Progress

Today, he slept through the night - this is probably the 3rd (or maybe even less) time he's done this since birth. He went to bed last night at around 10p and woke up for milk at 7am.

Yay!

Night feeding update

I lost count of the days since we started training because we've stopped and started a few times already and we would even skip days when Swe-cha isn't feeling well. In general, though, it has been a month since we first started (the Playtex nipples) and probably roughly on the 2 week mark when it comes to eliminating the night feeding. We've spent a few days working on stretching the times in between milk bottles, hoping that the longer he can go between bottles will help eliminate the one remaining bottle in the middle of the night (3a).

Things are going good so far. We're giving him the bottle every 5 hrs now, with the exception of the 1st morning bottle. I'm happy to report that while I used to be happy when he'd take 2.5 oz of milk in one go ? Now, he would drink 6 to 7 oz of milk in one sitting. He's no longer waking up at 3am for a feeding after he goes to bed. There are some nights when he makes it all the way till 7:30 or 8 in the morning before he cries for milk and there are some days (like this morning) when he wakes up hungry at 5a and I give him diluted milk.

Today, his schedule is roughly:

9a - 3 oz milk

12nn - 7 oz

2p - solids

5p - 7 oz

8p - solids

10p - 6 oz

Tomorrow is halloween, I will wake him up earlier so that he can take his afternoon nap earlier than usual too. I'd like to have him wake up refreshed from a nap before we go trick or treating with friends. *fingers crossed*

Day 7: Feeding / Sleeping

2:50am - 2.75 oz milk

Then at 6:30 and 8:30a, he drank a total of 1.5 oz of diluted milk (1 part milk to 3 parts water).

Aside from those diluted milk feedings, Swe cha woke up at 5:30am and 7:30am, he just shouted an "aaah", tossed and turned for a few seconds and then promptly fell asleep without needing a bottle.

There was still crying and screaming for his morning nap but it only took 23 minutes before he went down to sleep. The afternoon nap went a little bit better at 15 minutes and no screaming - just complaints. And bedtime was perfect. I read him his Pat the Bunny (Sleepy Bunny) book and when we got to the end, he "aaaah-ed". I thought he was hungry and tried to give him the bottle but he refused. Then I thought he wanted to start over again w/ the story so I went back to the first page and he refused that as well. So I let him go (I was holding him), he crawled away to his Dad's side of the bed, lay down, and went to sleep. Sweeet!

Day 6: Feeding / Sleeping

2:50am - 3 oz milk

Swe cha woke up at 4:30am but he did not cry. Hubby and I watched him while he crawled around and tried different sleep positions. He climbed up his daddy's tummy and tried to sleep, he then crawled down and went to our feet... basically explored all the open spaces in our bed. He eventually settled down after 3 minutes (it felt longer as both hubby and I were holding our breaths, I swear, my heart was in my throat the whole time!) and went back to sleep w/o crying or feeding. Needless to say, mommy and daddy are very happy!

Then from 7:00 and 8:00 - total of 2.5 oz diluted milk (1 part water to 3 parts milk). I did not dilute the milk even more because he was fussy the previous day.

I tried getting him to sleep w/o his bottle during his naptimes today. For his morning nap, he cried and screamed for 40 minutes (like a pig being slaughtered - I know because I've seen it before). He kept climbing up me and I kept putting him down repeatedly - I started counting at the 20 minute mark and stopped counting when I got to 50. It was so tiring and I wasn't looking forward to this afternoon.

I braced myself for his afternoon nap and was pleasantly surprised ecstatic when he settled down in 25 minutes with very mild complaining "ah, ah!". No screaming. No screeching. Definitely no porcine sounds.

While he is still waking up to snack in the early morning hrs, he does not seem to notice that he is taking diluted milk - no complaints so far. And I am pleased to note that his total milk intake during the day is more than making up for the diluted milk at night. In fact, he's drinking a few ounces (daily) more now since he did before.

At bedtime, he only fussed minimally for 25 minutes before he went to sleep. Bedtimes are definitely getting easier.

