me crazed with worry, since I didn’t have instant access to her crib. She would also inevitable fall asleep in the car when we were five minutes away from home. I felt like an insane sleep nazi. I’m pretty sure I was an insane sleep nazi.
She started daycare at a center at 15 weeks and I went back to work at 16 weeks. It was really difficult for me to communicate my hopes for Charlotte for naps and bottles to the daycare teachers. I was angry every time I received the daily report and I saw wake times that were too long and not enough feedings, but I didn’t want to be the crazy first time mom, either. So I just seethed inside. It is very much like getting a terrible haircut and telling the hair stylist that you love it even though you hate it.
Daycare wants to bump her to two naps a day now at 6 months, which is way too much wake time in my opinion, but I’m learning to let it go. I just put her down for early bedtime to help her make up that sleep she’s missing out on. She does still get up one to two times a night for a bottle (once early on between 8-11pm, and then one later on between 12-3am). Early bed at 6pm and wake up for the day at 7am. The extremely long wake times at daycare have actually helped my anxiety. I see that she is still thriving, and I tell my brain that if she can thrive on such a terrible schedule, anything I do to mess up her ideal wake times by a few minutes will be fine.