We hit another milestone this weekend with Claire. Our normally well-tempered, relatively patient baby girl suddenly became this red-faced, inconsolable screaming ball of angst ... it was horrifying! She goes from smiling to wailing in no seconds flat, wants to eat -- often fussing all the while and sometimes only for a few minutes -- but then wants to eat again in another hour, and is sleeping at odd times and durations. Our "heathly eater" has always cluster fed and been a little fussier in the evenings, but the around the clock eating and outright screaming is something else. And never before have we felt as though we just couldn't console her pretty quickly through our usual methods of which we have gathered quite a few over the last 6 weeks. What I thought was becoming smoother sailing had suddenly been thrown into crazy, rocky waters.
After consulting many a website, rifling through books, and taking a breather to just think, we're pretty sure we've figured it out: Claire is going through her 6ish-week growth spurt, and they definitely are growing pains!
Apparently, babies have growth spurts that last 2-7 days at predictable times -- 10 days, 3-4 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months. During that time, babies are hungry all the time (often latching/unlatching and fussing in betweeen), don't want to sleep through the night, and are generally fussier than usual. It's also supposed to be followed by a period of hibernation which we have not reached yet, though she is sleeping at odd intervals.
Hmm ... the 10-day one I can't speak to because I'm pretty sure that was a sleepy haze that we just weathered through, but there was a rough patch around her one-month where I thought she was just overstimulated by a whole month of hand-offs from visitor to visitor.
It's pretty interesting, really. I guess an average baby will triple his birth weight and grow 8-10 inches in his first year! I did notice that Claire has suddenly filled her changing pad on the bassinet (meaning: she hit her head when she suddenly kicked her legs out -- whoops) and her onesies button at the bottom a little more tightly, but putting it all together was the key.
One thing I am confident of is that this, too, shall pass. Somehow just understanding the cause has a calming effect for me so that I can now good-naturedly feed on-demand without fearing that my milk supply is insufficient or foul; when something doesn't work to console her, we just try the next thing and the next and the next until you get back to the first; and we'll just keep looking forward to when she's past this and on to her next adventure! And when she grins that wide, toothless smile at you, it really erases any rough spots in the road; it's all worth it, every last second.
Oh, and we haven't tried the bottle again since starting this spurt on Saturday because things have been a little crazy. We'll probably try it again tonight or tomorrow (cross your fingers!).
http://www.parents.com/parents/story.jsp?catref=prt32&storyid=/templatedata/parents/story/data/6071.xml
http://www.drjaygordon.com/development/bf/growspu.asp
http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/fussy-evening.html
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2 comments:
hahaha.. totally understand what you're going through. after feeding jacob every 1 1/2 hour, then going to every 3 hours.. then going back to 1 1/2 hours.. i thought he was regressing! so at a panic stage, read everything i could, and felt much better when i realized he was going through a growth spurt.
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