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last night matt slept in his crib and i, well, didn’t get any sleep cos i was waiting for him to wake up so i could resettle him

i suppose he will need to get used to his crib, especially if we are going to teach him how to sleep using sleepy planet’s methods. apparently when he is 4 months old AND 14 pounds, he is ready for sleep learning. i am hoping he will do it on his own without us having to resort to this, but if not i think i am OK with letting him cry for a bit. he has to learn how to sleep somehow, and i need to get a full night’s sleep!

anyway matt is napping on me right now, i think i’ll let him stay this way so i can get some sleep myself. zzzzz

so we finally arrived in LA at 10.20 this morning. the canberra-sydney flight was uneventful, matt just slept all throughout. the sydney-la flight however, was a bit more difficult. i have to give matt some credit though, i was expecting the worst but he was quite well behaved (aka sleeping) in the second half of the trip. the most annoying thing was actually getting a vegan meal i did not order

i am so lucky that kirsten and garrett (?) from texas gave me a hand during those times when i had to eat and go to the loo. i guess travelling alone with a little baby brings out everyone’s helpful side.

some things i have learned from this trip:

• try to bring only one hand carry luggage - the usual diaper bag probably isn’t big enough to carry all the stuff you need, so use the biggest bag allowed for hand carry luggage. a wheelie bag is probably good too, especially if you are on your own.
• have a small pouch with all the essentials - since you will have to put your hand carry luggage in the overhead locker, it is best to have a small pouch with everything you need for a diaper change.
• take out all the stuff you need and put it in the pocket in front of your seat - i put matt’s bottle, formula, bib, dummy and muslin wrap in the pocket
• use a muslin wrap as a curtain for the bassinet so that baby is not distracted by people passing by - i personally did not do this (i didn’t have to cos matt hardly used the bassinet) but the couple who sat next to me did this for their baby. hopefully next time we fly he’s going to sleep in the bassinet.
• order a vegetarian meal when booking the flight - i did not do this myself but somehow still ended up with a vegetarian meal. however this worked in my favour cos i got to eat first and kirsten held matt while i was eating.
• fill in the paperwork as soon as you get a chance - i did this when matt slept in the bassinet for 5 minutes. i knew i was going to have to hold him while he slept so filling in the paperwork before landing really helped me become (and feel) more organised

if i didn’t book a bassinet for matt, i would’ve rather sat in an aisle seat in “normal rows”, at least i can lift the armrest to make more room for breastfeeding. it was really awkward trying to breastfeed matt cos the armrest was fixed.

although matt’s first flying experience wasn’t as difficult as i imagined it would be, i’m not in a hurry to fly again

matt and i heard mass for the first time since his birth. he was well-behaved cos we fed him (bottle) during the early part of the mass and he just fell asleep for the rest of it. although i really want to breastfeed 100%, it’s actually quite a relief to supplement his feeds with formula.

my supply was a bit low this week so that must have been the reason why he was so unsettled and wouldn’t go to sleep. he’s been quite happy and content AND have been sleeping since we’ve supplemented his feeds. my milk supply is increasing too, i’ve been drinking fenugreek capsules and i think that’s helped a lot too. mum is taking care of matt tonight and will be feeding him with formula. i’ll be sleeping on my own (heaven! lol) and will be expressing so hopefully we can feed him expressed breast milk in the bottle. i hope i can express a lot though, during the last couple of times there was only about 10ml.

oh and another milestone, we went to woden westfield this morning to get his passport photo taken. he was extremely well behaved the entire time and even fell asleep twice! it really feels like things are starting to get better now if only i could get him to drink from a bottle if i’m the one who’s holding him… that would really help when we fly to LA.

here is matt’s passport photo (actually this is the blown-up version):

yesterday was a pretty good day, matt was able to sleep during the day for periods of 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. at around 6.45pm he fed and then i tried to settle him but he wouldn’t have any of it. at around 8pm i gave up with the settling cos he seemed like he was hungry again so i fed him again, after feeding i tried to settle him for about half an hour and again nothing! i was thinking and dreading that my new settling method might not be working anymore, after only a day so anyway i got tired from settling matt so i got butch to carry him and try and rock him to sleep. at around 10pm he was still awake but quiet. we moved the bassinet from the lounge room to the bedroom and matt started fussing so i fed him again up until 11pm.

anyway i tried settling him again (i didn’t want to waste my efforts with the new method by rocking him to sleep) and finally at 11.20pm he slept. i had dinner at around 11.30 and then stayed up until around 12 and decided to go to sleep just in case matt wakes up to feed in a couple of hours. when i woke up butch was still awake so i thought maybe it was only around 2am, but when i looked at the clock it was already 4.30am!!! matt had been sleeping soundly since 11.20pm

he woke up for a feed at 5.40am which meant for the first time ever, he slept for 6 hours and 20 minutes! after feeding i put him back in the bassinet and wrapped him (while still awake) at around 6.30. i haven’t tried to go back to sleep in case he needs settling, but it’s already 7am and he hasn’t made a fuss yet so fingers crossed he’s gone to sleep by himself i just checked on him and he has gone to sleep! yey!!

i’m really optimistic about this new settling method. i guess the only reason why matt wouldn’t settle last night was because he was cluster feeding and preparing himself for a good night’s rest. i hope tonight (and onwards) he’ll sleep like this at night, so that we can both get some rest i’ll just have to remember that if he won’t sleep in the early evening, then that probably means he wants to cluster feed.