Year: 2005

As I have mentioned yesterday, Maxim is not sleeping very well during the last couple of days. It’s not that big of a problem except for all three of us (my mother, Olga and me) behaving totally weird. We instantly forget what we were doing. We stop talking in the middle of the sentense. We drop everything we touch. We use sugar instead of salt and pepper instead of sugar. We all have red tired eyes. We all want to sleep.

Although a couple of days don’t seem like a long enough period, we are trying everything and anything we can think of to calm Maxim down and make him sleep for at least two and a half hours at a time. After yet another feeding today he wasn’t going to sleep, so I took him for a walk. We went on the balcony. Originally I planned to spend 10 or 15 minutes outside, which should have been more than enough to calm him down a bit. But when he fell asleep after three minutes of fresh air, I suddenly remembered that many parents recommend taking the kid outside for a better sleep. So we brought the cradle and put Maxim in it, covering him with a few rugs and blankets. He slept for 3.5 hours straight.

It was getting cold and dark outside when we decided to bring him back in. He stayed calm for another 20 or 30 minutes and than politely requested to be changed and fed. Now that’s a change! I will practice the outside therapy on him for another few days just to see if there are any changes to his sleeping trends.

Meanwhile, Maxim is three weeks old. This is yet another milestone.

For the last 6 days Maxim was cutting on the number of his feedings. He went from his usual 4 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 2 dinners (8 meals) to a slightly easier 3 breakfasts 2 lunches and 2 dinners (7 meals). Probably he wasn’t eating any less, but just less often. His sucking powers increase from day to day.

Today though he was misbehaving throughout the day. There was probably too much gases accumulating in his guts, so he couldn’t sleep. He was crying and moving all the time which is one sure way to make him hunger. He went back to his 8 meals a day routine.

I was calming him down, when I remembered that I read somewhere that one can use the finger instead of the nipple to calm the baby down without feeding him. I was anxious. I washed my hands, checked my nails and put touch Maxim’s lips with my index finger. He immideately “ate” it and started sucking it. I was surprised about how much power a small baby like him can generate. He basically controlled my finger. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t pull it out of his mouth. I couldn’t turn it. I couldn’t bend it. It wasn’t painful or scary though. It was weird. He lost interest in my finger in about 10 seconds and released me.

Crying continued…