alexist

I slept the entire evening. It was lovely. (Aliza was being well behaved, so all Neil had to do was change her and give her a bottle, which he'd normally do anyway.) Now Neil gets to sleep too. :) (As it happens, she's stayed good tonight, unlike last night when she was stuffed up and fussy for a few hours. But in any case, I'm awake, so I could do all the soothing.) She did cry for a few minutes when I was preparing her bottle (she started fussing a little and I went to get it ready, but I wasn't quite fast enough! Trouble with bottles...), but he's had quiet otherwise. Which he needs as he's had several bad nights this week, last night being the worst!

The thing about newborns is the short intervals--they sleep a lot, so it's less actual work than an older baby, but only for a few hours at a time. Feeds are every 3 hours. And with bottlefeeding, it's worse, because you have to get up, heat the bottle, feed the baby--takes half an hour. With breastfeeding, it's much quicker and you can even stay in bed once you get the knack. Also, the whole procedure of preparing the bottle wakes you up, so you get only 2 hours sleep at a time. It's a little better for me, because I can take advantage of the day, but for Neil, it's awful. He doesn't do night feeds on weeknights, but he still gets woken if she wakes up and cries (they don't settle on a routine straight away, even for bottle feeding, so they can decide they want the bottle earlier than expected and cry for it). When they get older, you're exhausted during the day, but your sleep is solid, so it's better.

Griping aside, feeding time has its upsides. It is nice to just sit there and cuddle her while she has her milk :)

They are discontinuing Eukanuba Cat :-( (Although they then referred me to zooplus.com for "imports" so I don't know if it's UK only or not... although Zooplus doesn't have it in anyway. it's still listed on US sites. who knows.)

Looks like Zoe will be on Science Diet now. They did give me a spiel about regular Iams which I found amusing--first spend years touting the superiority of the Eukanuba range, now try to tell me the Iams supermarket range is just as good! (My vet said the Eukanuba range was actually better; I'll trust him over marketing. He also recommends Science Diet, so that's what Zoe will get.)