To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Baby eggplant! 

Calliope has been doing really, really well with sleep.

She had gotten to where she has an eleven hour stretch, give or take, with only one wake up in the middle, usually around 4 am.

Yes, she seems to be on a 23 hour clock, so she continually wants to go to bed and wake up a little earlier each day. But we were working on it.

And then she got a horrible cold. From me. Her horrible mother.

I felt really rotten first, right around the time we landed in Florida at 1:30 am, and got to my sister's at 3 am. After an eight hour visit with La Guardia Airport. While charming in many ways, La Guardia is not necessarily where I would choose to spend eight hours while snow, and then rain, fell.

Calliope, however, was delighted with our stay. Napping in the Beco and then all the lights and people to look at while awake was definitely her idea of a good time.

She was a trooper and never cried in all those hours until we were on the plane and being de-iced. I took my seatbelt off and bounced her in the aisle for a few minutes and then she slept the rest of the flight in the Beco. (Oh, flying without the car seat and stroller: AWESOME. The cab had a car seat and my sister had one at the other end. And since my daughter typically hates them both, she got lots and lots of time in the Beco, to her delight.)

Anyway, I started to feel rotten right when I got sleep deprived. And then as I started to feel better, she started to feel bad.

Poor little girl. For a few days there, every morning she coughed so hard she vomited her breakfast all over me. Totally drenched. She typically, mysteriously, avoided getting herself wet. Wait a second... I see a theme here.

Anyway, all this led to a total disruption of sleep. She would wake herself coughing multiple times a night. Also, she wasn't eating that much at a feeding, so that meant she was waking more frequently.

All this to say... we were both quite tired.

Last night, hooray, she was back to her one night waking. Phew! She took only three ounces. I'm not sure if her appetite is back yet or not. At night she has ranged from three to five ounces at the one feeding.

Tonight I am going to try only offering three ounces, as per Twelve.Hours.By.Twelve.Weeks.

I feel awfully nervous about this. Approximately two weeks ago she was ten pounds, two ounces. So she may not have hit eleven pounds yet (she was averaging about a half a pound every two weeks by my reckoning). I worry this is too small.

But when I feel guilty, I try to remind myself: Abby, you are not going to starve your child! Just like when you switched her from every three to every four hours... If she cries, you will feed her!!!

It still feels weird.

But what have I got to lose, right?

The only thing is, though: sometimes she wakes up and after a couple of attempts to replace the pacifier don't help for long, I offer the bottle. And she takes a half an ounce or less and passes out.

So clearly hunger wasn't the issue. But in this sort of scenario, I haven't figured out, well, how to figure this out, without offering food.

Thoughts???

Oh, and for anyone out there struggling with runny noses... Baby.Comfy.Nose is amazing! It is a hundred times better than the lame blue nasal bulb syringes the hospital hands out.

first time wearing a dress!