after my last rather frustrated post, i spoke to our lactation consultant (i was worried that there was something wrong with me, my breastmilk and/or my ability to feed him -- i mean, he wouldn't stop eating or crying long enough to sleep!). she recommended bringing him in to the pediatrician the very next day to discuss his crying, sleep and eating habits. we did, and after answering about 10 questions about cole's habits, the doctor diagnosed him with acid reflux and recommended we give him infant prilosec to soothe the acid and pain our baby was feeling. we started him on the medication that weekend and it actually seemed to help him almost immediately.
however, that same weekend, i also began to put cole to sleep on his tummy (i know, i know -- it's not recommended due to SIDS, but after talking to other mommy friends whose babies sleep better on their tummies, i decided to give it a try). like magic, cole began to sleep (we're talking 3-hour naps in the afternoon!) and also began to sleep through the night (11pm-5am!!). i feel very confident in my decision to let cole sleep on his tummy and am just so happy to see my baby getting the sleep he needs.
wow -- what a difference sleep makes for baby and mom! we are both so much happier.
unfortunately, the good, long afternoon naps ended after about 2 weeks. cole still takes a wonderful morning nap, but just won't sleep in the afternoon for more than 20-30 minutes every 2 hours. and, once again, becomes a bit overtired in the evenings. but, he is sleeping like a champ at night, waking up only once for a quick feed and sleeping again until 7:30am.
the challenge never ends, but we're making progress!
i'm trying my best to figure out our daily routine/schedule. we seem to have it down through 11am, but it gets messed up after that. does anyone out there have a sample daily schedule that i could try? i want to respect cole's need to nap, but i also feel like we need to have errand/outdoor time built into each day ... any ideas???
