Never Wake a Sleeping Baby??!!

I wish I could tell you how many times I have heard this phrase! Mostly, in my experience anyway, it has come from older generations of people...people that I love and admire and very much heed their advice and wisdom. However.....

I woke Rachel many times when she was an infant and I wake up Lauren too...for several reasons. Rachel was SUCH a sleepy baby. I mean, I don't think we saw her eyeballs at all until she was a month old...seriously. That is why she had to spend time in the NICU. She was lazy! Anyway, at first, she would have never eaten had I not woken her up. I think she would have slept through the night the first night home if I hadn't woken her up. Then, as she got to be about 2 months old and still waking up and staying awake frequently during the night, I decided I had to try and keep her awake more during the day in order for her to sleep at night. Yes, babies sleep a lot but not 22 hours a day and she was choosing to be awake when I wanted to be asleep. Perhaps it was selfish of me and that was my basis for waking that sleeping child....who knows?!

Lauren...well, as you know, she was a large baby at birth weighing in at a whopping 9 lbs, 9 oz and was 21 1/4 inches long!!! She lost down to 8 lbs, 14 oz by the time she was 4 days old. The doctors don't want babies to lose more than 10% of their birth weight and then they want them to gain it all back by 2 weeks. At 2 weeks, Lauren was still only 9 lbs, 5 oz. The pedi instructed me to continue waking her up during the day and at night to feed in order for her to thrive and continue gaining weight. At 1 month, she weighed 10 lbs, 7.5 oz so she is doing better. I don't feel like I need to wake her at night anymore. The other night when she slept for 7 1/2 hours and my body was used to feeding her WAY more frequently than that I was hurting...really hurting. So, if you are wondering what I did after I posted my last blog, luckily she woke up at 6:30 so I fed her...only on one side since it was so full, that's all she needed. Then I pumped from the other side and got 4 oz out of that one!! I am telling you, I was long overdue! Last night she woke up at 3:15 and again at 7:30 so I didn't have quite the problem as the night before but I was still very full at 3:15...5 hours.

So, I listen and will probably always wake a sleeping baby...to eat, at least!

AND...NEVER in a million years thought I would be blogging about such things....hmmm....

Comments

Tenille Rauls said…
This is how I do things too! I completely agree~ Thanks so much for your message and I will be following you guys to! Take care and keep in touch!
April 21, 2009 at 10:41 PM
Molly and Kevin Strom said…
Rikki,
I am glad you found my blog. I love the blog world. It is so much fun. Your children are beautiful. You are so blessed. Keep in touch.
April 22, 2009 at 7:32 AM
Jen and Jared said…
I totally do the same thing. I learned my lesson with my first who had to be re-admitted to the hospital because she wasn't gaining enough weight... Great post! I LOVE the picture of the girls at the top of your blog. Absolutely precious!

Jen
April 22, 2009 at 10:18 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends...Forever!

Image
What is a friend?  Webster defines a friend as: a person whom one knows, likes, and trusts. It goes on to talk about a friend being a supporter.  I would have the tendency to assume that everyone has at least one friend...maybe not a best friend or perhaps maybe not even a close friend but someone that they can call a friend.  I know that difference personality types lend themselves for more friends than others.  I am a sanguine which means that I have a lot of people that I consider to be my friend.  I have always been the type of person that needs and wants friends...people around me who love me, encourage me, and support me.  On the flip side of this, I have always had a hard time trusting people so I tend to be skeptical of people.  Unfortunately, a friend described me pretty accurately this morning.  She said that I (and she is the same way) have the tendency to dislike people until I have a reason to like them.  No, not proud of it...but I am just skeptical.  I have been hurt
Read more

Replace My Complaining Attitude

If you know anything about me, you know that I am blunt.  I am straight-forward, to the point, and to a fault, honest.  This is something that I have often wanted to change about myself.  Let's face it, there are things about each one of us that we would change, and let me be clear, there are MANY other things I would change but becoming more gentle has always been something I have longed for. I have had people tell me that I should be proud of this.  They wish they could be more assertive like me.  I guess there are good points to this type of characteristic but more times than not, I find myself getting into trouble because of it.   Piggy-backing on that character istic  flaw is the fact that I am a complainer.  I would rather whisper that but again, if you know me, you probably didn't fall in the floor in disbelief that I just typed that.  It is hard to admit.  It is hard to tell a world (okay a few people) that read this that I complain.  How off-putting is that?  I g
Read more

FUN STUFF!!

Image
We have had a fun couple of days! I worked on July 4th and Rachel and Daddy stayed home doing nothing...I think they enjoyed it! Saturday was pretty uneventful.....we went to Target and bought some containers so that I could put all of my clothes away that are TOO BIG!!! YAY!! It was also a sneaky way to allow my husband to see that I really don't have too many clothes!!! None of them fit! =) Sunday was church and we came back here and relaxed all day. Here is a picture of Rachel from Sunday. Rachel's dress was adorable....went to her ankles.... Brice had yesterday off too so we all went to Hawaiian Falls waterpark in Mansfield for a little water fun after Rachel's nap. It was a lot of fun except for the part where I fell down the stairs leading into the lazy river and in an attempt to keep my child's head above water (I was holding her), I tumbled down about 4 stairs, twisted my ankle, hit my knee, and scraped up the side of my leg all while swallowing a lot of water.
Read more