Chronicling Babywise - Week 2

Last week, I wrote a day-by-day, play-by-play journal of our first week using the Babywise routine with our fifth child, Moses, born July 12th. This post is week 2's continuation of our experiences... I hope this journaling of our experiences will be helpful for other moms.

Day 8: As I wrote in the last post, on day 8, I continued feeding every 2 & 1/2 hours (that's measured from the start of one feeding time to the start of the next feeding time) through the day.

On that day, we went to see the pediatrician and she confirmed that there was no jaundice-type coloring, and he weighed in at 30 or 40 grams above his birthweight. Good news all around!

That night, like the few nights before, he slept for one 3-hour cycle, and went every 2 & 1/2 to 3 hours for the rest of the night.

Days 9 & 10: On these days, there were three noteworthy details:

• At some point on both days, I had a really hard time keeping him awake for the full feeding. We really had to work at it! Sometimes, just seven or eight minutes into the first side, he was fast asleep. Sometimes it was getting him to latch onto the second side. It's not easy to get a sleepy newborn to eat a full meal, but it's worth it.
• He slept at night. There weren't wakeful periods in the middle of the night. Because we've been continuing to give him several good quantities of waketime during the daytime, he's sleeping (except for waking up to feed 2-3 times) at night. Which is a real blessing. Even though our sleep is interrupted, at least we can feed him and then all settle back in to sleep.
• He's beginning to have a bit of chub. :) This is both wonderfully precious and a bit bittersweet... how quickly they grow!
  

Day 11: Today, I noticed that he is more easily taking the full feeding on the second side. Up until today, I felt like I really had to work (i.e., burping, changing his diaper, undressing him down to the diaper, etc.) to keep him awake and interested in eating on the second side. But today he seemed not only willing but occasionally even hungry to eat on the second side! Yay! Progress!The other thing we've been working on in the past 36 hours or so is transitioning him to laying down while he's still awake, and falling asleep on his own. In that first week or so, we always end up holding, patting, snuggling with the baby as they fall asleep. Heck, that's one of the great things of having an infant-- they love to sleep and look so cute doing it! Plus all the relatives and siblings love to hold the new baby (see the above pictures), so that's additional hands and arms waiting to hold even the sleeping infant.

Anyway, eventually, we work to help the baby get used to going down to sleep in bed by themselves. For me, what that looks like is swaddling the baby snugly, and using one of these:I use a sleep positioner like this (I found mine 8+ years ago at a little thrift store for under a dollar) to help the baby remain on their side. Back to sleep? Tummy sleeping? For my part, I've found that infants feel secure and sleep well when swaddled on their sides, and so that's what we do in the early days with a new baby. I put this down around their torso (supporting their back and in front of their tummy), and then lay them down.

And I don't just lay them down any old time-- I wait for the right window of being still awake but becoming more sleepy. There are times when they are actively alert, looking around, (and later, cooing/interacting/etc.), but just past this time of alertness, there is a 5-15 minute window of time when they are ready for sleep. I always know it if I miss it, because they get overstimulated and it's much harder to settle them down. But if you learn to read your baby's cues, you can see that they start to yawn, or maybe their eyes begin opening and shutting lazily. Once I see those cues, I make sure they don't need a new diaper, get them swaddled, help them take their pacifier (if they use one), and put them down gently -- with a soft "night-night".

So that's the method I used today to try to help Moses get in the habit of falling asleep on his own, in his own bed. Two times out of three, it happened naturally, without any additional assistance. The third time, this evening, he was quiet at first but then fussed about 10 minutes after laying him down, and so we went in, changed his diaper, re-swaddled him, and yet he still fussed after being laid back down. So we got him, figured we'd missed the "window" this go-round, and held him for the 30 minutes of sleep until his next feeding. No biggie. He's still a little guy, but he's learning, and 2 times of falling asleep on his own is a real accomplishment for today! He's doing great.

