Challenges of the week

1. Exercising every day. I'm not demanding too much of myself here -- twenty minutes or more, just to get back into the habit.

2. Learning how to play "The Entertainer" on the keyboard. I've been at it for days and I still suck. X doesn't seem to mind.

3. Eliminating X's 3 a.m. feeding. This is the big one.

For a long time X didn't have very consistent sleep patterns -- he'd wake up once, twice, or three times, and not always at the same times. It seemed like he was moving toward waking up once a night, around 3 a.m. But for the past couple of weeks, it's been 11 and 3 every night, meaning he's feeding every four hours around the clock. I know he's big enough now that he should be able to miss a feeding with no problem, so my goal is to give him a dream feed and not feed him again until the next morning.

The first two nights I managed to delay him for an hour or so, but ended up feeding him. The first night I unlatched him the second he stopped actively eating, and the second night I only nursed him from one side and then put him back to bed. Last night I was in his room from 3:30 until 6, but when the sun came up I declared victory. He went from 11 to 7:15 without eating! And unlike the first two nights, I didn't have to take him out of the crib to soothe him (which is counterproductive because then his face is right next to the food source), even though I lost track of the number of times I gave him his pacifier, swaddled him back up, and patted and shushed him back to sleep.

I'm hoping he'll catch on and stop waking up for that feeding. Meanwhile, I'm probably in for a few more sleepless nights.