My 5-week old baby has been up for 7 hours.
For those who don't know, this is not good. This is disconcerting, not to mention noisy, since a great deal of the time that he has been awake and not eating, he has been crying and fussing. Any parent, pediatrician, baby book, homeless man could tell you that a 5 week old should eat, burp and sleep in that order, then wake up and do it all over again, in roughly 3-hour increments. This cycle should be punctuated by the routine wet or stinky diaper and the occasional spit-up, but all should be forgiven when you get the occasional sweet smile, gas induced or not.
No, my baby has decided to stay up between morning feeding #1 & morning feeding #2. This in itself, is not a problem, since I always hope that if he is up more during the day, he may sleep more during the night (unfortunately, this is not a guarantee). The problem lies in the fact that since he is only 5 weeks old, there is very little he can do on his own. I can't just plunk him down in front of a Clifford DVD and do some dishes, since he can't hold up his own head and his sole self-reliant position is on his back (which also tends to induce screaming and crying). He also doesn't seem to like to be "worn" - the screaming was particularly intense this morning when we made two attempts at getting him into the Hot Sling (any mom out there want a never-used Hot Sling??). In the last two days, this baby has decided he doesn't like anything while he is awake. Hence the problem of his being awake for the last 7 hours.
The funny thing (probably to you, not so much to me anymore) is that he is absolutely exhausted. Every time I attempt to lull him to sleep, he eventually nods off, even though you can see him fighting to keep his eyes open. He cannot get comfortable in any position I hold him in; cradled, on my chest, propped up, lying next to him in bed. I can get him to sleep for about an hour before something wakes him - a dirty diaper, a burp, a toot, a prophetic vision in his sleep, who knows?!?!
Thank God Dad has come home and is working his daddy magic with the little bug. Bug is currently curled up in just a diaper in the crook of dad's arm, so we'll see if daddy magic lasts long enough to move Bug to bed.In the meantime, Mom's going to brine some pork chops and make some strawberries and rhubarb to top some ice cream tonight.
