Broken Sleep

When I was in college, I chose whether or not I slept for a full eight hours or not. If I had something to finish (like a 25 page paper I waited until the last minute to complete), I would go to bed early and wake at 2 or 3 in the morning to finish the assignment. I would work until my first class at 8am and go to class with a good amount of energy to complete my day... which was over at 1pm. I spent a lot of time in the mirror with Visine trying to get rid of the redness and burning sensation in my eyes.

I figured nothing would be worse than that. Well, I guess I hadn't factored in motherhood.

I have the perfect baby... he is cuter than I could've ever hoped for, he ALWAYS smiles and laughs, he loves to cuddle, he doesn't cry often, he goes to bed at 7:30, and he takes long naps.

but.......

This little kid wakes up in the night every two and a half to three hours to eat. He sleeps in the bed with us because I can't handle getting him out of his crib and nursing him and placing him back in the crib.

What gets me is that he doesn't cry when he's hungry, but instead, he will kick, flail his arms, and claw at my face. I try to ignore it hoping that he goes back to sleep, but he only becomes more violent until I pick him up and put a boob in his mouth.

He'll only nurse for about 15-20 minutes, and in the meantime, I go back to sleep... but last night was terrible!

He seemed to be awake every hour and a half. He was up so much that I just decided to start getting ready for work at 4:30 because it didn't make sense to go back to sleep.

Parents with young children kept saying, "He'll sleep through the night when you start feeding him cereal." I prayed that this was true, but I didn't keep my hopes up.

And for good reason... it seems that adding the cereal to his bottle has made him even more ravenous. He has increased his intake to 4.5 ounces of milk plus two tablespoons of cereal. I'm actually having to supplement with formula almost full-time since I send him to school with all the milk I can pump (4 four oz bottles).

He's only in the 10th percentile for his size, but based on how he's eating now, he'll be in the 90th percentile in no time!