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whoever coined the phrase “sleeping like a baby” obviously doesn’t have any kids. tomorrow matthew will be one month old, and yes i have been sleeping like a baby - not getting any decent sleep! matt has self-settling issues but at 8.30am today he settled on his own!!!!

he woke up this morning crying, we co-slept last night because i was too tired to have to get up and feed him and do the whole wrapping-rocking-laying down the bassinet routine. anyway i had a pretty good sleep but when he woke up he just wouldn’t feed while we were lying down. so i fed him in the cradle hold and he was feeding pretty well.

at 7.50am he finished feeding and yawned so i wrapped him up, expecting a violent reaction but there wasn’t any so i thought i might as well follow that sleep group paper that the nurse gave me yesterday. so i left the room and surfed the net for a bit and at 8.12am came back to the room hoping he was already asleep. when i get back, sh*t! he’s got hiccups! so i sat quietly next to his bassinet, and was waiting for him to cry so i can try patting him to sleep. i didn’t want to look over his face just in case he decided he wanted to be cuddled. so i sat and waited and at 8.30am he is already asleep! i couldn’t believe it LOL

well it’s already 8.45am and he’s still asleep. i’ve checked on him twice (sneaking in quietly of course) just to make sure i’m not imagining it and yes he is still asleep! i’m so happy hopefully this isn’t just a one-off thing hehe.

height - 53cm (grew by 1.5 cm since week 2)
weight - 3.71kg (grew by 380 grams since week 2)

so we went to the child health clinic today, no luck with getting a referral for qeii lol but that’s ok. i’m actually a bit disappointed with matt’s weight gain, since i feel like i’ve been feeding him non-stop. but i suppose any weight gain is better than nothing. i did some googling and apparently 180 grams a week is the average, although i have no idea how accurate that is.

i’ve booked us for the breastfeeding clinic on thursday and for a sleep group on the 5th of march. matt is still not settling well and he hasn’t been sleeping much at all. the only way he can sleep is if we carry him and rock him to sleep, which is ok for now, but i really want him to be able to fall asleep on his own while on the bassinet.

oh and he’s over 3.5 kg now so that means we can start using the baby bjorn carrier (thanks candy!). hopefully i can get some housework done lol i can’t believe i’m saying this but i actually miss doing housework! anything is better than breastfeeding and trying to settle 24/7!

i have been buying baby stuff off the web hoping that somehow these things will help in settling matt. of course they don’t LOL i bought a hug-a-bub carrier (which is too complicated to put on so i won’t bother), a couple of snug-as-a-bub wraps (which won’t work for matt cos his arms just fly right out), a sleepwrap (which won’t work cos matt still has moro reflex) and a safe-n-sound snuggler. i’ll probably just sell these off ebay when i actually have some time to myself!

i’ve been researching about qeii here in canberra and i might ask the nurse tomorrow if it is possible for matt and i to go there. i still think i need some help with breastfeeding but then i’m pretty sure matt doesn’t know how to self-settle so hopefully qeii can help us. it’s going to be extremely hard when butch leaves cos then i will be by myself during the day and i don’t want to spend hours trying to soothe matt.

like this afternoon, matt slept for about half an hour but woke up again, he was obviously still sleepy and not hungry but he just couldn’t go back to sleep on his own. i’m keeping my fingers crossed, hopefully qeii is just what we need!

matt has been very difficult these last couple of days. he would feed every hour with only about half hour breaks. he seems happy enough after each feed but as soon as i lay him on the bassinet he starts fussing again, hates being swaddled with a passion and just won’t sleep. he used to like being wrapped after a good feed but now he just won’t have any of it!

i’m extremely sleep deprived and both my breasts hurt like hell i’ve been crying out of frustration over the last couple of days as well and sometimes feel like i’m on auto pilot.

i spoke to a nurse on the phone and she suggested offering both breasts in one feed for 15 minutes each. i tried this a few times this morning but it didn’t seem to work. matt still won’t go to sleep and will just lie there seemingly content for a few minutes but will start crying again.

times like these it’s so hard to enjoy being a mother. between giving birth and having to deal with the first few weeks, the pain of childbirth is nothing compared to the ongoing sleep deprivation, nipple soreness and exhaustion.

just when butch and i think that we’ve got matt’s routine down pat, matt decides to be fussy and none of our tricks work lol i think he may be going through a growth spurt cos he seems to want to feed ALL the time. our feeding routine is something like this: feed him, change his nappy when he latches off, burp him, feed him again if he is still hungry, put him to sleep. the nappy change bit is a bit disruptive cos sometimes he is already floppy (aka mukhang lasing) but as soon as i take his nappy off he’s wide awake again. so sometimes i skip the nappy change part, it’s not an exact science though, i only skip it if i’m feeling particularly overwhelmed and don’t want to deal with having to settle him again.

also we give him a bath around midday, every other day. i think baths relax him, although i still have to work out whether to feed him first then give him a bath or bathe him first and then feed him. as much as possible we try to get him to sleep after feeds, otherwise he gets too worked up and won’t settle at all. even if he’s already fed and had his nappy change, sometimes he will just cry his “drama king” cry. when he does that i give him to butch, cos he’s good at settling matt. i’m just dreading the time when butch leaves cos then i will have to do everything! hopefully matt is much more settled by then.

how some mothers can do everything (take care of bub, clean, cook, etc.) totally amazes me. i can hardly keep our room clean, let alone worry about cooking! i will have to cook starting next week though, cos mum is going to the philippines for a couple of weeks. my days right now are quite boring, it’s all just about feeding, nappy changing, trying to clean and trying to get some naps in between feeds. i suppose that’s pretty much how it is during the first few weeks since matt needs to constantly feed and sleep. when he gets older and have more wakeful moments, then we can start playing with him.