I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a Mommy. I guess there are certain aspects to motherhood that are instinctive, but I think most of it consists of skills acquired by experience. Anyway, I feel like I'm getting the hang of it and enjoying every minute of it :-)
As much as I enjoy learning by experience, I also enjoy tapping into the acquired wisdom on parenthood by reading some parenting literature. These two books have greatly contributed to my confidence as a first-time mom: On Becoming Babywise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleeep by Gary Ezzo and What Babies Say Before They Can Talk: The Nine Signals Infants Use to Express Their Feelings by Paul Holinger.
Babywise helped us establish a healthy and manageable eating routine with Nicholas. The book introduces a concept of "Parent Directed Feeding", and gives some practical strategies on how to help your baby distinguish night from day, and ultimately sleep through the night. These strategies are not revolutionary, and probably don't work for every baby out there, but they worked for us. We started following a "Babywise" routine as soon as we took Nicholas home from the NICU.
Because at first Nicholas wasn't strong enough to get full feedings by breastfeeding alone, I had to pump after every feeding and give him the bottle so he would get the calories he needed, and so that I would establish my milk supply. At this point Nicholas is strong enough to get everything he needs by breastfeeding, and is doing great. I no longer have to pump, and he no longer needs the bottle. Nowadays he is eating 7-8 times (which is right on track for a baby of his age) a day, and is going for ~6 hours between feedings at night (which is really good for a baby of his age). His last feeding of the day is between 8:30 and 9:30pm. He usually wakes up between 2 and 3am for another meal and then he's out until 6am (Hopefully he'll be dropping that nighttime feeding within the next few months and sleeping through the night). During the day he eats approximately every three hours (+/- hour). He is gaining weight well, and he wakes up happy and rested in the morning, and so do I :-)
Of course there are exception to the routine. When Nicholas got his vaccinations at 2 months he decided that he needed to eat every two hours and wanted to be held all the time. We could not put him down in his crib for the night because he would just keep crying. He ended up sleeping in our bed that night, and was back to normal the next day. Should I have let him cry it out? No way!!!
What Babies Say Before They Can Talk is a great book about psychological development of babies. The main premise is that infants use crying to communicate, and that responding promptly and effectively to the cry builds a foundation for an effective communication between the parent and the child. The book goes into detail on why babies cry and how to minimize crying and fussiness in babies. According to this book, it's not a good idea to just have your baby "cry it out" AND you cannot spoil a baby by promptly responding to his or her cry. Anyway, good stuff. Here are some pictures from the last few days.
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