Tanking up

Last night, Avtalyon slept from 1 am till 7 am.

Now, in general I would not think that this was a good thing. Newborns need to eat, often, and Avtalyon is still only five days past his due date. He's also been pretty sick. For him, not waking up to eat has been a sign that he isn't doing well, and I've been waking him up regularly if he doesn't do it himself.

But last night, I wasn't worried, because for the last few days he's gotten into a routine of tanking up in a serious way between about 7 pm and 1 am. As in, nursing about half of the time. He'll nurse seriously for twenty minutes, nap for fifteen minutes or half an hour or 45 minutes, wake up again, eat until he passes out, etc. While this practice takes a serious toll on my Lansinoh supply, it means that I am much less nervous about letting him sleep as much as he wants at night--especially since he tends to do it again, although not quite as intensely, from whenever he wakes up until about three hours later. And the fact that he turns out loaded diapers on a regular basis, and is steadily gaining an ounce or so a day, also has me less inclined to wake him.

Other nursing-related story of the day (Ellen, you will like this): this evening, Barak and Iyyar and Avtalyon and I went over to Chana's house to have the Lego party I mentioned yesterday. When we got home, it was already past bedtime (they'd had dinner there) and I was trying to move the boys along to bed as quickly as I could--when Avtalyon woke up and demanded to nurse, NOW. That happened just as Barak, who is being kind of emotionally needy lately, was hanging on me asking me to put on his pajamas (which he is perfectly capable of doing himself). I sighed inwardly. "Barak, either you can get your pajamas on yourself or Abba can do it. I have to nurse the baby now. Abba can help you put on your pajamas, but he can't nurse the baby, so I need to nurse the baby now."

Barak thought about this. "Abba can't nurse the baby 'cause he doesn't have dose," he said, putting both hands squarely on my breasts. "Abba doesn't have dose for nursing the baby."

I like to think I recovered very nicely from being, um, not groped exactly, but touched in a rather surprising way by my three-year-old. "Right, Abba doesn't have those for nursing the baby," I agreed. It actually didn't bother me at all, although Abba was slightly horrified by the story later.

Last nursing tale of the day (I promise)--earlier this week I was sitting on the floor nursing Avtalyon (like I said, I do this a lot...) when Iyyar came up to inspect the goings-on. He looked at Avtalyon, and checked out where his mouth was. He watched for a little while. He gave the matter some thought. Then he plopped down next to me, pointed at my breast, and said, absolutely clearly, "I want that!" Sorry, sweetie, your turn at that is over.