Olga took Lara to the clinic today to get her weighed - it's been three weeks since her last weigh in. In that time she's put on 1 pound, so now she's 18lbs 11oz or 8.48kg, which is very good news. In the 6 weeks prior to her previous weigh in, she hadn't put any weight on at all, and this took her below the 25th percentile. This new weight gain in the last three weeks has taken back above the 25th line, and means what we're feeding her - a mixture of mum's milk, jar food and fresh food - is working.
We're also biting the bullet and trying to encourage her to fall back asleep herself when she wakes in the night. Previously we've "interfered" by picking her up, cuddling her, rocking her etc.. until she fell back asleep, or in extreme circumstances, or when she was ill, Olga would take Lara back to bed with her. Now we've taken the decision that we'll be in the room with her, and there might be some stroking and sshh-ing but we won't take her out of the cot unless we really have to.
We started this on Monday and so far, it seems to be working. On Monday night it took a good 45 minutes of Lara sitting up in her cot and crying while Olga watched over her before we could lie her down, and she fell asleep. That night she woke once in the middle of the night, but again rather than rush down to deal with her, we waited a few minutes and Lara got herself back to sleep. On Tuesday night Lara was able to lie down herself from a kneeling position and go to sleep, albeit on her front, so I turned her on her side, and she only woke once in the night and then some sshing worked to get her back to sleep.
Last night was the best yet - from being put in her cot at 7.30pm, we didn't need to go in and soothe her at all, and she slept until 6am, when Olga brought her to bed for a feed, and then she slept again until 8am.
It sounds cruel to sit there and listen to her cry for a long time, but actually so far, we only had to do that on Monday, for 45 minutes, and since then the crying has only been patchy and lasting a few minutes.
Famous last words...
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