Attempting to Sleep Through the Night

About two weeks ago, as per our pediatrician, we started added a bit of rice cereal to the last bottle of the night. I went out and got some organic stuff from Whole Foods and followed the doctor's instructions of putting one tablespoon of cereal per 4oz of formula (which for them is pretty much one per bottle). Well the first night poor Riv had a rough time. He woke up crying his head off six different times, from what seemed to be really bad reflux. I think it startled him awake and scared him. Poor little guy. They had eaten at an earlier time than usual (9:30) and wound up sleeping for 6 hours! Unfortunately we didn't go to bed until our usual after 11 time so I got the same amount of sleep as I usually do, but hey it was a good start!

I had talked to our pediatrician the next day (she had called for a separate reason) and mentioned how Riv did with the cereal. I told her I was going to try half the amount in his bottle that night to see if he does better and she was on board. So that night I did just that and he only woke up once crying but seemed okay the rest of the night. Once again they ate around 9:30 so they woke up around their usual 330am time for feeding. Good stretch of time, but still not doing us any good if we go to bed at our usual time.

Meanwhile Riv has had a constipation issue the past 2 weeks so we've been giving him a little plain water in his bottle once or twice a day and it helps, but the poor little guy is in excruciating pain when he finally goes and it's a hard little ball of poop so no wonder! 

So now it's been two weeks and they seem to be handling the cereal at night a bit better using only half the recommended amount. Riley had some constipation issues but seems to be doing better. She appears to have a stronger stomach than her brother. Riv has been constipated the past two weeks, going every few days. He actually had a normal poop the other day so I'm hoping that continues. I hate seeing him in so much pain! They still aren't sleeping through the night though, which was the purpose of introducing the cereal. They are hungry at weird times and have been eating earlier at night (around 930) so they fall asleep a little earlier which still puts them at waking up in the middle of the night. There was ONE night we were up late and fed them at 1030... They stayed awake until close to midnight and then didn't wake up again until 6am. But that was the closest we've gotten. Sometimes only one of them wakes up hungry in the middle of the night (surprisingly it's usually Riley, that little girl likes to eat!) but then she wakes him up so I wind up feeding both. I'm hoping they continue to have longer stretches at night because while I'm used to having little sleep now, I really miss it! LOL. 

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