Screech

No, I'm not referring to the dude from 'Saved By The Bell' (although, for name-dropping sake, Kelly Kapowski was in my prenatal yoga classes.) Screech is Hunter's new nickname. Or Shrieky, McScreamy, etc.-you get my drift. The kid has learned to scream and it is ear piercing and migraine inducing at the very least. Now that he's learned how to do it that's all he wants to do.

He started out with a little screech only a few days ago. And he would smile and shriek and it was so damn cute. Now he's learned that it really gets our attention, so he cries and shrieks and I'm sure the neighbors think we're torturing him or that we've adopted baby pterodactyls. And instead of getting a little fussy before naps he now gets all shrieky and I'm about ready to pull my hair out.

We're still not doing the best with sleep and I'm wondering if I should start sleep training. We're doing 2 feedings a night which is fine, but he's having a hard time with naps now too. Which was never a problem before, he was a GREAT napper. And I KNOW it's due in part to the pre-teething (still no visible white caps) but we've tried a lot of the remedies and they haven't helped much. I finally broke down and gave him some acetaminophen today. He needed to sleep and boy did it help.

And I need to get his naps back on track too, because I know good sleep begets good sleep. And it is so hard with Adam working at home. Rock music is not conducive to napping. Hunter slept so soundly as a newborn, but he is a much softer sleeper at the ripe age of 4 months.

But back to the sleep training. I feel like he's definitely ready to be at 1 feeding a night. He was there for over a month and the teething seemed to change it. It could have been a growth spurt but those usually only last 2-3 days, a week tops. I hate the idea of letting him cry it out. Some of the methods require letting the kid cry for 5 minutes. My uterus twists after 20 seconds. I also tried dream feeding before this change to help him sleep through the night but didn't seem to help much. I may try it again to see if we can get back to one feeding.

I think it's definitely too early to wean feedings all together. It's clear he still needs some extra calories at night. But maybe the extra feed just needs to be replaced with something else that's soothing. I wish he would take a pacifier, but screech is still a lazy sucker!

xoxo,

(Yawn)

Lauren