Thursday, November 29, 2007

Poll and Sleep

It looks like Stephanie is taking the resemblance poll in a landslide. I can't say I disagree, I voted for Stephanie myself!

While the nights are still difficult, we're becoming a little more aware of his cues, so we better understand the causes of his discomfort. So far we've learned:
  1. he doesn't like to stay in the same diaper over night. No matter how convenient that would be for his parents and no matter how absorbent his little diapers are, its non-negotiable - frequent changes are mandatory. Now, if I wore diapers, I would think that not having to get out of bed to change would be a key advantage - Holden hasn't come around to this line of thinking... yet
  2. the cluster feeding thing late at night is quite common. My brother, who apparently moonlights as a lactation consultant, very convincingly explained the mechanism by which breast milk fluctuates creating the conditions for night time cluster feeding.
  3. Digestive problems after cluster feeding are quite common. Apparently most babies handle this discomfort better on their tummies, but that is a SIDS risk. Last night, I tried out a new method - laying him face down on my belly, where he could sleep on his tummy without risk of suffocation. It worked like a charm... hopefully it wasn't just a one shot lucky deal.
  4. Dads have it easy. While we can roll over and go to sleep once the feeding starts, Mommies have the truly difficult tasks

1 comment:

J & T Hawley said...

How convenient having a lactation consultant in the family! :-)