Days 12 & 13
Here's a quick run-down of our basic routine at this point:

• He eats every 2 & 1/2 hours or so throughout the day. I say "or so" because it sometimes varies by maybe 30/45 minutes. But of course, being flexible means that there's a basic norm to flex from-- otherwise it's just random and his little body won't have a "norm". So while one day this week, we went to the mall (our vacuum cleaner hose ripped and there was no way to repair it-- and I wanted to be a part of the choosing process-- so we all went to the mall together), and he ate at 10, then at 12:15 (2 hours, 15 minutes between feeds), and then at 3:30 (3 hours, 15 minutes between feeds), our "norm" is that he eats fairly close to every 2 & 1/2 hours throughout the day, unless he's hungry before then, at which point, he eats when he's hungry.
• Sometimes his waketime is long-- nearly the whole of his feed cycle (for example, this morning, he ate at 7am, and then was awake until 9am, slept from 9-9:30, and ate again at 9:30-- so his "sleep" time was very short for that cycle. And sometimes his waketime is quite short- 15 minutes or so (this afternoon, he did a short waketime and went to sleep and will sleep for an hour and a half or so before his next feeding).
• At night, I feed him a full feeding just before we go to bed (10/11pm), and then we don't wake him up for feedings at night. He's waking up two times at night- roughly around 2 and roughly around 5. Sometimes it's a little longer between feeds (on night #12, he went 4 & 1/2 hours for the first night cycle), and sometimes it's just about 3 hours precisely between feeds. This doesn't matter so much-- he's only 12 days old, after all. The point is that (a) he's sleeping at nighttime and awake during the day, and (b) he's already naturally taking his longer cycles between feeds during the nighttime hours.
  

Day 14
The main thing I noticed today (and realized it had happened for at least the two days prior at roughly the same time) was a fussy period around 4pm each day. Gas drops, swaddling, and patting/snuggling help, but only if he decides to fall asleep. If he fights it and fusses, it's a quite lengthy and seemingly painful fussy time. I've decided, based on what time it's happening, that it's possibly a result of my mid-morning latte. My husband, you see, manages a gourmet coffee roasting business, and so I take my portion of delightfully fresh coffee each day. :) I've been enjoying a half-caffeinated version since early on in my pregnancy, and thought that might be sufficient to avoid any problems with caffeine, but now I'm thinking maybe not. Anyway, this week, my husband will brew some decaf for me and we'll see if that resolves this fussy period, or in any way affects it.

Week 2 Wrap-up
On a personal note, I'm absolutely in love with him. :) I love looking at him, talking to him, laying him down beside me on the bed while I fold clothes. I love to snuggle with him close, nuzzle his amazingly soft cheeks, and sing hymns to him (if he's fussy, it settles him down almost immediately!), and when his little brow furrows up to study something or someone, it cracks me up!

He has genuinely smiled at my husband (multiple times, and only to him after my husband has smiled long and intentionally at Moses, so we know it's the real deal, even though "they're not supposed to" yet at this age), he is starting to coo at us, and it is so precious to see him interact with and stare at our other children. He already has brought so much joy into our lives, and he seems quite secure and content for such a little guy.

Regarding Babywise: Virtually any widely-followed parenting approach can be used wisely by parents to bless, or foolishly by parents to curse, their children. But this is how it typically goes for us, and how it's gone for us this last week. Like I said in the first post, I really don't want this post to turn into a referendum on Babywise, because I'm just one lady in this wide world, writing about how things are going with my precious newborn son.

This week, like last week, is a very good representation of how all five of our kids have fared with the Babywise routine in those early months. It helps bring sanity and blissful sleep to the entire family, and has been a blessing in our home. I hope this post encourages and informs other moms looking at their options with newborns/sleep issues.


[Here are links to this whole Babywise series: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Weeks 6 & 7, Weeks 8-14]

Chronicling Babywise- Week 1

In an effort to share about our breastfeeding journey, and hopefully encourage other moms, I decided to chronicle the eating, sleeping, and early days with our new little guy. We follow the routine laid out in the book Babywise, as we have done with our other four children. If you aren't familiar with Babywise, it's a book that outlines a basic routine: Eat, Wake, Sleep, that you follow with your newborn. By following this pattern, baby is alert during his most content period and learns to sleep on his/her own (rather than falling asleep at the breast and/or needing a prop to fall asleep).

