Baby O, The Sleepless Wonder!

Nursing O at L's Hockey Practice

Breastfeeding has been such a challenge for me.  I think my kids know how much I hate it and so they secretly try to make it the most miserable experience possible.  For the past month, baby O has been waking every 3 hours at night to nurse.  This means, that as the only one capable of nursing him, I'm up with him every 2.5-3 hours.  I've been exhausted, to say the least, and feel like I wake up every morning more tired than I did when I went to bed.  My intuition has been telling me that he is really hungry in the night, but I also know that by 4 months old he should be able to sleep significantly longer.  He's always been a pretty great sleeper (falling asleep and falling back to sleep), so I've wondered if it was a milk supply issue.  I started drinking more water, drinking Mother's Milk herbal tea, eating coconut oil, and just eating more in general, but he's still waking 3 times a night.

We went to baby O's 4 month well-visit today and I finally talked to his pediatrician about his frequent night nursing.  The good news is that he's growing great and gaining weight appropriately.  The bad news is that she feels my milk supply (thanks to O) is having some day/night confusion.  I am producing plenty of good milk for him overnight, but not producing enough during the day.  My guess is that because he's such a distracted nurser during the day that he's not really getting enough milk until the night.  His pediatrician said to just let him cry until its been 7 hours.  "He'll be hungry, but he'll get the idea after a few nights that you'll feed him only when it's daytime." she said.  I have a very hard time ignoring a HUNGRY baby, so I'll likely try feeding him more frequently during the day and then see if I can just stretch out his night feedings by a few hours.

Please pray that he'll start nursing better by day, in order to be able to sleep more at night.  I could really some uninterrupted sleep...

Isn't he a cutie?