Babies born in June 2006 #7

[Smoke Jaguar]

Cee Cee - Oscar's sleep is erratic during the day. Sometimes he'll sleep for 2 hours, other times he'll sleep for half and hour to 45 mins. It just depends. He tends to sleep longer when he's being worn. At the moment he's in our bed and has been sleeping since about 10.30am (it's now 11.40). I tend to find that the sleep he has during the day has no bearing on his night sleep - it's not an indicator of how well he goes down!
Donna - Formula is supposed to settle babies because the milk takes longer to digest. This seems like a good thing on the surface, but it's not ideal. Human babies are supposed to wake more often, especially at night - evolutionarily, it's a survival mechanism. Cow's milk (from which formula is made) is higher in protein and fat - cows and other such animals feed much less during the day and need their young to be able to sit tight in a hidey spot for hours on end and their milk helps achieve this. Human babies are meant to be kept close to mummy, close to the source of food (boobies), so our milk doesn't need the same 'stay quiet for a long time' properties. SO, the milk digests quicker and babies need to feed more often. Again, a survival thing. You see it in primates - babies are carried all the time by someone in the group and feed often. Primates I think are the only other mammals who don't tuck away their young into hidey spots for safety and the only other mammals who have similar feeding patterns...makes sense, no?
As for ABA telling you what you already know - that's a GOOD thing! You're in tune with your baby and yourself I also have a very fast let down and Oscar gulps and ends up terribly windy. Not every time (like if he feeds every 2 hours or less it happens less cos my boobs aren't as full), but it actually hasn't happened for a week...since I took up posture feeding at night, and during the day when I'm home. Posture feeding is when you lie down completely flat (can raise your head with a pillow, you wanna be comfy), lay the baby down either leaning over your side or lying on you and let him feed. He's then sucking up and not having milk pumped into his mouth. He can regulate it! It means that when you hop in the shower you will need to massage your milk ducts and get out any remaining milk to avoid mastitis, because with posture feeding they may not suck out all the milk from the ducts further behind. It's awkward to start with but I really got used to it and at night it's so easy - I don't even need to burp Oscar after a feed at night, although I do keep a soft bunny rug as a chuck blanky over my chest for his face to rest on...in case some milk doesn't want to stay in there...but at least it's not a violent burping, then hiccuping then chucking.
My co-sleepingis not exactly according to the 'rulebook' anymore (I mean, no-one gives the Inuit or the Kalahari bushmen the 'guidelines' for co-sleeping, do they?). I started by keeping our pillows well apart from another (hanging over our respective sides of the bed, actually!) and laying down a bunny rug on the bit where his head would be. We were wrapping him in a blanket, sleep suit or cocoon thing in between us and he slept well like that. I would hear his hungry noises while he was still asleep, then sit up and feed him...often falling asleep with him feeding, then waking up again to burp him, change his nappy, rock him back to sleep and put him back down between us. Then I took to keeping him on me, under the doona and needing to strip him down cos he was getting sticky from sweat. So, in his cotton one-pieces (as he sleeps in now, any more and he gets too hot, even with head uncovered) he'd be on me, make his hungry noises and I'd slide up for a feed (great ab workout cos I wouldn't move him and the art was to keep the movement smooth!) and slide back down again. Much less production than getting him up from the middle and back down again. Sometimes I leave the nappy change if he's woken up within 2 or 3 hours of going down and we just go back to sleep. NOW, since I took up the posture feeding, he's on me, makes hungry noises, I slide my top down (sleep in a cheap crossover top from Kmart cos the nights are still a bit chilly to be in a singlet), flip down the bra and move him over, keeping an old hand towel handy for when I get the bubbling fountain effect (still get it sometimes even lying flat!) and he can't stay on. Put him back, (sometimes massaging upwards from the bottom ducts so he can somewhat clear them) to finish his feed, pat or rub his back whilst holding the back of his legs or his feet (seems to settle him more to touch some part of his legs whilst patting his back, legs wriggle far less and he goes kind of nice and relaxed/limp), spread the bunny rug under head and he nods off...and I nod off! Even if I do a nappy change, by the time I get up I am nicely not-quite-awake, but not stumbling over things on the floor, we have a quiet change and go back to bed really easily. Sometimes he'll throw up during a feed, but calmly! Also, I find that with such peaceful feeds now, I don't need to find the floor lamp (dim lighting) and can use the main light in his change room without unduly stimulating him. So, not 'guideline' sleeping, but I know he's safe with me. Sometimes he'll slide under the doona, but he's on my chest and his head nestles into the curves where his nose is free.
This is a bit detailed, but it might help you to find your own rhythm to read about mine and others', even if you do it very differently in the end. I think it's also important to remain calm especially in the face of the baby's frantic crying. They'll still cry, but I think it lasts less time when I meet his upset with an equal amount of calm from me. It helps me think clearer as to what to try next, too, when I relax to counteract his upset. Early on, when we had the tongue-tie and I was crying from exasperation, Oscar would be so upset and we'd both feed off each other. DP had to rescue me once when he heard Oscar cry and cry and cry...and still no return from the nappy change (at about 3am)...so he got up to check and I was standing over Oscar, half changed, sobbing and telling Oscar 'sorry' and Oscar was wailing. It never happened again because I realised that if I didn't control my reaction I was only going to keep the cycle going. I still cried until sometime during the week he got the tongue snip (when feeding improved), but haven't cried since and Oscar cries now only when hungry (and I've missed all the signals!) or windy.
Anyway, if you're a bit wary, do wrap up Lachlan in a blanket if you don't have a cocoon thing, or a sleep suit, and keep him on the bed with a small clearance from pillows. When not on my chest, I keep Oscar level with my head so that my breathing can regulate his (babies who co-sleep have far less incidence of holding their breath during breathing because they synchronise, more or less, with their mothers' breath).Also, it's so lovely to open my eyes and be looking at my cherub.
Dee (Heaven) also co-sleeps - how do you do it, Dee?
ETA: Donna, do you have the bassinette on an angle? We've angled ours (Oscar sleeps in it during the day) with a pillow under the basket part (it's on a stand with wheels) and it's supposed to help the air come up...