It’s funny how inconsistently  I can get to writing this blog.  Ah well, such is the life of a new mother with attachment parenting tendencies.

Yes, we’re still having breastfeeding issues.  I’ve been keeping track of … well, most things (except diapers, oddly enough), and have found that the average pain levels may have gone down somewhat, but not by all that much (not even 30% since our visit with the PT), and not as much as I’d like.  I’m still working towards the plan of waiting until three months and then deciding what to do about continuing feeding at the boob or pumping and bottle feeding.  My midwife did note that it is not uncommon for women to start losing their supply if they go to exclusive pumping, which is one of my fears, but she also had a great reminder – what’s right is what gets the most needs met for the most people, and that may not be the perfect solution for everyone, but is best for the family as a whole.

I’ve mentally moved on to the next issue.  (Well, not so much moved on, but moved in addition to.  Motherhood is neither linear nor binary.)  After looking over the data I’ve been gathering for about three weeks now, I’m fairly certain that little Miss Daphne is sleep deprived.  8 week olds are supposed to be getting (on average) 15 hours of sleep a day.  Sure, that can vary widely, but she gets 11 to 12 (sometimes slightly less!), and shows plenty of signs of often fighting sleep and being extra cranky in the evening.  So it’s off to work on sleep!

There appear to be as many ways as parents to “work on sleep”. Depending on the philosophy, different (contradictory) biological “facts” are stated, so, I’m doing a read of a number of approaches for background, and plan to synthesize/evolve what works for us.  Neither Jason or I are a fan of various “cry it out” methods.  For one, even most of those methods say she’s too young, and for two, it seems an unnatural approach for us.  (I’m not criticizing those who use it, however.  If someone finds it works for their family, that’s awesome!  It’s almost certain that there are going to be child/parent combinations out there for whom this is the most effective method.) A completely rigid schedule doesn’t make sense to me either, since I know of few humans who work that way, and Jason and I certainly aren’t examples of that few.

My current plan (no input needed from the peanut gallery on “why it won’t work”, Daphne… See More will be the arbiter of that), is to take advantage of the natural 90minute rest/active cycle in humans, and encourage her to nap when she shows signs of sleepiness (yawning, droopy eyelids, vacant stare, fussiness, and whatever else I can learn to read from her).  Yes, this is marketed through a book – what method of sleep training/teaching/improving/whathaveyou isn’t.  So, calming the environment, not stimulating her, and providing some variety of boring but gentle rhythmic input to help her ignore the other sensory stimulate around her. This may include swaddling/shhh’ing (though she’s seemed meh about swaddling), walking, gentle bouncing on a ball, escalating to dancing/singing, her swing, or even a car ride if necessary. I’d prefer to keep it as simple as possible, however, so she doesn’t become too reliant on those external influences. And sucking is on the table, but almost certainly not at the boob unless/until we resolve the breastfeeding pain issue.

If she take the opportunity to fall asleep, great! She seems to fairly obviously fight sleep, so I’m going to try to get to this as soon as she shows signs of tiredness, and be really patient about encouraging her to sleep. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t, and I can’t force her, but I’ll keep stimulation a little lower so she isn’t overstimulated by the time we get towards then end of the next rest/active cycle to try again. If she does take advantage, and falls asleep anywhere but already in a sleeping location (cosleeper, crib, playard), I will keep in mind what sleep cycles are like and try to wait until she’s in deep sleep, not the active REM sleep that babies start their sleep cycle with, to move her to a sleeping location.

The theory here is that babies (particularly after two weeks, but before six months) need help learning to voluntarily go to sleep, ignoring the overwhelming new sensory input that they want to take in. Many will, given the opportunity, stay awake until the get fussier and fussier and crash. But because they are overtired, they won’t sleep as deeply or as long, waking up unrefreshed (so they don’t learn that sleep is a rewarding thing that they can do) and tired, leading to more fighting sleep fussiness.

It may mean that she’s taking naps every hour and a half, rather than trying to go five or six hours in the day without one. (This is NOT a good thing for an 8 week old; she needs sleep to integrate what she’s learned while awake!) It may do that, or may lead to a few longer breaks of wakefulness in the day. It may also mean that it takes half an hour to get her to go down.  But we’d be managing her in some fashion during that time anyway, so now we just do it in a different way.  We will see what works for her. It is likely going to impact how I get out of the house (being out is very stimulating, and I’ve got to prioritize her sleep a bit more), but breastfeeding already does that – and on a similar time scale, since she often goes two hours between daytime feeds.

I don’t think either Jason or I were paying enough attention to her sleep signals, since she used to drop off more readily. But as she has become more alert, she’s wanted to stay awake (at all costs) more, and we were, unintentionally, helping he do that. I’m sure the reflux and gas didn’t help (providing discomfort that woke her fully during the lighter stages of the cycle), but that’s getting better too.

I like the approach because it’s very baby centered, and goes along with my general “attachment parenting light” approach. But who knows if it’ll work as I hope. If it doesn’t, we will try something else.