For the most part Wade is sleeping better at night. He still wakes up to eat a couple times, but he goes back to sleep quickly. And I am starting to feel human again.
But Wade doesn’t do anything on any kind of regular schedule.
One night he’s up at 1 and 4, another he goes to sleep at 8 and is up at 11 and 3. Sometimes he naps all afternoon and is awake all evening. Other days he naps through breakfast and lunch and is awake all afternoon. Some days Wade eats three ounces every three hours, other days five ounces every four hours. And once in a while he’ll gulp down six.
I remember David was easy to get on a schedule. Almost from the day we brought him home from the hospital he ate, slept and even dirtied his diapers at the same time every day. He was also noisy and energetic from day one, never quiet or sitting still. And he’s pretty much the same way at four years old.
Wade seems to be more of the strong, silent type, and I think he’s going to be totally disorganized when he’s older.
Now I’m not a stickler for putting baby on a schedule. I’m a proponent of letting baby eat when he’s hungry, sleep when he’s tired. You won’t find me waking up a snoozing infant just because he has to eat at noon every day. In fact, my motto is, “Let Sleeping Babies Lie.” But usually if you let baby do what he wants, when he wants long enough, he’ll put himself on a schedule.
I’m not sure Wade will ever do that on his own. It think he may need some encouragement along the way. And not knowing when he’s going to do what makes it hard to plan my days. I need some kind of structure in this household just to stay sane, and so does his older brother David.
Needing a refresher course after four years, I dug out my What to Expect the First Years book to look up advice about getting babies on a schedule. The What to Expect series was a huge help to me as a first time mom who was completely clueless when it came to child birthing and rearing.
Going through the list of types of babies in the book David’s was first , The Active Baby. I read through the others, and it wasn’t difficult to see that Wade fit the description of The Irregular Baby. My first thought was that it sounds like a shirt that you buy at the GAP factory outlet store.
What’s the exchange policy on that? I mean, I didn’t know I was getting an irregular baby when I put in my order.
But I’ve invested a lot of time and love already. I’d prefer to keep him. Is there an upgrade I can download to fix the bugs? Wade 2.0 0r something?
No. It seems I’m going to have to do the reprogramming myself.
The book suggests implementing a routine as best I can in spite of his irregularity. It says to try and stretch out the feedings a bit at a time, stimulate to him to keep him awake. But for the most part, as I suspected, it’s up to Wade.
And I’m just going to have to keep being flexible and patient.
Ah. Flexibility. It seems that it was just as hard for me to learn to be flexible as a parent as it was for my kiddos to learn a schedule.
Of course, I am pretty stubborn, so that was half my battle! lol
Babies can be so different. Hopefully he’ll eventually get his schedule right!
I swear by the book by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” I still reference it and I have two AMAZING sleepers. I followed everything in this book and it totally worked for me! It was actually recommended to me from a friend of mine who swore by it as well. Check it out, it may be worth a look! 🙂
One of my babies was like that. During the day he wouldn’t sleep for longer than 20 minutes at a time before waking up. I felt like I couldn’t get a thing done!
Well, when you go on vacation, maybe it’ll be easier, because it’s hard to be on a schedule on vacation, and he already has that built-in flexibility.