Yes, I know this particular book is sometimes controversial. Though, after living it out five times over the course of the last 8 years, and having read the book at least 7-8 times in that same time period, I really can't figure out why it's so controversial. Each time I read it, I'm blown away by how many times the author clearly says to feed a hungry baby, to not live by the clock, and to carefully assess your baby's growth (all the areas where criticism generally focuses).

Anyway, this post is not about that. It's about our personal journey, this week, with a new little person who has joined our family. And it all started last Sunday night.

The night before our son was born, I got no sleep. My parents were in town, and so we stayed up talking with them, then went off to bed. Shortly after midnight, I was up reading, and the contractions began, fast and furious. They stayed at every 3-5 minutes for the next 6 hours, then got closer and closer, and finally, after the doc broke my water at 8:10, he was born at 8:26 in the morning.
Day 1: He's here!!! So much joy and excitement! He nursed right after birth, and then every hour or hour and a half thereafter for pretty much the entire day, and night. Like Ezzo writes, this first week or two, you feed them when they're hungry, without regard to the clock. And HE WAS HUNGRY. So most of the first day (and night) was spent feeding him. My main focus was keeping him awake long enough to take a full feeding (at least 10-15 minutes on both sides) every time he nursed.

Day 2: He's hungry and today, he decided to let us know about it! Obviously, my milk hadn't come in yet, so he was hungry with good reason. Again, every hour to hour & a half, throughout the day and night, he nursed. Towards the afternoon, and into the evening, he was quite fussy when he wasn't nursing. Because those fussy times came right after lengthy feedings, my husband would try to burp him, walk him around, or bundle him, before I nursed him again. Looking back, those times weren't long (a matter of minutes?), but at the time, it seemed interminable.

Though it made for long nursing times (45 minutes to an hour, and then less than 30 minutes later sometimes, doing it again), I kept working towards full feedings... not just snacking here and there. To me, this is the key to achieving good milk supply AND good sleeping skills with a newborn. I never, never let him cry. When he cried, we'd check his diaper and/or try to burp him, but then I fed him those full feedings right away.

Day 3: My milk started to slowly transition from colostrum to more mature milk, and our little 8-pound-plus-er was feeling the need. The need to feed. :) So we continued feeding him as described above.

On this day, it was more like every two hours, and I was exhausted. Just about the time I fed him, went potty, and laid down to rest, it was time to wake up and feed him again. Throughout the day, I focused on drinking plenty of water, resting if ever the moment came available to do so, and fed him pretty much every two hours or less throughout the day. Whenever he was hungry, he ate. And he got full feedings. Later this evening, my milk supply began increasing, and I could tell by his suck (and the evidence dribbling out of the corner of his mouth once he finished) that he was getting more. That night, he did one three-hour stretch, and then the rest were every 2 or 2 & 1/2 hours throughout the night. But that one 3-hour stretch told me his body was already getting into the pattern. Just three days in, he was beginning to catch onto the rhythm of full feedings, and resting in between.

Day 4: Throughout the day, he ate every 2 & 1/2 hours. I had to wake him up several times to encourage him to eat during the day (in hopes that we'd be doing our best sleeping at night!), even though he was sleeping soundly.

It's not easy to wake up a newborn and keep them awake. This is definitely a necessary skill during these early days of getting used to a Babywise routine. Getting them slightly uncomfortable (removing the extra layer of clothing/blanket, rubbing their backs between the shoulder blades, leaning them forward and talking to them) so that they'll wake up enough to eat during the day is so worth it! Their little bodies don't come out knowing the difference between day and night, and so we get to help them adjust. It's so worth it to do a little legwork on this end to help him establish the clear norms of eating more during the day and sleeping more at night time!

Soon enough, he'll be getting his calories during the day so he won't feel the need to wake up at night for more. This is the basic idea behind Babywise that I think gets overlooked-- I've never let a baby cry it out, nor does the book advocate doing so. That just isn't necessary. When we work to teach a baby to take in his calories in the daytime, through regular, full feedings, they don't *need* to wake up at night. All of our babies have achieved this all on their own.

