to my surprise, amani's journey to her second month have been pretty full of development. if i was going back to work, i would be all relaxed and happy. the biggest gift she gave me was foregoing her night feed. ya Allah...words cant describe how happy she made me when she slept through the night.
i have mentally prepared myself for 6 months of night feeding, the abangs and amira would generally stop night feeding once they started weaning (all except asyraf because he's just asyraf). i was even prepared for later than that seeing that amani was feeding every single hour initially...you never know right, what if she just has a big appetite.
once amani turned 6 weeks, almost 7 weeks, however, she slowly adjusted to the night and day feeding time. she would spread her feed to once every 5 hours, although her daytime feed would maintain at once every 3-4 hours. she would have a bottle at 11pm, and wake up after 5am for her next feed. that gave me the opportunity to prepare abangs lunch boxes every morning.
i was already a zombie and falling asleep while feeding her at night, so to move from hourly night feeds to just one feed is wonderful. then she was a bit fussy from the late night 11pm feed so i moved the feed earlier to 10pm. that gave me to chance to go back to my normal bedtime. i predicted a 3am wake up call but it never came. i would wake up and look at her, shake her a bit and waited. but she continued sleeping and finally woke up for a feed at 5.30am. that carried on for a few days before i can actually say...ok, this is good. i was afraid it was a fluke but alhamudillah, its been 2 weeks without night feed. thank you baby girl.
i believe the main reason for amani sleeping through the night is her weight. she's put on quite a bit of weight and is able to consume a full 4oz bottle and that would last her for hours. she's also gotten used to the cold aircond-ed room. she loves to be swaddled as she goes to sleep but wont be woken by the swaddle blanket being kicked open.
its so lovely to hug and snuggle amani now. she's a big fluffy baby and lost the wrinkly skin appearance she had that first month. i've had to keep her newborn clothes back into the storage box and take out the 3months clothes for her to wear. its of course still loose but i'm guessing it wont be for long.
we shaved off her hair recently. she looked a bit uncomfortable as the days got hotter and have been perspiring quite a bit. her hair did not smell very good and i was itching to wash her scalp. she was quite ok during the shave and looked so fresh after all the hair was gone.
amani's still the screaming amani. if she's not sleeping or feeding or held in someone's arms, she'll be screaming. and she screams loud! that's another countdown i'm making...less of screaming and crying and more of interacting. hope stage that comes soon...
how amani spends her days...
