Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Alicia's 2nd post

I mainly wanted to post because I am excited about Harrison's weight gain. He gained 7 ounces since last Wednesday. I guess he really did have a growth spurt last week! We had our breastfeeding support group today and went to run errands before going. He slept most of the time. We are also trying something new with him. We were trying to implement the EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) routine that is taught in the Baby Whisperer book...it was going okay until his growth spurt with the exception of his daytime naps. My sister, Debbie, recommended reading the Baby Wise books. Intially I heard of a girl at work that swears by this book but then I heard some negative feedback on the book so I opted not to read it. A neighborhood mentioned it to me right before I had Harrison so it was back in my mind. I bought Baby Wise and Baby Wise II today. I have almost finished the first one...pretty easy reading. I tend to read a lot while nursing now. We are going to try to implement this routine which is very similar to the EASY routine but slightly more structured. The main difference is that you are told to let the baby cry when you lay him down for a nap for 10-15 minutes before checking on him. Both methods encourage feeding, then activity time...which is usually about 15 minutes for a newborn and then naptime. I think our problem during the day is that we are letting Harrison stay awake for too long and he gets overstimulated and can't fall asleep. By the time we put him down he is so tired and angry that he can't fall asleep. Both methods also stay never to rock a baby to sleep or use other props and that the last waking memory should be of the crib. We have been trying really hard to achieve this but it's really hard to just lay him down sometimes. I tried this with his lastest nap and at bedtime tonight. He cried before his nap and woke up and cried during it but went back to sleep. Tonight he grunted a lot before finally drifting off to dreamland but no tears. I am hoping for a 5 hour stretch of sleep. I tried a similar technique last night and he did pretty well. So hopefully all of this reading/research will pay off and we will have our little one on a good flexible routine that allows him to get his much needed rest..especially during the day. I am looking forward to getting some daytime naps and time to get housework done! Plus I am going back to work in mid July so it will make the transition easier. Well...until next time..I will give an update of Harrison's new schedule.