Lux and Nick's Online Journal

Scream Feed

Mama and Dada haven't been getting much sleep these days. Nick, who started out sleeping mostly through the night early on, has decided in the last few weeks that he absolutely has to eat several times per night, and we don't know how to break him of this habit. Recently, he has started solid food and more bottles of formula, and still gets frequent breast feedings. So, in a normal day Nick eats three solid meals of cereal and vegetables, a bunch of breast feedings, at a 6 oz bottle before bed. This should be enough to hold him through the night, right? Not even close. He is eating another 6 oz bottle for his "dream feed" at 11pm before we go to bed, then he wakes at 3AM apparently starving to death. He gets another bottle then, but that doesn't even do it. He is waking again starving at 5:30 or 6AM for a topping off before sleeping until 7:30. He awakes happy and refreshed, while we get up like zombies with a compelling need for coffee. Last night we tried letting him cry for a while to see if he would cry through it and go back to sleep. Nope. We're pretty much at our wits end. We are trying to reduce the volume of his night feedings by giving him only 4oz bottles for a while, then reducing to 2oz to see if we can wean him off the the night feedings, but it seems to be a slow and grueling process.

During the day, Nick is a super stud and a ton of fun. He has learned to sit and has a great time sitting up and playing with puzzles, trucks, and chew toys. When he is on the ground he struggles to crawl and I imagine it won't be long before he can get around on his own. He rolls from front to back easily, but still can't quite get up to a sitting position on his own. As he has become more grabby, Lux has become much more posessive of her things, saying "No, Nick" whenever he grabs for something she considers hers. As a two-year-old, she has very definite ideas of what he should and shouldn't be allowed to play with.

Oh, and Nick now has two teeth on the bottom, so a bite from him can be quite painful. He also tends to grab and pull hair, and Lux has shown great tolerance when he grabs her hair, just saying "Nick pull hair" and waiting for us to help extricate her.

posted by Paul Ray @ 8:54 AM