Chase has been sleeping a little better and still feeding well. He still has bouts of cluster feeding, where he feeds for shorter periods of time and more frequently. When he's doing that, he feeds about every hour to an hour and a half, from start of one feeding to start of the next feeding. That doesn't leave much time in between for Mom to get any rest. Most of the time though, he's going 2-3 hours in between feedings, which is great.
For those who don't have kids, the best way that I can explain the sleep challenge is that there are two facets to it...the quantity and the quality of sleep.
On the quantity side, it's like I've explained a few times. Between the feedings, he doesn't always sleep the entire time. He almost always needs a diaper change and usually he fusses a little too. So, he may sleep for as much as an hour or two in between feedings. If he does that, then it's a matter of how fast you can go to sleep. That's where the art of the power nap comes into play. Obviously, when you're done changing diapers and listening to him fuss, you're pretty much wide awake. So you're not going to sleep immediately. The faster that you can get to sleep, the more sleep you can obviously get.
On the quality side, it's like when you've got an early morning flight and you set your alarm for 4:30 am and all night long, you don't really sleep because your body is worried that you might oversleep, so you keep rolling over and eyeballing the clock. With a newborn, especially until you start getting used to each of his unique sounds, you wake up with each sound that he makes. It is definitely helping that he's taken to sleeping in his crib in the nursery, so we've already moved his bassinet out of the bedroom. When he was in there, we never went to sleep (you can just hear too many little grunts coming out of him to be able to sleep). Now that he's taking his naps in the nursery, we can actually get a little sleep. I typically get up and go change his diaper and get him "ready" to feed while Melissa gets ready on her end to feed him. Then I'll either bring him back to the bedroom and she'll feed him in bed, or, more often than not, she'll take him to the bonus room and feed him in there so that I can go back to sleep.
Sometimes, he goes right to sleep after feeding and sometimes he needs a little coaxing. Last night, I took him in my arms for a while after one of his feedings because he was being fussy. I got him calmed down and we both fell asleep on the couch for a good two hours. Melissa LOVED the long nap that she was able to get during that period.
We're starting to get the hang of it and develop some patterns. And we're definitely figuring out which cries mean what...is he hungry, or does he have gas or does he have a dirty diaper...it's not always obvious, but usually we can figure it out.
I do have to say, and I know I'm biased, but this kid is so freakin' cute!! Here are some more pictures from the past 48 hours.
Mom and Chase after a good feeding.
Grandpa holding Chase...I'm not sure what's up with the hoodie thing.
Mom and Chase taking a nap.
Seriously, is that not the cutest baby ever!
All wrapped up in his swaddling blanket and napping in the crib.
Rokky makes for a very comfortable pillow for Chase...note that he still could care less about the baby.
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