Sleep, please

Lilly has been in a strange phase lately.  I am not sure whether it is a growth spurt or she's just stubborn - probably a combination of both - but I'm ready for it to go back to normal.  Of course, I guess there really isn't a "normal" with a newborn, but we seemed to be doing just fine prior to the past two days.

I've spent most of the night/morning so far wide awake sleeping on the couch while my daughter slept in her swing because that is literally the only place, other than my chest, where she would sleep.  This is new territory for us, because to date she has been a good, hard sleeper no matter where she was, so I'm not sure how to deal with it.  I realize that I always say I can't wait for her to sleep through the night, but in reality, she typically only wakes up once/night, which is great for a 6-week old, so I shouldn't complain really.

Lately, Lilly has been fighting us with the swaddle, but that is not really anything new.  Typically she fights us while we're swaddling her - just some light crying which isn't really crying but more a lot of annoyed grunts, but once she's in, she's fine, and she sleeps much better.  During the day, when I don't swaddle her, she startles herself awake a good bit.  The past two nights, however, you would have thought we were killing the child the way she's wailed when we've put her in that swaddle.  And tonight, she calmed down like normal, but every time she would fall asleep and I'd put her down in her crib she'd start squalling again, wide awake, and try to fight her way out of that swaddle (you will not win, little one, as Mommy has gotten pretty good at swaddling!).  She has been in her crib ever since the first night she was home and we've not had a problem with this yet, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Tonight, she fell asleep on my chest and slept there for a good 30 minutes.  It was about an hour earlier than normal, too, so I was really excited about the potential for extra sleep.  I let her stay asleep on me for a while because we were finishing up an episode of Mad Men, but as soon as I took her upstairs it was all over.  It normally does not matter how loud we are or how much we move her - a train could come through the living room and she'd sleep right through it.  Tonight, however, she's had different plans.  The second I've moved her any time she's fallen asleep, she's up and fussing.  We battled for a while with me rocking her to sleep and then putting her in the crib only for her to wake right back up.  Finally, I tried feeding her again even though she'd only eaten two hours earlier, which seemed to do the trick.  She gulped it down and fell asleep in the process - until I put her down.  Sigh.  So, plan Z B: I took her to our room and let her lay on my chest in bed until she fell back asleep.  Same story once I put her in the crib.  I finally gave up, which is how I ended up downstairs on the couch with her in the swing.  I am pretty sure I would have done anything for just 30 minutes of sleep.

Also, the past two nights we've been cluster feeding because she's been extra hungry.  I have had multiple people swear that this is what makes their child sleep so well at night (read: not wake up), because they are fuller from cluster feeding or from a bigger bed time bottle, so I was excited about this and thinking it meant we were going to get a longer stretch.  Totally backfired - she's actually been up more frequently than normal, partly because she was more gassy and partly because she was hungry again - which makes me think this is the dreaded 6 week growth spurt.

Anyway, all that was to say that I'm ready to get back to this:

Go away nasty 6-week growth spurt! 

Re: swaddling, I guess I need to talk to her pediatrician, but I'm currently trying to figure out when I should give up/stop it all together.  I have read so many different things - some say around 3-4 months, others say around 2 months if your baby is fighting it, others still say if they fight it to swaddle everything but their arms.  I hate this last option because her arms are what normally startle her awake, when she jerks them really hard, but I guess that will happen anyway once we eventually stop swaddling her. Oy! 

In the mean time, she is back in the crib while I'm pumping.  She is making noises, but no squalling so far.  Fingers crossed!  I'd hate to have to get in the crib with her... ;-)

Sarah