Being Momma G: Day 54

Once again, my only function in life is to be a cow.

Sean was even more unsettled today than yesterday. After the 9pm feed, Sean slept until just after 1am and woke for a feed. We managed a relatively decent "dream feed", and I was able to put Sean back into the bassinet without him waking up. Sean woke again just after 4am for another meal, and this time, I was too tired to lift him back, so he slept in our bed (again). This was fast becoming a bad habit of mine, leaving him with me in the bed. This was something that we really did not want Sean to learn as Jonathan and I have no desire to co-sleep with Sean - he has a bassinet, and he also has a cot for when he's older, so he needs to be able to sleep on his own.

I think I'm going to have to suck it up and do more to battle my fatigue at night, and try and put Sean back into the bassinet. I may have shattered into a million pieces from sleep deprivation within a fortnight, but I think I need to try getting Sean back into his bassinet.

When Sean woke just before 6.30am, he was all ready for a feed, so much so he was nuzzling my boob looking for milk. Jonathan got Sean's medicine and fed the doses to Sean before heading off to work, after which we fed in bed. Sean wasn't too keen on going back to sleep afterwards, so so we stayed up for a little while before falling asleep again.

Just before 9am, I fed Sean again, and afterwards we both went to say hello to our lovely gardener Warren, who was paying his fortnightly visit to mow our lawn. Warren is actually the gardener for our complex; for years, he has taken care of the lawns in the common area and for a princely sum of $5, he also takes care of our small piece of lawn in the backyard, mowing it and doing the edges once a fortnight.

Sean managed a little bit of sleep after seeing Warren, so I had a shower and took out the garbage and checked the mailbox. I didn't get much else done, as the little guy woke up just before midday and demanded to be fed. Sean was extremely unsettled afterwards, and it took me almost 30 minutes to get him to sleep.

Just when I thought I would be able to have some lunch, Sean woke up again just after 2pm. I was beyond frustrated by this point, as I hadn't been able to eat, even though I'd just heated up some lunch in the microwave. Sean was stubbornly persistent about wanting to be fed, so I fed him first. At the end of the feed, I felt Sean didn't get enough milk, so I made up a bottle of formula for him as a top up and tried to feed it to him, hoping that this would help settle him afterwards and get him off to sleep for a longer period of time. Sean struggled against the bottle and I ended up having to squeeze the bottle to squirt the formula down the back of his throat for him to drink 20mL of it.

Afterwards, I tried to settle him as quickly as possible so I could get on with some lunch. Again, but Sean did not want to go back to sleep, so by the time he finally went down, my lunch was cold and needed reheating, which made it all the more disgusting to eat. But I was so hungry by this point that I didn't care about the taste - I just needed food in my belly to fill a void.

I was feeling so tired and so so so sore - everything hurt; nipples, neck, shoulders, arms, back, wrist, even my hand from patting the little guy to sleep. I so desperately needed a nap, but just as I would drift off, Sean would wake up. And that was exactly what happened just after 5pm, when I had just laid down on the couch and Sean started crying.

Jonathan came home just as I was finishing feeding, and I handed Sean to him to settle and put to sleep. I felt a little bit guilty about making Jonathan look after Sean even before Jonathan had had a chance to take his shoes off, but I just couldn't face trying to put Sean to sleep after the long long day.

Jonathan had very little trouble settling Sean, which I was both grateful for and envious of. I went about getting dinner ready, which we ate before Sean woke up again. We are getting quite good at sychronising dinner with Sean's sleeping and feeding patterns.

Sean woke again just after 8pm, which was an acceptable amount of time between the last feed and this one. The little man really needed to learn to sleep some between feeds. We fed and again Jonathan was able to settle Sean without too much fuss.

After such a long day, we are both going to head to bed. No doubt Sean will be awake again shortly, but in the meantime, I'm going to lay down and try and relieve my aching back.