Hungry Hungry

I think my theory, Cale's awake so much at night because he's so hungry, has been vindicated. A short article on baby signs of readiness for solid food said that one sign was frequent waking at night after having established good sleep habits. [Cale's signs of readiness were (1) making his hungry cry after a long round of nursing, (2) waking more often to nurse but still on a pretty good schedule, (3) watching our forks like a hawk, from plate to mouth, and (4) opening his mouth wide whenever he thought a spoon might be headed near him.] Even eating baby food just before bed, Cale's sleep schedule has been horrible for over a month. He used to sleep 4 to 5 hours, then about 3 hours. Now he's lucky to sleep 2 hours before the 1 hour duty cycle where he sleeps 45 to 60 minutes, and needs 30 to 60 minutes of attention (mostly nursing but sometimes cuddling) to fall asleep again.

Last night and the night before, he woke around 2 am and wouldn't go back to sleep for three hours until he had had all possible nursing and a jar of baby food. Without filling his tummy, he would cry the very second I set him in his crib. (Annoyingly, he will sleep while hungry if I'm holding him; so either way, I don't get to sleep.) Other than asleep while I was holding him, he was really loud in the middle of the night. And Daddy holding Cale was even louder!

So tonight if I can motivate myself to wake up and remember this, when Cale first cries for me, I'm going to feed him a jar of baby food, then nurse on both sides, then put him back in his crib. Maybe I can cut the 3 hours of screaming down to half the time with less complaining. I miss the good old days of nursing him back to sleep, where we would both get some sleep after he finished on one side.