It seems like all anyone is interested in is whether May is sleeping through the night or not. What exactly does sleeping through the night mean anyway? Some (this seems to be the doctor definition) say it is being able to go 5-6 hours without a feed, whereas I think the most common meaning amongst family and friends is that she sleeps twelve hours. Whilst I'm tempted to lie to them and say she is sleeping through, that's not really the truth.
May is three months old. She has a pretty regular pattern of waking in the night, but she also has completely random episodes, especially for the past week. I think she is now at an age where she is trying to shift her schedule somewhat but I have not quite figured it out. She usually goes to bed with a feed at 7pm. The majority of nights she wakens somewhere between 1am and 2am and again for another feed between 4am and 5am. Normally morning time wake up is 7.30ish. She followed that pattern to the letter almost from 8 weeks old until 12 weeks.
The past three nights May has not been that interested in her 7pm feed and wakes an hour later (I swear she is wearing a watch, she literally wakes at 8pm on the button!) and Dad changes her nappy, reads her book and I feed her again and she goes back to bed. Whilst she mainly sticks to having the two feeds during the night, more commonly in the last week she has been waking on another occasion. Last night she woke at midnight for a feed and then was crying at 1.30am so I changed her nappy in case she was uncomfortable and she went back to sleep. She then woke at 3.40am for a feed. The previous night she woke at 1.40 as usual and 3.40, but then again at 4.30, 5.30 and 6.30!
May then likes to doze on and off from around 7am and I get her up at 7.30. However, for the past two mornings she has been uninterested or refused the feed in the morning. She is a little reluctant to get up even though she is awake and is back down for a nap no more than an hour later. Often she only manages to be up for 45 minutes before she is back in bed for a two hour nap. This means it is closer to 11am before she has a substantial feed.
It is not important to me that she drop the night feeds. As far as I am concerned if May needs me in the night then I have no problem nursing her and comforting her. However, I do feel like she is trying to tell me something with this recent pattern of not being interested in the morning feed and waking up at 8pm, just an hour after I have put her to bed. I think it is up to me to figure out what it is that she needs. Our solution is to follow May's cues rather than impose a schedule on her and I am confident that we will settle into a fairly consistent pattern. Whilst it might seem like she's a bit of a nightowl and perhaps a later waking up time would work for her, I will be returning to work so she will have to get up between 7-7.30am when that happens so I thought it was best to at least have a roughly consistent waking up time. Although she has little interest in eating at that time, she is awake herself anyway. I guess I am finding it confusing to know what is best for her. I hate to think I will send her to daycare without that morning feed, but if she is not looking for it, perhaps it is best that I don't force it on her. Though I will have to pump at that time to relieve some of the engorgement. I wonder if anyone else has this experience of their baby becoming less interested in their morning feed at this age?
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