Oh, I’ve been in a haze…

Oh, I've been in a haze of baby exhaustion. I don't even know why we've gotten so little sleep lately, but let's just say that we have. The cumulative sleep debt has been killing me, and Thursday, after Thanksgiving dinner, I fell asleep at 7:30 p.m! Slept 'til 4 a.m. and feel more like a real human being yesterday, then last night, I went to bed at 9, and got up at 5 -- I can't remember the last time I got eight hours sleep. It was at least three months ago, I think.

Why all the sleep? Well, we've gone back to swing shift, it seems. The waking up in the middle of the night (letting her cry or not) was just destroying me; I had used up all my reserves and could not do it anymore. So Kev valiantly stayed up until 4 so I could sleep. I feel almost like a human being again.

We've been trying to figure out why Kavi has such trouble sleeping long stretches. We think a lot of it is just that she doesn't eat enough at one go. At her age, her stomach should be big enough that she could drink 6-8 ounces at a time, but she's been doing 3-4 ounces instead. So yesterday, we finally got around to getting her some medium flow nipples -- she's been using the slow flow infant ones. We apparently should have switched her at three months to medium flow, but somehow, it didn't occur to us. After that, she drank two 6 oz. bottles (one at 7:30 p.m., one around midnight) no problem. So it's probably our fault that she was eating so little at a time -- it was too much work with the slow nipple, and she got tired and stopped. We feel like idiots.

It won't be the first time parenting makes us feel like idiots, I'm sure.

I was so tired that I got weepy at Kevin both nights; poor guy. I think I'm over the worst of it, though. And we did have some nice parts of the holiday -- Ann made her traditional Christmas brunch casserole (because we'll be at my parents for Christmas this year), which was delicious as always, and we went out for a restaurant dinner with Kevin's sister's husband's family, so it was a big 22-person Thanksgiving (if you count the babies), which I like. I've done small Thanksgivings before, once or twice, and I always prefer the big ones, even though they're chaotic and sometimes stressful. Just feels more like a family holiday that way.

We also at some point got Uncle Rick to take a family photo in the Whytes' yard.
Pictured left to right: Susan, Brooke, Shawn, Ron, Ann, Kavi, Kevin, me!

Plans for the next few days -- implement some line edits, do a little Xmas shopping (in non-frenzied places, hopefully), catch up on Heroes, try to rest more. Hope you're having a good holiday weekend if you're in the U.S., and just a good weekend otherwise. :-)

6 thoughts on “Oh, I’ve been in a haze…”

  1. Has Kavi started on solid food yet? With my kids, having some good rice cereal in their bellies before bed really helped them sleep longer.

  2. Has Kavi started on solid food yet? With my kids, having some good rice cereal in their bellies before bed really helped them sleep longer.

  3. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    She’s doing rice cereal and a few others: green beans, apple sauce. We forgot to feed her rice cereal the last two days, and she’s slept even more randomly than usual, so yes, you’re probably right. If only adding it back in would be enough….

  4. I’m so glad I decided to go to your site tonight. Natalia’s never drunk more than 3 oz from a bottle. I’m going to try to switch the nipple. Hopefully, it works and I can stop breastfeeding. I’m soooo tired of it.

  5. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    Let me know how it goes, kiddo. Kavi isn’t doing six ounces consistently — some times she goes back down to three. But in general, she’s generally drinking more at a time, I think. We’re going to try the fast flow nipples this weekend, I think.

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