sleepy head

Asher has been doing an amazing job at sleeping recently!

We're celebrating!

{I'm a little afraid of jinxing myself by posting about this, but it's too exciting to keep in!  Jinxes aren't real anyways...right?}

As I said before, I truly think that Asher is reading Baby 411 behind my back.  He seems to know what's expected of him, so he just does it before we have to apply any tough love.  Dr. Brown says that healthy babies who are 6 months old are capable of sleeping 12 hours at night without eating and that's exactly what Asher does! 

Now, I'm not completely brainwashed by this book and certainly wouldn't have let Asher cry at night if he seemed hungry, but it worked out that he just started sleeping longer and longer on his own.  Yay!  The first night it happened I was a little confused as to how his feedings should go the next day since he missed the feeding that usually happened around 4 or 5am.

After quite a few days of trial and error, I think we got it worked out.  Obviously, the more food he eats, the less milk he'll need, so things will change, but for now this is our system.  I'm going to spell it out just in case our trials and errors can help anyone else!

From about 4 months to 5.5 months old, this was Asher's schedule:

Wake at 4 or 5am to eat (nurse until satisfied)
Wake at 7am for the day
Eat 7oz of pumped milk at 7ish am
Nap at 9am
Eat 7oz at 11am
Nap at 1pm
Eat 7oz at 3pm
Nap at 4pm
Eat 7.5oz at 6:30pm
Bed at 7pm

Of course, things varied depending on how the day was going, but that's what we did in general.

Once he started sleeping through the night he skipped the 5am feeding, but still needed those ounces of milk sometime through the day.  I tried just keeping with the same schedule {having 4 feedings, instead of 5} but then he woke up at night.  I also tried increasing the amount of milk at eat feeding, but his little belly can only hold so much and 8oz was just too much for him at this point.

So, like I said, after a couple days of trials and error plus incorporating solid food, we came up with a new schedule that seems to work really well.

At least...it's worked well for the past 3 days.  Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

Wake up at 7am
Nurse at 7am
Nap at 9am
Eat 7oz at 10:30am
Nap at 12:30pm
Eat 7oz at 1:30pm
Eat some solids around 2:00pm
Nap at 3:30pm {3rd nap is short}
Eat 7oz at 4pm
Bath at 6:15pm
Eat 7.5oz at 6:30pm
Bed at 7pm

I know these feedings seem close together -- that's one reason why I didn't try this schedule at first! -- but he drinks all of the milk with no problem.  I figure if he takes it down, then he must be hungry enough.  There are plenty of times when he refuses to finish and pushes the bottle away, so I'm confident that if he's full he will let me know.

Anyway, that's where we're at!  Mr A is sleeping like a champ and eating more solids everyday.  We tried sweet potatoes for the first time yesterday.  He was a little wary of them at first, but rallied quickly. 

One funny thing is that somehow he figured out how to store them in his cheeks like a chipmunk.  Asher kept releasing little orange smears of goo all throughout the afternoon.  Finally I just stuck my finger in his mouth and cleaned it out.  How does he do that?! 

He's a stinker, but I love him.  :o)