Thursday, April 12, 2007

My little peanut

Lily had her 6 month check up today! She is 14 lbs 11oz and 26 1/4 inches. She has only gained 6 ounces in the last 2 months!!! As a breastfeeding mother, this instantly strikes fear into my heart. Why isn't she growing? Am I producing enough milk? Is it good enough? Is this why she's been fussy on the breast recently? Is this why she's only pooping every 4th day?

-sigh-

For the record, the doctor is not concerned. Lily is meeting all her milestones, she seems very happy and content, and a "bad" night of sleeping still means 6-8 hour stretches. He said if she drops another percentile block by next appointment, we'll have to worry.

-sigh-

Speaking of not sleeping, the other night Lily woke up after 4 hours...4 hours, people. This from a child that is capable of sleeping 12 hours a night. So I decided it was time to cry it out. The whole method of cry it out basically goes like this:

Baby cries. Mommy wants sleep. Mommy walks into baby's room and pats child on the back. Comforts child. Then leaves without feeding or rocking back to sleep. Baby cries. Mommy waits on edge in the next room waiting for 5 minutes to pass. Enter room again...repeat. Wait 10 minutes this time. And on and on.

So Lily was crying. I waited 10 minutes in the hopes that she would fall back to sleep on her own. No dice. So I walk in and rub her tummy and tell her it's time to go night-night. After 2 seconds, Lily realizes I am not going to pick her up. Oh, I have never heard such decibels coming from such a small child. I quickly leave so as not to further aggravate the beast, and Lily proceeded to cry, scream, gasp for 40 minutes. FORTY MINUTES. When I sent Jeff in there (I really didn't want to feed her), she arched her back and refused to be comforted by him. She was FURIOUS. No tears...she was just MAD. So I went and fed her to calm her down. And she would take a few sucks, then let go, look up at me and scream, and then suckle again. She was MAD. Teach me to just leave her behind in the crib.

So I guess cry-it-out isn't going to work with this one. She worked herself up so much...and she was just so angry. It was very counter-productive. If I'd just left her alone she may have fallen asleep a lot faster. Any suggestions?

2 comments:

Kate said...

No suggestions on the sleeping. 6 hours is a typical night here. 12 would be a dream.

And I wouldn't worry about her weight, Giselle. She doesn't look like she's starving. The fact she's so active just means the rolls were keeping her from-- rolling, perhaps! She's such an absolute cutie-patootie. We LOVED the family pictures you sent. Colin knows Andrew and is slowly learning Lily-- which he pronounces surprisingly well.

Kelsey said...

The first time we let Harper cry it out, it took an hour and fifteen minutes. The next night, fifteen minutes. So you never know. We rarely had any more sleep trouble, unrelated to illness, until we took the pacis away. So we had a good year and a half where I pretty much took the sleeping for granted.

And Harper didn't gain any weight between six and nine months because she learned how to move! If the doctor isn't worried I definitely wouldn't sweat it.