Being Momma G: Day 20

The milk monster sleeps. Yes, yes he can.

After the 10pm feed, Sean went straight to sleep. No ifs, no buts, no mess, no fuss. Sean woke again at 2am, and again went straight back to sleep. Rinse and repeat for the 6.30am feed.

I'm not sure what we did right - perhaps he was so exhausted from crying for nearly 90 minutes yesterday afternoon that he needed to sleep to through the night. One can only hope that that is the case. If so, I will be doing my utmost best to make him stay awake all day so we can all get some sleep at night.

Understandably, Sean was a bit unsettled after the 9.30am feed. He had had so much sleep that it was only fair that he wanted to play and stay up for a bit afterwards. Unfortunately, we were due to go out to see the nurse at the West Ryde Early Childhood Health Centre, so I had hoped he would still be asleep when we went for our visit. Sean finally fell asleep around 11.20am, and only managed to get around an hour of sleep in total.

We were a bit late arriving at the West Ryde ECHC for our midday appointment. After visiting the Chatswood ECHC last week to attend the breast feeding drop in clinic, and seeing how flash and wonderful and new their facilities are, I was so disappointed by the cruddy building and the complete lack of free parking at the West Ryde ECHC. When we arrived, it took 2 tries to get into the building, and even at the front door, it took another few attempts to get in to see the nurse. Apparently, the instructions to "ring the door bell for the West Ryde ECHC" were incorrect, and the nurse was more than annoyed that I rang it 3 times before she finally got off her butt to answer the door.

Once inside, Catherine softened her attitude towards me, especially when it dawned on her that I had never been to the centre before and I was only following instructions. On top of this, I was wearing my best "completely exhausted new mother" look, which created more sympathy for me.

The purpose of our visit was to weigh Sean, and to measure him as well. Catherine and I had a short chat about how things were going at home, and I told her that the little man wasn't settling well at night. I told her all the different things we were trying and Catherine suggested that we keep Sean awake for longer periods of time during the day, in hope that will tire him out so he will sleep better at night. Definitely something worth thinking about.

Sean woke up wanting to be fed just as we were finishing our visit, so we hurried home so he could be fed. And without planning to try the "more awake time during the day", we did just that. Sean refused to sleep or settle down after the feed, unless he was being held. And after a while, even when I held him, he screamed and cried. By 3pm, I had had enough of the crying and no food all day and barely 3 sips of water, and I was frazzled and yelled at the baby in a misguided effort to get him to listen to me and go to sleep. He finally did, around 3.45pm, allowing me to finally eat something. Not that I tasted what I ate - I was too frazzled and tired to taste the food, which I only ate to fill the void in my stomach. No food for me = no food for the baby, and really, that was the only reason I ate.

My knight in shining armour walked through the door at 4pm. I'd texted Jonathan around 3pm to see when he was coming home as I was fed up with the crying and needed urgent help. Jonathan had just missed the early bus, so he caught the next available bus and hot footed the 1km from Top Ryde to home, through the blazing heat which he would have hated. I burst into tears after he sat down and gave me cuddles. I was just so tired and frazzled. Poor Jonathan - he was feeling as run down as me but he had to put me back together first.

When Sean woke again for his next feed around 6pm, he was still a little bit grizzly. Jonathan and I got dinner separately, so that one of us could settle Sean while the other ate. Sean fell asleep again just after 8pm, and managed to stay down until just before 10pm. Sean was pretty groggy with sleep throughout the feed, and was completely asleep by the end of the feed. Jonathan and I quickly put him to bed and set about getting ready for bed ourselves. We have no idea if Sean will sleep through tonight, but here's hoping.