Click here to see the entire “Watch me Grow” series.

Also, his diaper rash is still pretty bad and he screams every time I clean him with a baby wipe so I’m making some cloth ones with a gentler solution. I hope this helps.

Is is the slightly edited version of the ceremony.

One of the main reasons behind eat-awake-sleep rather than eat-sleep-awake is developing good sleep habits. If you always let a baby sleep right after he eats, he learns that the way to fall asleep is to eat first, and you’ve created a baby who NEEDS a boob or a bottle to fall asleep. This is a problem when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night before it’s time to eat again. It’s an even bigger problem when the child outgrows a bottle and hasn’t had a chance to learn how to go to sleep on his own.

If you keep the baby awake after he eats, have some playtime, and then put him to sleep, you have the chance to create good sleep habits. In our household we’ve decided a good sleep routine is reading a book in the rocking chair, a few minutes of cuddle time, and then laying him in the crib. The key is to put him in the crib while he’s still awake. If I were to rock him to sleep then he would NEED to be rocked to go to sleep. If I put him in the crib while he’s still awake he learns how to soothe himself and go to sleep on his own.

Really good plan, right?

I implemented the eat-awake-sleep routine a week ago Wednesday. Elijah hated it. For his entire life I let him sleep after nursing and now I was trying to keep him awake. It was really hard. I took his clothes off. I tickled his toes. I touched my glass of ice water so my hands were cold and I ran them over his back. I took him outside. I tried everything I could to keep him awake … and I was only aiming for 15 minutes past the feeding!!! Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of torturing my kid, he wasn’t interested in sleeping and only wanted to cry at me. 3 hours later I fed him again and he wanted to go to sleep even more this time after being awake for 3 hours. Once again I kept him awake. Once again his gave up and just cried. We did this all day long. It was a very hard day. Andy and I spent a lot of time that night debating if we were doing the right thing. We both feel like we have good instincts and it went against our instincts to keep him awake when he wanted to sleep. I had no idea if I was going to continue this the next day.

I have completely lucked out in having a baby who knows the difference between night and day and is willing to sleep at night. I was worried that the new schedule would mess this up, but around 10pm I fed him, rocked him, gave him some kisses to wake him up just a bit and put him in his crib. He slept for four hours. I repeated the feeding, rocking, kissing, crib and he repeated sleeping for four hours. Bless his heart.

As I was giving him his morning feeding I had no idea what I was going to do. Do I keep him awake? The pediatrician said this was a good plan. I REALLY want a child with good sleep habits. Kids who sleep better do better in school and are more emotionally stable. Or do I let him sleep? He’s tired! Tired babies should sleep.

When I finished feeding him I burped him and looked at him, still not knowing what I was going to do. And he opened his eyes and looked at me. He stayed awake on his own for about an hour, not exactly happy but awake and not crying. When I noticed him yawning I took him to his room, rocked him, and put him in his crib. He slept for nearly 2 hours. I was on my knees thanking God. This was the validation I needed. We HAD made the right choice with this routine!

His second feeding was harder, he was sleepy and his eyes were drooping but he didn’t want to sleep alone. A friend came over to visit and we sat on the deck with Eli in his car seat and he fell asleep to the sound of the cars. The rest of the day was pretty good. There were a few time I had to remind him to stay awake after eating, but it was nothing like yesterday. There were a few times he wouldn’t go to sleep on his own … but I’m willing to be flexible on this during the day. I’ll carry him in the Moby or let him sleep in the car seat during the day so long as ALL his night sleeps are in the crib.

Friday through Sunday we were all messed up. He was dedicated at church on Sunday so I had family in town. Elijah spent most of the weekend being snuggled.

Monday I got us back in the routine and we did pretty good this week! I feed him and burp him. Then I snuggle him for a little bit while he dozes. This doesn’t last long, maybe 5 minutes. Then he wakes up and we play. He’s great in the morning, he’ll be happy in just about any position I put him in. And he’ll be ready for a nap after about an hour and a half. I’ll rock him and put him in his crib, still awake, and he’ll fall asleep on his own. As the day wears on he wears out. He’ll be less interested in playing and will only want to be held. He’ll usually skip about one nap a day, staying awake for the whole three hours until it’s time to eat again. This is ok, the routine is flexible.

I try to make sure that every time I put him in his crib that he’s awake. If we go for a walk and he falls asleep, I take him out of his car seat and carry him to his crib, which wakes him up. I really want him to be good at going to sleep by himself in his crib. Sometimes I cheat. If I need to make dinner and he’s fallen asleep in his bouncer, I’m likely to let him stay so I can finish dinner. But he’s getting a whole lot of practice in his crib and is really good at night, so I think this is ok.

I’ve noticed his grumpy time is shorter AND he’s less grumpy during that time. Most of the time. Tuesday night around 8 pm he cried for nearly 30 minutes. I have no idea why. This was the longest stretch he’s ever cried and it had both me and Andy close to tears.

Thankfully he continues to sleep well at night! He wakes up to eat and then goes right back to sleep. This is such a blessing!

This weekend we’re spending time with our extended family and I’m not going to enforce a routine. We’ll start up again next week. I’m going to keep trying the “eat-awake-sleep” during the day and I think it’s going to work out for us.

