So as some of you may know, lil' Monkey is already a whopping 15 lbs, 2 ounces. He's been steadily gaining about half a pound a week. According to all of the books I read, he's supposed to be gaining about 1 - 1 1/2 pounds. per month at this point. So this means he's gaining a half pound more than the greater end of those numbers.
Also, as some of you may know, being the daughter of my mother (whom some of you know) , I am inheritly a worry-wart. I've tried to dampen those impulses as to not cause undue stress on DH, Monkey and myself but it's hard. Having a child lends itself to this impulse to worry about everything. "He has a stuffy nose ... is it just the usual baby snottiness or a cold?" "Okay, he's latched-on, he's eating well ... is he eating too well?" "He's stopped grunting in his crib ... is he still alive?" You get the picture.
Now I'm worried about him eating too much. My cues of when he needs to eat have been messed up lately by the fact that he's started to suck on his fist. (BTW, his new name is "Slobbers on Fist". 
) So during the day, it seems like I'm feeding him everytime he begins to hanker down on his fist like it's best thing since sliced bread.
Then we started with a routine about a month ago which includes a bottle of half and half. Half breastmilk and half formula, with the expectation that the formula will help him go the extra mile and let us sleep in a little longer. And it's worked! He falls asleep by 9 pm usually and I have until 3 am, maybe if I'm lucky 5 am, to sleep or do work or write in this blog! We fill the bottle up with 7 ounces and expect him to finish at least 5 of that. If he doesn't, we're paranoid he'll be up by midnight and we try to feed him some more.
I just read doing that is bad. It leads to obesity later in life because they're already eating to satiate themselves to that extended point. GREAT. Now what? So I've taken to letting him eat as much as he wants, then putting him to bed. Giving him a little time and sometimes he wakes back up ready to eat within a half hour (snacking is the term I believe). If he doesn't wake up for that second dose of food within a half hour, we wake him up. I KNOW, I KNOW. I can hear some of you shrieking in horror at that one. But now that I'm working from home, I've got to A) get some work done, B) have some ME time to do things like this and C) most importantly, get some rest.
You know what would solve this? Winning the lottery. Then neither of us would have to work and Monkey could feed anytime he wanted. Oh who am I kidding?! I'd still need a routine to be sane.
Okay, good people! I've got to pump then hit the hay!
