This is actually a miraculous scene right here. Until very recently she’s done all her sleeping in our arms, and is only in the past few days been able to sleep in her crib for more than 45 seconds without howling to be picked up!
We’re going through a rough patch now, and I’m not sure whether that’s correlated with the lack of pictures, but so it goes. Emily has been crying while eating the past few days, almost as though she’s too hungry and / or tired to focus on sucking and swallowing. She’s still getting plenty of food and sleep, but she might need more of both.
It all came to a head this morning when she spent 45 minutes drinking 20 mL of milk, crying basically the whole time. I got paranoid that somehow the nipple of the bottle was clogged (I tried sucking on it myself, and got milk out, but I’m obviously stronger than she is, so I’m not sure that theory holds) so I just warmed up a completely new bottle, and she downed 110 mL in 15 minutes. So maybe it was a bottle problem? Yikes, that would suck. Or … not suck?
So I spent most of this morning reading tons of articles on sleep schedules for 2-month olds and drafting up a spreadsheet so that we can track her sleep. There is both some logic and some silliness to this. The silliness is that Emily is “really” only 5 weeks old, if you go by gestational age, so it’s a bit unreasonable to expect a schedule to be emerging yet. And I don’t. At the same time, having a tool like this could help us diagnose causes of fussiness much easier. Her napping is so chaotic (is it 4 naps a day? 8 naps? should I count that 15 minutes she spent with her eyes closed sprawled out on the rug?) there’s no way a person could keep track without a record.
The other logic is that in the next few weeks, we will start to converge on a schedule, and when that time comes, we’ll have a very good sense for how much total sleep Emily needs (it can be anywhere from 15 to 18 hours) and that will help us come up with a schedule that should work for her.
I didn’t get my masters in Physics for nothing! There’s got to be a scientific reason for Emily’s fussiness, and dern if we can’t figure it out….
Some parents do not use daytime schedules and only have a fixed bedtime. That’s ok too! Some parents are on the other extreme, and schedule down to the minute. That’s ok, I guess, but good luck having a life – play dates that go long, appointments, nap-inducing car rides, and travel can throw a wrench in the works if you aren’t willing to be flexible.
For me, the point of a schedule is not to stick to it religiously. It’s about having something to build off of, a benchmark of sorts. As long as I know my sweet babe is late for a nap and might need some extra love and comfort in order fall asleep, and then might sleep longer, then I can adapt, and make sure her needs are met.
Is it also possible that I just have way too much time on my hands? Yes, yes it is. But we’re so fortunate to have that luxury for now, and sleep is one of the most important aspects of baby life, so I’m happy to get information overloaded on it!
And…. Emily has been asleep, by herself, for the duration of time it took to write this blog post, which feels almost miraculous. Go Emily Go!