Instawhat? Instawho... and I'm raising a night owl.

First, I've heard about it, I've been told to do it, but it wasn't until yesterday that I took the plunge.  I'm now an official instagrammer. You can find me @twohootsandaholler.

Come introduce your instagrammin' self, won't you? 

Second,

The past few weeks Abiella has not fallen asleep for good until the wee hours in the morning.  Last night, I finally fell asleep at 1:30 am with visions of her playing in her crib on the monitor beside my bed.  I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.  At 3am I heard a noise and when I went into her room, she was STILL. AWAKE.  She just smiled at me like, “Oh hi… good to see you Mom. Don't mind me... I'm just in here looking around.”  

During these hours she’s typically not upset (unless she has stomach issues). Instead, she’s playing in her crib… laughing, “talking”, kicking, stretching, trying to roll… If I pick her up and try to rock her to sleep, she gets even more excited and begins REALLY laughing and stretching and wanting to play games…  The more attention I give her, the more awake she gets.  Because of this crazy schedule, she'll sometimes sleep until 10 or 11am if I let her.  Problem is, we have morning appointments... 

I hear of women whose toddlers go to bed at 7:30...this is my dream.  However, the problem isn't just a sleep thing, it's her night feed. The feed starts at 10pm and runs for 8 hours.  I really can’t start it any earlier because it would run too close to her dinner, thus making her stomach too full. Everything is on a tight schedule around here regarding her feeds.  With this in mind,  I would ideally put Abi to bed at 7:30ish, have the extension already on her ready to be plugged up, then I would sneak in at 10 and connect the feed.  But this plan has been foiled every. single. night since we got the tube. 

On the rare occasion that she DOES fall asleep at a decent hour (I’m talking before midnight) she often wakes up with gas pains… Once they pass, she’s wide awake and ready to play again. I’m convinced the feed is the problem.  She’s getting high-powered nutrients pumped into her body all night long.  Her energy always skyrockets as she’s being fed (even during the day)… annnndd she's being fed through the night for 8 hours straight. It’s just not natural.

Soo… I met with her nutritionist and spoke with our feeding therapist and the goal is to get her off her night feeds ASAP.  However, this means ALL THE FOOD she gets during the 8 hours at night must somehow make it into her daytime feeds.  OMG.  That’s a lot of food. 

So starting tomorrow, I’m going to try to give her 4 meals during the day and then subtract that amount from her night feed… thus making her feed last 5.5 hours.   Eventually, I’ll add more during the day (as she can tolerate it) and continue subtracting at night.  It’s a constant math equation. How much food can she tolerate? How quickly can she get it without getting sick? (Obviously you want the feeds to go as quickly as possible b/c you don't want to be hooked up to a tube ALL. DAY. LONG.)

I dream of the day when she’ll only get water and liquid medications through the tube… oh, the freedom. 

But for now, it’s 12:20am, and my daughter is laughing, kicking, rolling towards stuffed animals, and having a ball… another late night…here we go.

mae mae

PS- This weekend we did start a new nighttime routine with baby massages, scalp massage, sound machine, etc. etc. etc. and it’s been working! Both nights she fell asleep immediately afterwards… BUT she woke up an hour later and started playing like a mad woman.  I'm thankful for the nutrients and I'm SO GLAD she's happy... but we need a reasonable routine and a 3 am dance hour with a 7am wake up call just ain't gonna cut it...Oh night feed, you really must go.

PPS. Downton Abbey's back!  I may have done an interpretive dance in the living room as the premier started... Don't ask what I was "interpreting" because I don't know.  Neither does Sean.