Days & Nights 5, 6, & 7: These three days & nights looked very similar to one another-- all three days, I focused on helping him eat full feedings (for me, with a nursling who latches on well, that usually means shooting for at least 10-15 minutes on each side).

Because he was awake for 2 & 1/2 hours with my husband on night #5, we worked on days 6 & 7 to be sure he had more lengthy waketimes during the day, so that he would sleep at night. And it worked! And each night, we had one longer sleep cycle (3 & 1/2 to 5 hours between feeds), and two shorter 2 & 1/2-hour cycles. Again, I'll stress-- there is no "crying it out" in this scenario. The minute he wakes, he gets fed a full feeding, his diaper gets changed, and he's back to sleep.

Also, on day 7, I took him into the pediatrician and he was already back up above his birth weight, so that was great news!


Day 8: The last day or two, I've notice that he is naturally trying to sleep beyond the 2 & 1/2 hour cycle during the day. So if necessary, I'm waking him up to feed him during the day at the 2 & 1/2 hour interval, certainly before we hit the 3-hour mark. The goal is to get his body into the habit of receiving the necessary calories and nutrition during the waking hours so that he'll more quickly achieve not needing to wake up at night for additional calories and meals. So we don't stretch out the daytime feedings until extended nighttime sleep has begun.

Final Thoughts: So far, following the Babywise routine has "worked" for all of our kiddos by helping them to sleep through the night (defined as going 6-8 hours between feedings) from 5 & 1/2 to 10 weeks old. Moses seems to be doing really well already, and so we'll see how he does. But this first week has gone as well, I think, as a first week can go. It's such a pleasure to nurse this little guy and see him grow. The contentment is evident, and it's so sweet to see him already relaxing and readying himself just before I begin to nurse. It appears he's already at ease with the routine as well. He's a happy and content and alert little guy for just being 8 days out of the womb!

I hope this little day-by-day breakdown will be helpful for some future moms trying out Babywise. This is fairly typical for how my last four babies' Babywise routines have gone (my first son was in the NICU his first week, and so that adjusted our norms as well as affecting the strength of his suck... we still nursed past a year, but his nursing sessions took much longer, much more patience and intentionality, and I had a lot of pain from mastitis and the like).

My hope is that by writing this out, it will inform or reassure other moms using or considering the Babywise routine. I'm going to try to do a semi-regular update of our progress, but not making any promises! Life gets busy... but I will try. :)


[Here are links to this whole Babywise series: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Weeks 6 & 7, Weeks 8-14]

Bliss.

Sometimes life is tough, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes you're emotionally spent, sometimes you have really bad heartburn and are pregnant and convinced your baby may never actually decide to be born (yes, that was me less than a week ago), and then, sometimes, life is just good.

Today is a good day.

This week has been a good week. I'm not sure there are many more amazing things to behold than the sweetness of a new baby. Newborns grow so fast, they change so quickly... so many things-- a dimple, the clutch of tiny fingers, a particular swirl of hair on the forehead, the quivering pouty lip with the teensy cry, and that tendency to curl in their limbs because they're so used to being squished-- they pass away and merge into new, different, wonderful things. These early moments with a new person God has made are precious gifts.

Monday morning, at 8:26, we met our new son. He is beautiful and worthy of sonnets and fireworks and every superlative one could conjure. But I think instead of any of that, I'll just share pictures and tell you how absolutely overwhelmed I am with joy. God's grace in my life continues to overwhelm and amaze me. I can't tell you how undeserving I am of these precious ones He has given me... and each child our Father adds to our brood makes me more aware of my own weakness, and my ultimate need for Him.

Here is my latest reminder of God's goodness & my need for Him. His name is Moses Henry:

He is an absolute delight already, and I've only "known" him for a little over 4 days. I think I'll be sharing more soon, but in the meantime, I just wanted to praise God for His goodness to us. :) This time around, it's come in the form of a precious little boy named Moses.