by: Emma Aguirre
Gripe water; my new best friend.
We started back on fruits after a brief hiatus. I’ve really moved away from the idea of making my own baby food, mostly because I’m concerned about the freshness and ripeness of the fruits and vegetables. I have the time, I have the blender, but I can’t shake the feeling of uncertainty about where the product came from and what’s in it. So we loaded up on some Earth’s Best and so far so good. She loves apple sauce! I just feel like she’s eating so much all of a sudden and I think it gave her indigestion tonight, hence, my new love for gripe water!
I found a great feeding schedule on the Earth’s Best website which I’m trying to follow. Now that she’s five months, she should be gearing up to eating fruits or veggies twice a day, as well as no more than 32oz of formula, according to this schedule.
I’m trying to give her lunch now so there is some reshuffling of her routine going on. I think it’s helping to ease some of the fussiness we saw last week. She’s going to bed a little later and I’ve noticed she’s simply taking shorter naps and sometimes more of them, all part of this growth spurt I’m sure. She’s gone from taking two, two-hour long naps a day, to one long nap (still roughly two hours) either in the morning or afternoon, and a couple of shorter naps, ranging from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. It was a little shocking at first not to have that reliable two hour break twice a day, but I’m working with it and it’s actually working out well.
I’ve learned that while we’ve really worked hard to build a good, solid routine for my daughter –which has helped us all adjust to this new situation – there has to be some wiggle room. Flexibility is a key part of parenthood I think and infants cannot be chained to a rigorous routine. Every day with a little one is different and it should be embraced. On Saturday evening, my daughter went to bed at 7:30pm, happily. She’s never been in bed, on purpose, that late. The handful of times she has been it’s because she’s fussed. But she had taken three naps that day, eaten lunch and dinner and it just worked. I wasn’t watching the clock, I wasn’t wondering why she was still awake, or freaking out about it. We watched for the same sleepy signs – the rubbing of the eyes, the yawning and they came right as I knew they would. The bedtime routine didn’t change, just the timing of it and it worked out just great as she slept all the way through until 7:30am the very next morning, with no dream feed.
So I know she’s capable of going through the night with no dream feed, if I am able to time the feedings right and allow for this less rigid nap schedule. Today, I was bit off – running errands I forgot my trusty jar of apple sauce – but I’ll work on it this week and I think we’re well on our way to a new way of doing things.
