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Silja's Sleep Diary: seven weeks old

Written by Taru, Silja's mom

Seven weeks old and Silja might be getting into an early baby schedule. But a baby cold and a tummy bug spoil the fun ...

Seven weeks old now and Silja has been getting into a really nice routine recently. Of course there are huge daily variations to this and one big poo or lack thereof might ruin everything at a sensitive moment.

An early baby sleep schedule ...

But overall, we seem to keep coming back to the same baby schedule. She wakes up around 6am, feeds and then keeps us company while the big kids get up and ready for school.

Then she feeds again between 8 and 9am and then she will sleep for a nice, long morning nap. This is my 'get stuff done time', although most days I choose not to do much stuff and just go for a nice long walk instead or meet a friend for coffee.

And very, very occasionally - I think I may have done it twice - I'll just take a nap with her if I'm feeling really tired.

She will then feed, socialise and take very brief naps through the afternoon - this is the time when absolutely nothing gets done - with maybe one slightly longer nap around 5 or 6pm.

Late afternoons haven't been too bad at all as she's really beginning to enjoy playing with the bigger kids and doesn't seem to get quite so overtired any more.

After the big kids are in bed she may still be quite alert, but seems happy to fall asleep before 10pm and have a good long sleep until between 2 and 4am.

She used to need several repetitions of the eat - almost fall asleep - huge poo - routine but now she might go to sleep with just one or two, and a couple of gentle strokes on her head.

She's showing some signs of having figured out that her cot is for sleeping in, and if she's tired and we put her down there, the chances are she'll fall asleep (!).

Quiet night feedings at seven weeks old

Night feedings are pretty straightforward, but she sleeps very noisily after them. It's quite funny as she sleeps very quietly before, but afterwards I'm having trouble believing she's actually asleep and have to keep checking on her.

A couple of strokes on the head usually calm her a bit, and I like it that, thanks to the co-sleeper, I can reach her from my bed - although this is probably a matter of taste, it might equally work to have her a bit further away so I wouldn't hear her growling and tossing about.

But I prefer having her really close so I can be sure she's fine, especially now when everyone in the family has a bit of a runny nose and tummy aches ...

Not feeling well

Poor Silja is now paying the price for all the loving care she gets from her big brother and sister, as she also gets all their germs.

A simple baby cold really; her nose is full of nasty snot but not completely blocked, so she doesn't have too much trouble eating or sleeping, but makes a lot of rather worrying sounds when breathing.

I just give her one or two drops of saline solution into each nostril when it gets bad, and that seems to help her cough out the worst bits.

The tummy bug also passed her by quite uneventfully, although the rest of the family had a harder time. I was awfully sick most of the night on Saturday - not a terribly good idea when breastfeeding - but she didn't even wake up.

However, on Sunday she was spectacularly sick just once. She was lying on her back when she suddenly went off like a fountain and spurted out what looked like at least a litre of curdled milk, both through her mouth and nose.

The good thing about this was that it completely cleared her nose and she slept particularly soundly that night. The bad part was that it also completely emptied her digestive track, and getting used to digesting and pooing again seems very hard work.

She clearly had some tummy pains last night and although she went to sleep quite calmly in her cot, she was up every couple of hours - I think, I was so tired at one point that I wasn't sure if I was awake or dreaming - crying and clearly in pain ...

She didn't even want to feed straight away, which was a shock to me as I'm used to dealing with every upset by putting a nipple in her mouth.

I'm just hoping this was a one-off - although this morning she seemed a bit unsettled - and that she'll be fine by tonight.

It's been lovely to see how her dad and the big kids enjoy her more now that, seven weeks old, she's starting to respond to them, and although she's being very brave even when uncomfortable, it would be nice to have her back to her happy self very soon.

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