Delano wakes up to eat usually somewhere between 4am and 6am, depending on a number of factors. I feed him on demand, and though there is a definite pattern to his feeding frenzy, he is not on any set schedule just yet due to his clustering.
If Delano wakes up closer to 4am, then he'll wake up again to eat usually around 7:00 or 7:30. After he eats, I swaddle him and put him back to bed, where he'll usually sleep until about 9:30 or 10:00. When he wakes up to eat closer to 6:00, he'll sleep straight through until about 8:30 or 9:00. In the mornings, I usually get up and have anywhere from an hour to two hours to get anything done before starting my cluster morning. This includes using the bathroom, getting in a treadmill run (newly added to the agenda), taking a shower if I need one, brushing my teeth, eating breakfast and anything else that I can possibly achieve before the baby wakes up, especially things that require two hands and no baby.
"SLEEP WHEN THE BABY SLEEPS!!" Seriously, if I hear that one more time, I just might shove my toothbrush or uneaten breakfast into someone's mouth. Because even though I GET that mommies could REALLY use the sleep at times (and I DO try to doze off for a power nap when Baby D is asleep if I need it) and that the dirty house will STILL be sitting there waiting for me when I wake up, most of the time I don't need a nap and I'd much rather be productive, even if "productive" just means filtering through massive amounts of email forwards or reading other peoples' blogs.
So once Delano wakes up, whatever else I wanted to do that morning gets put on the back burner until the afternoon, or even until another day. Because Delano will pretty much be my boob ornament from that moment until about 12pm or 1pm. Sure, he'll drift off to sleep every 15-30 minutes or so, but he won't stay asleep if I attempt to relocate him. Then he's crying, and then we're back to eating. It's a viscous cycle.
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| Delano's motto? |
Once he FINALLY falls asleep and STAYS asleep (swaddling helps, though isn't always the answer), the cluster cycle has been broken and I can start my afternoon, which usually begins with lunch and a dip into the nipple cream vat. Ok, so I don't have a vat of nipple cream, but how cool would that be? If I could just open my vat, lean over and sink my boobs in for a little while, it might just classify as a little slice of heaven.
In the afternoons I do wake Delano to eat every 2-3 hours if he doesn't wake on his own. Then we try to have our last feeding between 10pm and 11pm, though sometimes there's a slight cluster before bed as well. This nighttime cluster has gotten much better over the last week or two, as Baby D used to eat constantly between about 10pm and 1am and that extreme has diminished. Again, swaddling Delano helps him to stay asleep, though I have discovered that I cannot swaddle him until after he's already drifted off. Yes, it wakes him and we have to start over, but it's usually only about 10 minutes before he's asleep again. Then I tilt him up to get a burp out of him (which also sometimes wakes him), and then take him to bed where he'll sleep for between 2 and 6 hours for the first wave, then between 3 and 4 hours for the second and maybe third wave.
So those are what my days are like right now! And if I go anywhere during the first part of my day, I spend part of that time pulling the car over somewhere to feed him, and I usually have to feed him through dinner as well (when he used to sleep right through it). I'm now trying to space out his cluster feedings to at least an hour apart (from the start of one to the start of another), by letting him sleep in my lap, by keeping him distracted when he starts to cry and by wearing him in my wrap, so maybe this will help some. Or maybe not at all...we'll find out!
Lucas is a HUGE help in the evenings, as he will hang out with Delano if I'm desperately in need of a shower or some downtime or need to get anything else done that didn't happen during the day. Pretty soon I'll be able to stock up on some milk so that Daddy can feed Baby D, too (Delano has so far ingested every bit of milk I've pumped to date!).
Everything I've read said that this is a phase, and that this too shall pass. So hopefully here in the next few weeks we'll fall into more of a predictable schedule!
On a fun note, Delano turned one month old this past Sunday. :)
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