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“Still sleeping? It is already 3:00am!” I said to myself, “DD has slept for five hours and skipped one meal. Should I wake her up or not?”
Yes, DD can sleep five hours straight at night now. She has transferred from a sleepless energizer bunny to a sleeping beauty.
But it took her an entire whole month to reach this change. I remembered DD was so fussy since her third day that M and I had to turns to rock her, walk with her, and tried everything to calm her down. She was just like an energizer bunny, full of energy while wearing both of us down!
During the first month, usually beginning in the late morning, DD began her crying spells. She closed her eyes tightly, turned her beautiful face into madly red, opened her cute little mouth widely, cried, sometimes screamed, for hours. Occasionally this ordeal could last a whole day and until 3 or 4 AM the next morning.
M and I had to take turns gulping our food, running to the bathroom, stealing a nap, or did anything we needed to do in a hurry.
In order to put her to sleep, we invented or discovered all kinds of tricks. Each time after I developed a new trick, she quickly identified it. A seesaw battle of tricking and anti-tricking kept going between us… (see Tricking vs. anti-tricking)
When DD finally dozed away—after what seemed like hours of nursing, rocking, walking, talking and lullabying as well as using all kinds of tricks, I waited for five minutes until she was in deep sleep, then I rose slowly and moved cautiously to the crib, lifted her over the edge of the crib, descended her perilously to the mattress below.
Slowly I released the hand under her bottom, then with my breath held I carefully withdrew another hand below her neck. The success was so close that I could almost taste it. However, when I was about to leave, she woke up and began to cry. I picked up and started all over. Sometimes it took six rounds to finally put her down.
Even after she finally fell into sleep (thank goodness!), she was so alert that a light sound or noise would easily woke her up. I had to tiptoe around the house, talk softly, cook, eat or do other household chores quietly. Since she could wake up any time, my mind quickly figured out things I had to do, things I needed to do but I could wait for a while, and things I could postpone until M was back home. Then I run up and down and finished those important things swiftly. I felt like being in a battlefield. Every minute when she was out was too precious to squander.
DD made her longest fussy record on the last weekend of her fourth week. The agony began at 11:00 AM on Saturday morning, lasted the whole day and then stopped at 3 AM Sunday morning. And then it repeated on Sunday and finished at 4 AM of Monday morning.
Ironically, this longest fussy weekend turned to be the turning point of her transferal from a sleepless energizer bunny to a sleeping beauty.
Since week 5, I noticed my consolation time to put her to sleep gradually became shorter and shorter. She also slept longer and longer between two feeding times, especially during daytime. Sometimes she even fell into sleep before the ending of the feeding. When I moved her to the crib, she didn’t wake up!
I began to have more time to cook and eat my lunch, go to bathroom, clean my breasts or finish doing those necessary things. Since I had been used to running up and down to do things in a rush, when I suddenly had time to spare, I didn’t know what to do! The first time after I finished my lunch without being interrupted, I felt at loss: now what to do?
Soon things seemed to go from one extreme to anther. DD began to drift off before finishing nursing. Sometimes she held my nipples and nodded out. Sometimes after she finished one breast, I put her aside, switched the nursing pillow to anther side and turned to her, she was already out.
Beginning week 7, DD began to sleep long hours, ranging from 4-6, at night. She also stopped crying each time when she woke up. Instead she played by herself, suck her fingers, or sometimes cooing to herself.
At first I congratulated myself about all these changes, then I began to worry that she didn’t get enough milk, since she slept too much!
Dear readers, did your baby experience the same change in his/her first few months? Welcome to tell us the story about your baby!