4:21

This post is mostly about nursing, weaning, and sleeping, so don't read it if you are not comfortable with those things.

4:21 has some significance in the MOJO family.  First, Jason and I were married on April 21.  In our dorky way, when we see 4:21 on the clock we use it as an excuse to get in a quick smooch and celebrate our anniversary (I know, I know, we're losers).

When I was pregnant with Rachel, even in the first few days of pregnancy, I was woken up at about 4am and had trouble going back to sleep.  I even took my pregnancy test to confirm that I was pregnant with her just after 4am, and we had a little party celebrating the positive test at 4:21am.  This was the end of any hope I ever had of being a late night party girl.  Throughout my whole pregnancy, which was a good one, Rachel the baby continued to wake me up early.

Now Rachel is almost 16 months old.  She is often awake at 4:21am.  This is our biggest sleep issue and source of frustration at our house.  It feels like we've tired many things, but we just can't seem to convince her that the day should start later than that.  We've put her to bed later.  We've put her to bed earlier.  We've let her cry in her room for an hour or more at a time many, many times.  She even manages to do this when we're in different time zones.  So our time zone has shifted to sleep early and wake early.

On a good night, we go to bed at about 9:30pm.  Rachel often sleeps through until sometime between 4:20 and 4:45am and I get up and nurse her.  (Jason thinks the 'sleeping through' only happens 1/3 nights but I think and hope it's more often than that.)  I don't feed her during other night wakings but I do feed her for this one because we can then go back to sleep for a little bit.  Jason gets up for work at 5:20am.  Rachel will often sleep again until 6am or 6:30am.  I often nurse her again here, and then again before bed.  She still wants an afternoon nursing session, but we gave this up over Christmas holidays and she's still not quite accepting it.

Sidetrack: (Cuteness note) when we go into Rachel's room at the 6am wake up, she says the following words: 'NuNu', 'Bear', 'Baby', 'Mama', 'Dadda, 'Milk', and then either 'Book' or 'PLAY!!!' as she's diving out of our arms toward some toy.  Her favorite toys right now include playing dress up and stacking a tower.  I'm pretty proud that she can build a tower of 5 blocks all by herself.

Rachel has about 30 min quiet time in the morning around 7:30 or 8am and then naps for about 60-90 min in the afternoon.  She goes to bed at 7:30pm.  I am jealous of those other moms who tell me their baby sleeps for 12 hours solid every night and naps for at least 2 hours every day.  I also know other parents who wake many times a night, and know that we are somewhere in the middle.  Two nights ago, Rachel was up a few times and she cried from 3:30am-4:45am before I gave in and nursed her.

So... what happens next?  Our next project with Rachel is weaning her from the breast.  I have mixed feelings about this as I enjoy nursing her, I know she still wants to nurse frequently, and I believe that it's good for her.  But I'm going away in March and starting work soon.  She won't take a bottle anymore.  The recommendation is to slowly remove one feeding at a time when life is stable and no major changes are happening.  To me, that means I had better do this now since we're relatively stable right now and I'd like her to be completely off breast milk by the time I go to Vegas March 2nd.  That will be my first night ever without Rachel and I'd like it not to be too horrible for Jason, for Rachel, or for me!

So starting Saturday, I will remove morning feeds and continue to nurse Rachel only at bedtime.  Our hope is to do this for one week before then taking away the bedtime feed, and no longer nurse at all.  We are starting this on a weekend with no major plans as we expect this to me waking up at 4:21am from now on... although we hope, in the long run, Rachel will learn to sleep longer each morning and let us return to normal adult sleep schedules.

We will keep you posted on how we do!