I'm happy to report that, at nearly 16 weeks old, Mia is down to three night wakings. That's right - no sleeping through the night here. Even when just 5 hours of consecutive sleep is considered STTN, she hasn't broken her longest sleep record of four hours and forty-five minutes. She did that
once, and only once - more typical is a three hour period during which I am so amazed and thankful that she is sleeping more than two hours at a stretch!
She wakes to nurse*, and for at least one diaper change** during the night. A typical night is - 9:30 to sleep***, wakes at 12:30 to nurse for 20 minutes, wakes at 3:00 for a wet diaper change and to nurse for 15 minutes, wakes at 5:30 to nurse for half an hour, sleep until 7 or 8am, often with a nurse at 7 before snoozing until 8.
So when the mamas on my birth club board are talking about a "4 month sleep regression" and complaining that their babies, who previously slept 6-10 hours without waking, are now waking up
(the horror) three times a night.... sorry, ladies, I have NO SYMPATHY!
*About the nursing: Mia is exclusively breast-fed and will stay that way until she weans. I've got lots of milk, and don't feel that supplementing with formula or adding the empty calories of rice cereal to "fill her up" is the best thing for my baby. She's gaining and growing like a champ on breast milk - we estimated she was around 16.5 lbs, based on our home scale, and 25 1/4" long at 15 weeks - that's up in the 90's percentile I believe for EBF babies. And yes, I can tell the difference between night fussing/sleep noises and hunger.
**About the diaper changes: she will not tolerate a wet diaper. I've tried big inserts, and doubling the inserts in her cloth diapers; hemp, bamboo, and microfibre inserts, even - ick - disposables on our various trips, it doesn't matter. The girl doesn't like to be wet (and who can blame her?).
***About the sleep: There's no way Mia will go to sleep at 7:30pm as so many babies do. She's never been a good sleeper, and now that she's finally taking daytime naps I am simply grateful that she goes to sleep around 9:30. Sometimes it's later. I know that sleep begets sleep. Her daytime naps took ages to happen at all; for the first two months of her life she probably only slept 6-8 of every 24 hours. Even as a fresh newborn.
She sleeps in a bassinet beside our bed, at an incline due to her reflux, in a onesie with a flannel receiving blanket over her legs. She's strapped in (it's a Fisher Price bassinet with a restraint), so can't slide down under the blanket, and the blanket is firmly tucked around and underneath her, so she can't kick it up over her face. She was swaddled for a long time but hated it, and as she is finally growing out of the Moro reflex, we have stopped swaddling her entirely. She doesn't startle awake anymore. Once we are back home in Ontario, we intend to move her into a crib in her own room overnight, but meanwhile we are limited by what we have here at our temporary home in Calgary.
Basically... I'm not looking for advice, I'm happy she's sleeping well for her. Just had to vent a little about the whinging of the other mamas who have no idea how lucky they've been!
