Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Bottle Boot Camp

Once upon a time there was a beautiful little boy who woke up in the middle of the night very hungry. His mommy assumed he was having a growth spurt and fed him. The little boy went back to sleep and all was good.
Fast forward 2 months and the little boy is STILL getting up for a bottle twice a night! At 9 months old!!
UGH!
Yesterday Ryan had a doctor's appointment to have his eye checked again. Why, you ask? Well, because he fell trying to climb into the dog bed and scratched his cornea. My kid is a major KLUTZ! Anyway, his eye is fine, but I had a few other questions including the midnight madness...
The verdict was that Ryan, in fact, did initial wake because he was hungry, but he now is waking AND eating out of habit - a very bad one at that! The solution is to begin giving him less and less formula at each waking and eventually he will no longer think he needs to eat. Easy, right?
NOT!
Monday night 2am: Ryan cries and I first try to console him back to sleep. After being hit, punched, and attacked by a pacifier, I make a 2 ounce bottle. Quiet again, UNTIL the bottle is empty and then the screaming begins. It took 5 minutes of rocking and singing to calm him down enough to put him back in his crib (where he puts himself to sleep - see I read the book - the late night feeding must have been the Italian in me wanting to stuff everyone's face at all times!). 4am: repeat BUT no screaming after the bottle was empty hmmmmm.
Tuesday night he only got up once and I gave him an ounce of water and he went back to sleep. I guess it is working!!!
The down side is that we have to cut out his bedtime bottle (or give it to him early). I love that bottle! It is the one he takes upstairs, in the rocker, with soft music and low lights (sounds like the scene for a seduction). It is the only time of the day where my baby seems like a baby and I miss it terribly already...
Oh, the boy got his first big boy haircut yesterday! It was deemed necessary after 2 people stopped me in the grocery store to tell me how beautiful my daughter was! Darn those gender neutral clothes! I guess he should always be wearing sports wear and girl should always have pink on (actually we have friends who's daughter is ALWAYS wearing pink! It is weird).
I cried when I got home from work -- Ryan had his back to me and I called his name and he turned and said "Hiiiiiiiii" and I swear at that moment it was as if someone had taken my baby away and replaced him with a toddler. God help me when he turns one....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They grow up too darn fast, don't they??

I am wondering how my monkey morphed into a toddler so quickly. Just yesterday she was a tiny little thing and now she is so BIG!

Unknown said...

Just stick with it, Andrea, he will eventually learn that there is no more nighttime snacking! Jamie would do that for awhile until I realized that he really wasn't hungry, just getting up for the heck of it. What I ended up doing was shutting my bedroom door and putting on a fan so that I couldn't hear him crying, and he put himself to sleep. Sounds harsh, I know, but now I have an 12 hour sleeper!

Andrea said...

Rachel -
The doctor said that Ryan probably associates falling asleep with his bottle so for now it is cut. I asked about adding back in once he was sleeping through the night and she discouraged me from it since he needs to start weaning completely soon - *SOB*