Elijah is one month old! I can’t believe how time has flown.

He had his one month Well Baby visit on Monday. He continues to be perfect

To recap his health, when Elijah was born his APGAR scores were 9 at 1 minute and 10 at 5 minutes. The exam was completely normal. As the day progressed he acted just like a newborn should act. His skin started to show a little bit of jaundice, so I was encouraged to feed him a bit more often. He was tired (as all newborns are) so this was a challenge. Monday evening (his second day of life) they did a screen for jaundice and he failed it, so they added a diagnostic test for jaundice that they performed with the standard heel prick for the Minnesota Newborn Screen. His biliruben levels were higher than normal, but not high enough to need to be treated with “bili lights.” Andy stayed with Elijah during these test and said that Eli did great!

The next morning they did another blood test and his levels were again high but still not high enough to need lights. Elijah also got another exam by the pediatrician and was proclaimed to be perfect. He saw an audiologist and passed his hearing test. Both of us were released from the hospital.

We had a pediatrician appointment the next day, and he was still a perfect newborn baby. She recommended we give him Vitamin D (liquid in a dropper), but it isn’t necessary. Another blood test for jaundice, another diagnose of “high, but not high enough to need treatment”. We came back the following day and they didn’t need to do a blood test, the doctor was able to just look at him and see that he was doing better. One more appointment, that Monday, and it was proclaimed that he cleared the jaundice.

His one month visit was Monday. He has a little hernia under his belly button, this isn’t a big deal and will heal on it’s own. The jaundice is completely gone. He has a yeast infection on his bottom. Andy and I thought it was a diaper rash and had been treating it with Desitin. Now that we know it’s yeast we’re using an anti-fungal and it’s getting better. My poor baby, it looks so painful!

Eli is healthy and doing everything he’s suppose to do. They weigh him at every visit, I love seeing these numbers! Since I’m exclusively breastfeeding him it’s very validating to see how much he’s grown .

Elijah’s stats when he was born:
Weight: 2.94 kg (6 lb 7.9 oz), 16th percentile
Length: 47 cm (18.5 inches), 14th percentile
Head Circumference: 33 cm (13 inches), 9th percentile

His one month stats:
Weight: 3.80 kg (8 lb 6 oz), 23rd percentile
Length: 51.90 cm (20.4 inches), 21st percentile
Head Circumference: 36.70 cm (14.4 inches), 26th percentile

Elijah is still wearing Newborn sized diapers. He’s wearing newborn and 0-3 month clothes. He loves breast milk and has never turned it down. He doesn’t like his vitamin D drops. He doesn’t like the bathtub but doesn’t mind being held under running water. He likes his bouncer seat but thinks the swing moves a little too fast. Car rides are very enjoyable. He puts up a fuss when we swaddle him, but then sleeps so well swaddled. He can move his head around when he’s upright, and can lift it a little bit when he’s on his tummy. He moves his hands all the time and has a good grasp reflex. I think he’s starting to move his hands with a bit of intent. He’s a strong and efficient eater. He has a tremendously strong suck. He really likes his pacifier, and it sometimes appears like he’s trying to use his hands to hold his pacifier in his mouth. He shows a little more interest in people’s faces than other things and he’s starting to track objects. And he smiled! I love that he smiled at me and I’m looking forward to many many more of those.

Friday night was a Gold Star night for our feeding plan. I fed the baby around midnight and went to sleep. Andy gave the baby a bottle of breast milk around 3:30 am and put him to sleep. Elijah will often wake up slowly. I heard him starting to wake up around 7 am. I got out of bed and pumped a little milk so I wasn’t too engorged for him, I made myself breakfast and opened the blinds to let the sun in. Around 7:30 am (four hours after his last feeding!) I got my son out of bed and fed him. I got nearly 7 hours of sleep! It was awesome. The last few nights haven’t worked out quite so smoothly, but we’re definitely on to something good.

I can say, with a good amount of confidence, that I would not still be breastfeeding if we hadn’t found a way to stretch out the downtime and make feedings more predictable. Those first two weeks when he was eating anywhere between every 30 minutes to 2 hours nearly killed me. I would not have been able to continue that. Now I can feed him and go do something, knowing I have at least 2 hours before I’m needed again. This means that Eli and I can run to Target, or I can leave him with Andy and I can go by myself. I need this predictability and freedom. I was feeling tied to my kid in a burdensome way. I’m still tied to him, but I can handle it now.

On the subject of breastfeeding, I totally understand why people quit this so soon. It’s hard. Really hard. And something I have to do all by myself. People can give advice and keep me company, but I can’t declare that I’ve had enough and expect Andy to take over. Also, it still hurts. It hurts every time he latches on. I’ve heard this is common but goes away for most people by now. I still have that pain, but it only lasts about 30 seconds. However, last Thursday I started having pain in the middle of a feeding. It was unbearable so I detached Eli and gave him the other breast. This has happened for about half the feedings since then. I saw a lactation consultant today and she gave me some ideas to fix this. I’m hoping I can find a way to get rid of this pain, I’d like to nurse Elijah for at least a year.