Day 5: Feeding / Sleeping

2:00am - 2 oz milk

Then from 4:00, 5:00 to 6:30 and 7:30 - total of 3 oz diluted milk (1 part water to 3 parts milk).

Today, he noticed the diluted milk and couldn't go back to sleep when he woke up at 5am. He would suck on the bottle, cry, suck and cry some more. I get the feeling that he's hungry and wants something more substantial than watery milk. My heart aches.

We also got him to sleep tonight w/o his bottle, it took 35 minutes of crying. Hubby and I wanted to give in but we kept encouraging each other to hold on for a few more minutes as we didn't want to waste all of Swe-cha's crying as giving in now would undo everything we've done. I cried along with him.

Today, I appreciated the fact that hubby and I are in this together and that we have the support & encouragement of friends to push us along. It's so much easier to just give in.

Day 4: Feeding

2:00am - 2.5 oz milk

Then from 4:40, 6:50 and 7:40 - total of 4 oz diluted milk (2 parts water to 1 part milk).

Still no complaints about diluted milk. Was not able to put him to bed w/o a bottle tonight because he fell asleep immediately after feeding. I didn't have the heart to wake him up.

Day 3: Feeding / Sleeping

2:00am - 3 oz milk

Then from 4:10, 4:50, 6:10 and 7:00 - total of 2.5 oz diluted milk (1 part water to 1 part milk).

Still no complaints about the diluted milk but he is drinking considerably less than previously. This evening, we also tried getting him to sleep at night w/o using his bottle as a pacifier. He slept after crying for 40 minutes.

Day 2: Feeding

2:50am - 3 oz milk

Then from 4:28, 5:10 and 7:10 - total of 5.5 oz diluted milk (1 part water to 2 parts milk).

While he is still waking up to snack in the early morning hrs, he does not seem to notice that he is taking diluted milk - no complaints so far. And I am pleased to note that his total milk intake during the day is more than making up for the diluted milk at night. In fact, he's drinking a few ounces (daily) more now since he did before.

Day 1: Feeding

We had to postpone day 1 of night-feeding training for a couple of days because Swe-cha ran a fever which was most probably a reaction to him getting the flu vaccine. The pedia told us that it was rare for infants to get a fever from the flu shot but I'm thinking that I have a very sneaky baby here who heard about the training plans and decided to do what he can to postpone it.

Fortunately, for the 2 nights that we skipped training, he also did not wake up in the early morning hours. But the early morning wakings are back today.

3am - 3 oz

Then from 5:25, 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00 - a total of 4.5 oz of milk diluted with water (1 part water to 3 parts milk).

Day 0: Feeding

We've completely transitioned to using Playtex nipples - no more Medela, no more Avent and thus, no more leaks.

After much discussion between hubby & I and much consultation among our mommy friends, we decided to tackle his feeding issues next.

Currently, his feeding schedule is roughly:

09:30 - wake up

11:30 - milk (~3 oz) then nap

13:30 - solids

16:00 - milk (~3 oz) then nap

18:00 - (sometimes) milk (~1 to 2 oz)

19:30 - solids

21:30 - milk (~3 oz) then he goes to bed

00:00 - milk (sometimes)

03:00 - milk (~3 oz)

04:xx - milk (~1 to 2 oz)

06:xx - milk (~1 to 2 oz)

08:xx - milk (~1 to 2 oz)

For the 3 oz feeds, he would sometimes take as much as 5 to 6oz, depending on how hungry he is. His usual milk intake per day is at 22oz, with lows of 15oz and highs of 36oz.

The issues w/ his feedings are:

- He needs to transition to 3 solid meals a day soon.

- Ideally, we want him to have a bottle of milk 1st thing in the morning (or have a meal) but since he snacks all throughout the early morning hours, he wakes up full in the mornings.

- He associates drinking milk with falling asleep, hence, he drinks milk before napping and before going to bed. This makes him unable to fall back to sleep w/o feeding when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

- He still feeds throughout the night and would even sometimes feed on an hourly basis in the early morning hours. We tried holding him off w/ a pacifier on some nights but he just ended up crying until he was awake and alert and we had to entertain / pacify a crying and alert baby for the next hour till he gets tired enough to sleep again.

