Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Training Mommy

I'm pretty convinced that my 11 week old is trying to train me...and succeeding at it. She cries, I jump up and run to her. She cries her hungry cry, I go and feed her. She cries in a different way, I jump up super fast and run to her. She wines, I slowly make my way over to her. Any way you spin it, she's clearly the one making all the calls. For a few days, she let's me think I'm in charge and then just when I think I've got it all figured out BAM a new training session begins.

For a little over a week she was on the most amazing schedule to date. She was sleeping at night from about 7:30/7:45pm-5:30/6:00am and only waking up once to nurse around 3:30/4:30am and would go right back to sleep after she was done. She woke up happy and playful in the morning and would hang out for a couple hours, nurse and then take an awesomely long nap (2 hours or so!!). She'd wake up happy as can be from her nap, cooing and playing in her crib just waiting for mommy to come and get her, and then we would play more, read books, you name it. She was alert and happy and interested in looking at the pictures in the book, looking at what was going on outside, actually paying attention (as much attention as a 2 1/2 month old can give) to whatever was going on around her. She'd then either take a couple shorter naps in the afternoon or be a rock star and take another 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. It was seriously the best week ever!! Then Monday arrived.

NOTE: Anytime you think your baby is finally on a schedule, BEWARE!! That schedule is about to do a 180 and leave you feeling even more exhausted and zombie-like than you already were. So many of my friends warned me about these schedule scheming babies, but did I listen?? Nope. I thought, my baby will be so awesome and will be on a permanent schedule by the time she's a month old! When that didn't happen, I bought myself some time by saying, "Well, she's only a month old, maybe we'll try again when she's 6-8 weeks old." Well friends, my little butter bean is 11 weeks old and she still makes up her own schedule and it still changes just as soon as I get used to it!

Alexa's awesome schedule turned into my biggest nightmare. From every 4-5 hour nursing sessions which lasted MAX 15-20 minutes, we have now reverted to every 2 hour feedings that last an easy hour. AN HOUR!!! She cries when she's hungry, she cries while she's eating and she cries after she's done. She cries when she's playing, when she's being held, and when she's not being held. My happy little angel has turned into a starving, crying velociraptor.

How many of you have your little ones on a great schedule? What is that schedule?  I thought I had Alexa on a schedule, but really, I'm on her schedule and it is ever changing. Most of the time I feel like I am barely keeping up. Maybe one day she'll train me to sleep through the night again. I wonder what that will be like?

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