How time has flown! Baby-Ao is now ~9.5 weeks’ old, just about a week past his 2 month birthday.

After a hitting a low point around 21 August, when I had to ask the Boy to come home early from work (3pm) because I was having a meltdown (I was feeling really ill, which I later realised might have been a hormonal thing), things have gradually improved, until around about the 6 week mark, which was when Baby-Ao’s crying peaked. Since then, perhaps because I’ve become a more confident parent, or I’ve learned how to interpret his cries, or Baby-Ao has just become more ‘rational’, he has generally been less fussy and cried less, and our relationship has rapidly improved, although there are still the odd days when he’s really fussy and I get quite frustrated.

And for the past week or so – since I met up with my old uni friend ST on 27 Sept, who also has a young baby and impressed upon me the freedom that having a routine affords her – I’ve managed to get our Little Bug into some sort of a routine, loosely based on Gina Ford, and we’ve also managed to extend his second sleep cycle (the first sleep cycle after we go to bed), to almost 4am for his feed on some nights. Hopefully this lasts and even improves!

This involved some middle of the night strategic manoeuvres, including:
i) Boiled water strategy
Feeding him cool boiled water when he woke up at 2am one night – I was happy to do that because I knew he could go for 4-5 hours without feeding, because he was doing that between 6-11pm, and I was just trying to adjust his sleeping pattern so that the longest cycle would start from midnight instead of 7pm.

Furthermore, I knew he wasn’t really hungry because he was waking up at 2am, 3-4am, and 5am, and only feeding for less than 10 minutes each time before falling asleep. So I decided that I had to break his habit of snacking in the middle of the night. After all, if he gets fed each time he wakes up at night, that only serves to incentivise him to constantly disrupt my sleep!

I suffered a lot that night, sleeping only 3.5 hours because I had to constantly pop his pacifier in between 2-3am, then feed him at 3am, then wait until 4am for him to sleep, and then he was up fussing again at 5am.

But since then, he has stopped waking up at 2am, and instead wakes up closer to 4am most days.

ii) Pacifier strategy
When he regressed by waking up at 3am, I spent the hour between 3-4am popping his pacifier in and rocking the moses basket as required to extend his sleep to 4am before we fed him then. – I decided that feeding him water was unnecessary because it just made him poo more liquid poo, more often. The key was getting him to continue sleeping when he fussed, until he was genuinely hungry, in which case, the pacifier and rocking strategy would stop working anyway.

iii) Sleep at any cost strategy
According to Gina Ford. babies go into light sleep around 5-6am and wake up easily (which explains why he always wakes up at that time, even if he isn’t hungry) during that period. And she advises to get him to sleep through that period at by any means necessary (unless he is hungry), until he is habituated to sleeping through. So, first off, I’ve switched off our night light. I’ve also let him sleep on my chest, or sleep on a pillow in our bed – whatever it takes to get him to sleep without feeding or fussing.

My ‘routine’ weekdays tend to go roughly like this:
6-9am: Feed the Little Bug, try to continue sleeping or shower, and have breakfast (depending on how exhausted I feel in the morning)

9-10 or 10.30am: Amuse the Little Bug incl. changing nappies where required

10.30-12pm: Stroll + morning activity, which has been Baby Massage on Mondays (11am-12pm), Sing-along Tuesdays/Thursdays/Fridays (11.15-11.30am) and Baby Rhyme Time (10.30-11am) Wednesdays. I would generally feed him some time between 10.20am to 11.45am, depending on the timing of the day’s activity, and often at the venue itself.

12-12.30/12.45pm: Lunch at home

12.30/12.45-2/2.15pm: Baby-Ao’s nap time. I swaddle him, and play a white noise track from Babysleepnoise.com (I can’t get him to calm down otherwise, so I have to use a crutch, hopefully only temporarily while I get him used to a routine!), and put him in his basket. I spend the next 1.5-2 hours constantly popping his pacifier back into his mouth, and napping a bit if I’m lucky (usually 10-30 minutes max). I’ve also decided to keep him in the bedroom until at least 2pm, even if he’s not asleep, just to get him used to being calm and quiet at this time, and set him up for his future bedtime discipline (i.e. he doesn’t need to sleep as long as he stays in his room and remains relatively quiet).

2/2.15-3.30pm: Feed in 2 tranches, incl. burping / bouncing between the 2 feeds

3.30-4/4.30pm: Amuse the Little Bug incl. changing nappies where required

4/4.30-5.30pm: Stroll in pram. This is when I do my grocery runs, or buy a snack at the local Chinese supermarket, or stroll around in Hyde Park

5.30-6/6.30pm: Amuse the Little Bug, sometimes I start feeding him if he seems hungry and fussy

6/6.30-6.30/7pm: Bath time. If Daddy is home by then, he helps me with the bath. Swaddle him post bath.

6.30/7-7/7.30pm: Feed the Bug again in a dimly lit room, then put him in his moses basket and hang around popping his pacifier in until he sleeps. One of us (usually the Boy) goes out and cooks dinner while the other stays on pacifier duty until he sleeps before sneaking out. And then we have several hours of peace / adult time – yay!!

10.30/11pm-midnight: Feed the Bug in a brightly lit room, then change his nappy, massage him, then re-swaddle him, and feed him in a dimly lit room, then put him back to sleep.