Our immediate goal right now is to address the early morning snacks and the plan is to carry on as is w/ the rest of his feedings but to give him diluted milk for the early morning hours starting w/ the 4am feed. Hopefully, this won't be very stressful on him.

Training: Day 6

Mommy got overwhelmed with everything and wasn't able to provide a daily update. Long story short, we did confirm that Swe-cha is teething again. His lateral incisors are in the process of erupting and he isn't very comfortable. We have a very fussy and cranky baby in the house.

He turned 9 months old a few days ago and that very day, his schedule changed. He used to nap like clockwork before with him taking his first nap 2 hrs after he woke up in the morning and his afternoon nap at around 3 or 4pm, depending on what time he woke up and how active he has been during the day. But suddenly, he changed his schedule and refused to sleep. I do not know if this is because of me giving him the Playtex bottle instead of his Medela bottle or if he is just really switching to a one-nap-a-day schedule.

Bottle-wise, he seems to be taking to the Playtex bottle. His milk intake has lessened dramatically these past few days but we think that it's because of the teething and not the bottle. He would still physically fight us whenever we give him the bottle and he doesn't want to drink (he used to just lock his mouth closed before) but he would do this even when we try to give him his milk in a Medela bottle w/c leads us to think that he is just not hungry or just does not want to nurse. We have been using the drop-in system exclusively for 2 days now.

Unfortunately, the drawback of him refusing to nurse during the day is that he is now mostly nursing at night time - a boy has got to eat, after all! I don't have the heart to refuse to feed him at night because he is teething and he *is* very uncomfortable. I just thank the heavens that he seems to forget his woes at night and would willingly nurse. I am hoping that I'm not just feeding and promoting his night-feeding habit. I'll give this one week and hope that his new teeth will have completely erupted by then. Bahala na.

Sleep-wise, as promised, we tried moving him to the crib for his nap today. He slept for all of 15 minutes and woke up crying. I was right beside him the whole time and made sure that he would be able to see me first when he wakes up but he doesn't like the change and cried for 1.5 hrs. Hay. One and a half hrs of crying for 15 minutes of sleep-time ? It's so not worth it. But we will persist and will continue with the transition to the crib, but probably at a much slower pace. We'll start by sleeping in the nursery w/ both of us on the bed for naptimes and when he's used to being back in his room again, I'll start putting him on the crib to sleep.

Somehow, our small victory w/ the Playtex nurser has given me a little strength to persist w/ his transition to the crib. I get the feeling that we just have to be persistent and consistent and he will get the point... eventually.

Training: Day 3

Swe-cha seems to be getting the hang of the Playtex nipple. He didn't make me chase after him when I gave him the bottle this afternoon but he did make me cringe when I saw him chomp down on the nipple. His face didn't look angry, he just seemed nang-gigigil. I thought of those 4 sharp teeth and gave a silent prayer that I wasn't feeding him directly from the breast.

I think we may be ready to give him playtex bottles round the clock now as there does not seem to be any problems w/ his milk intake w/ this nurser. In fact, there have been a few times in the last couple of days when he finished the entire contents of his Playtex nurser (around 4.5 oz if I fill it to the brim) - I think we may have to move on to the 8oz liners so that he isn't bitin when he feeds. Now, if only we could manage to make the trip to the store to get more nipples.

This is making my love-hate relationship w/ the Medela bottles lean more into the hate side (more on this on another post,... or maybe not). I love my medela bottles and love how I can just screw on a nipple and feed directly from them, less to wash & sterilize later at night. But they've started leaking horribly lately and we couldn't figure out why. Our best guess is that they may have somehow degraded or warped w/ constant use - we've been using, washing and sterilizing them every day for the past 9 months, after all.

