We had a couple of nights with Barney (Sat and Sun) when he took ages to settle after his feeds. He was upset. I was getting stressed. Nothing seemed to be working. He'd been awake for over 2 hours. So I'd get to my wits end and wake Tom up to take over who would calmly (perhaps because he was half-asleep) rest Barney on his shoulder and take him downstairs for a bit while he got on the computer. Within 20 minutes Tom would return with a sleeping bub who would settle beautifully in his bassinette and stay asleep. Tom is the greatest!
After 2 nights of this I had a good think about what was going wrong and came up with two ideas:
1) I was trying too hard to settle Barney with rocking, patting, pacing the floor etc. and was achieving the opposite by over-stimulating the poor fella so that he couldn't settle; and
2) I was eating too much Lindt chocolate in the evening. As it's very dark chocolate I'm assuming it's also high in caffeine which may have been affecting Barney from my breastmilk and keeping him awake and unhappy.
So, I came to the difficult conclusion that I'd have to give up my vice for at least a week to see if it made a difference. Plus, I stopped trying to over-settle Barney and went back to wrapping him well and putting him in the bassinette with a dummy and just sticking the dummy back in when it fell out and he cried. Well, the last two nights have been wonderful with it taking just 45 minutes to feed, change and re-settle Barney to sleep most of the time. Problem is, I don't know if it's not eating my chocolate or the settling changes that's helped. So I guess I have to give up my lovely Lindt dark chocolate for a while since I definitely don't want a return to Barney being hard to settle at night. The things we do for the ones we love!
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2 comments:
Hi Michell, I got to your blog from the link on Sara's page and just want to tell you congratulations. Barnaby is gorgeous! I enjoyed reading about his birth - I loved all the stomping! I'm glad all went well. I admire your sacrifice in giving up chocolate! It's amazing what a mother's love will do :)
This looks like it's going to be the Otterson family fan club! Good for you, Michelle - giving up chocolate! I probably would have just thought I needed more of it to keep me awake at night with the baby :)
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