A Simple Solution?

If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have told you that my children were conspiring to prevent me from getting four hours of consecutive sleep. The previous night, Petunia had adopted a schedule that made my longest stretch of sleep about 3 hours- and that was with Hubby giving her a bottle of pumped milk for her first nighttime feeding. The night before that, Petunia slept pretty well, but Pumpkin woke up at 4 a.m. and came in to tell me that she couldn't find her sock. I had to get up, find the sock, and then snuggle with her briefly to get her back to sleep.

Today, though, it is a completely different story. I went to bed a little before 10 and Hubby brought Petunia in for me to nurse her a little before 4. That's almost six hours of uninterrupted sleep! I feel great. Petunia did TWO stretches of about 4 hours of sleep in a row. After I fed her at 4 a.m., she went back to sleep fairly easily, and I snoozed from about 4:30 to 6:15, when Pumpkin came in, awake for the morning.

What was the difference? Well, its gotten a bit chilly here at night. I finally got our duvet out, and put Pumpkin's duvet on her bed, too. We put Petunia in a fuzzy fleece sleeper last night, even though the legs are too long.

Apparently, we were freezing our children.* Everyone tells post-partum mothers to let their husbands determine how much clothing the kids need. Our hormones are all over the place, and we tend to be warm even when its cold. Well, that's bad advice in our family. Hubby didn't think it was that cold.

Of course, one good night does not mean that we'll get more good nights. But it gives me hope!

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*Actually, I think some of the improvement, particularly in the ease of going back down after a feeding, is due to my recognition that I have a fast let down, and my subsequent changes in nursing position to help Petunia deal with that. I'll probably post more about this later.