Training: Day 2

Early morning of day 2 didn't go so well. Before going to bed, hubby and I had agreed on an action plan for when Swe-cha starts crying. We decided that:

1. we'll let him cry for a minute before attending to him

2. if still crying, give him a pacifier first

3. if still crying, carry him and give a pacifier

4. if still crying, give him milk bottle

Swe-cha woke up crying at 3am, I did 1 to 3 but it didn't work. I eventually realized that this was his dream feed so I gave him the bottle and he drank around 4 oz worth. Normally, he'd fall right back to sleep right after feeding but since a long time had passed with us trying 1, 2 and 3, he was already awake. It took him another hour and a half of tossing and turning before I finally picked him up, gave him the bottle again and it was only then that he fell asleep.

Sigh.

Looks like it's time to rethink our training plans. For now, I'll just make sure that I put him down awake during his naps and at night, I think I don't want to change anything that we already do in the early morning hours - too much stress for everybody. I think it might be better to tackle these issues separately.

15:00 Gave Swe-cha the Playtex nurser again and I had to chase him for 25 minutes. Whenever I caught him, I would give him the bottle, he'd take a bite or sort of feel the nipple w/ his mouth, spit it out and crawl away, crying. We did this repeatedly and I had just set myself a limit of 10 tries, I decided to give him the Medela bottle again on the 11th try but lo and behold, he settled down on the 9th try and proceeded to drink 4 oz of milk.

21:30 Gave Swe-cha the Playtex nurser again, no more battles this time and he just took it and drank 4 oz, I refilled and he drank 2 more oz.

*fingers crossed*

Mommy or Daddy needs to get more medium flow nipples for our Playtex nursers -we only have 2 and didn't want to buy more until Swe-cha is sure to use them.

Training: Day 1

We (okay.. mostly me) decided that we'll tackle Swe-cha's training this way:

- We will give him milk in Playtex nursers in the afternoon so as not to disturb his night feedings (Playtex bottles in the afternoons are a hit & miss, he would sometimes drink from them and sometimes not)

- We will go back to using medela bottles at night to avoid stressing him because he would always cry and not feed when we give him Playtex bottles at night.

- He will still co-sleep with us but we will start putting him to bed slightly awake. We will probably move him to his crib next week or later, depending on how he reacts to these changes we're making now.

15:00 Playtex nurser, fast flow - no complaints, 2 oz

17:20 Playtex nurser, fast flow - gagged & cried

17:30 Playtex nurser, medium flow - no complaints, 1.5 oz

21:45 Medela, 4 oz

He fell asleep during feeding and I woke him up a little before putting him down on the bed. He opens his eyes, tries to settle down to sleep. Unfortunately, Daddy also decides to clean the master bathroom tonight and just as Swe-cha is settling down to sleep on his own, Daddy sneezes loudly (bathroom cleaners make him sneeze) 3 times. Swe-cha is startled and starts crying. Mommy wants to flick Daddy's ears but decides to play it cool and just give Swe-cha the bottle again to settle him down.

All in all, day 1 went relatively easy because he had a good nap schedule today and was sleepy by 9:30 (his bedtime). It is usually easy to get him to bed at night when he does not take a 3rd nap in the early evening but I am not looking forward to early morning tomorrow, that's when things get difficult and he would wake & need to be pacified w/ the bottle hourly.

*bracing myself for the early morning hours*

Training time

Given that we have travel plans for the end of the year, we have a lot of training for Swe-cha ahead of us.

First off, we want to get Swe-cha used to Playtex nipples. Specifically, we need to get him off of the Medela bottles and onto the Playtex ones so that we could just bring a couple of nursers, several nipples (w/ nipple collars & caps) and lots of disposable liners - less to wash and sterilize.

Then, we need to get him back to sleeping in his crib. It's really quite dangerous letting him co-sleep with us on the bed because:

(1) he sleep-crawls. He crawls all over the bed and even climbs over his dad while still asleep.

(2) when he wakes, he crawls to the edge of the bed and either tries to climb on the bed rails or he goes to the foot of the bed where there is no rail / footboard and might fall off.

(3) and most importantly, he's almost 9 months old and still wakes up every now and then and needs to be pacified by a milk bottle. It's about time that he learns to get back to sleep on his own.

I will be recording his progress here and let's hope for success.