Aghhhhhhhhh….the 7-10 day growth spurt.  It IS a thing!  It’s a way to remind a new parent that there is nothing predictable about your newborn baby, so don’t try it!  Here is our timeline from birth to date assessed by parent sleepiness levels 🙂

The first 48 hours.  You get home from the hospital and you are exhausted.  There is no catching any Zzzzzs when you are recovering from child birth at a hospital.  For the first 24 hours , every two hours the nurses were checking my vitals as well as my baby’s.  Because Aviana arrived into this world just 5lbs 1oz (less than 1 percentile for weight) she had to have her blood sugar levels checked every two hours just before being breast fed.  This meant probably only 60-75 minutes of rest if I was lucky between feeds.

Parent Sleepiness Level = Super Sleepy

48 -72 hours  later.  You spend the next few days after arriving home trying to figure stuff out.  If your newborn baby is like ours at 72 hours old she will probably still want to be held, swaddled and shushed constantly in addition to needing to be fed every 2-3 hours (in our case she had to be fed every 2 hours because she was so small). I woke up to find that Chris and briefly dozed off with Aviana sleeping on his chest.  I quietly freaked out a bit at the prospect of our newborn baby suffocating her first night home.  But realizing that this was actually inevitable when your baby wants to be held constantly, I crept to his side of the bed and picked up Aviana trying not to wake either of them up.  All of a sudden I am super alert and feeling protective.  This must be the adrenaline kicking in!

Parent Sleepiness Level = Extremely Hyper

Days 4-8.  Aviana started to sleep on her own in her crib, and although we still had to wake her up every 2 hours she was sleeping like a trooper.  Huh!  This parenting thing isn’t so bad after all.  She sleeps for an hour, eats for half an hour, poops and coos for like 5-10 minutes.  WE’VE GOT THIS!!!!! People come to visit us, we make it out to the shops, we even make it out to a breakfast diner for my birthday for pancakes!

Parent Sleepiness Level = Slightly Sleepy

Days 8-11.  Who is this hungry caterpillar we have spawned??! I literally just fed you Aviana 20 minutes ago, and you want to eat again! That’s impossible!  Where is it all going?  Ohhhhhh, yup, *liquidy poo sound comes from baby* there it is – it’s one in one out! Aviana no longer wants to sleep, but just eat and poop. And fuss! Fortunately she isn’t a big crier, but it is hard to hear your baby get upset for seemingly no reason.  Those preemie clothes we bought 5 days ago?  She no longer fits in them length wise, but doesn’t fit into her newborn clothes yet.  What is this magic? This must be the 7-10 day growth spurt they talk about.  The pediatrician says we can now move to 3 hour feedings at night time because she has put all her birth weight back on (and more!), but we don’t get that opportunity because she just wants to EAT!!! Breastfeeding makes a mum sleepy enough as it is, put that with back to back sessions…and you get….

Parent Sleepiness Level = Cranky/Knock Out

Days 12 +.  Who is this sleeping angel?   She is a different baby!!  We are back to having to wake her up for her feeds, but that is OK, because she is an adorable sweet heart.  Now, can this last until her next growth spurt? 6 to 8 weeks?  OK lets bring this sleepiness level down.  You can store up sleep right?!?!

Parent Sleepiness Level = Cranky/Knock Out