About a week ago, Eliza woke during the night whimpering. Chris and I went to her off and on trying to soothe her. Everything I have read over the course of the three children has said that once babies reach around 3 months of age they should be able to go without eating during the night so I was convinced (at the time) we were doing the right thing, by continuing to check on her, pat her back, trying to soothe her, but not feeding her. Well, this went on for TWO HOURS! She finally gave up and went back to sleep. Needless to say Chris and I were beat the next day, not to mention I had more than a healthy helping of mommy guilt. It was awful. All I could think that day was what kind of a mother was I not to feed my baby in the night just because a book "told" me she should be fine. Did I mention I felt awful? So I decided right then and there that I would get up with her as much as she needed me to. Feed her, rock her, whatever to renew her trust in me that I was there for her. And I did for several nights in a row. And then it started happening twice a night 1am and again at 4am. And the final straw was Friday night when she was up at 1am, 4am and 6am. Wow! What did I get myself into? This is a baby that was sleeping great and now all of a sudden we are back to 3 times a night? Maybe I need to re-evaluate. So last night after we had cleaned up dinner I asked Chris what he thought about feeding her a little bit of cereal. He, of course, deferred to me to make that decision. I got out the box and read the back and according to Gerber Rice Cereal, if a baby is a "supported sitter" (Eliza is) then it is ok to start cereal. I am confident I did this same "test" with the boys so I said why not? Let's try it.
First bite....
Can you see the grimace?
Trying to get the hang of it....
Might not be too bad....
Guess who slept all night last night? Whew - maybe we are on to something. But I have learned not to get too comfortable. As soon as I do, my children like to shake it up a little.
No comments:
Post a Comment