"Tell me again why we decided to have a baby?"

No, don't be alarmed, neither of us are feeling suicidal or murderous. :)

It's just that, when you're desperately trying to get XP to calm down at 3.30am in the morning so that he will stop crying, so that he will feed, so that he won't be hungry, which is why he was crying in the first place, it can get to you. I asked this question to Lovebell last night and she replied, "Because we love each other" or something to that effect. I was delirious from lack of sleep then and might have misunderstood her. :P

Lovebell and I have only been looking after XP in our bedroom for the last three nights, and it has been challenging, to say the least. On the first night, we made many mistakes and Lovebell ended up changing his clothes three times within the night. On the second night, we learnt from those mistakes, and we ended up having a pretty "steady" night until 3.30am.

The thing about XP is his impatience. When he is hungry, he will start crying. And if he does not get any food within 5 minutes, he will start yelling. And when he is yelling, he will not feed. AND so because he is still hungry, he will continue yelling. And no amount of shoving the milk bottle in his mouth will get him to suck, because he is not yet sentient and can only react to stimuli.

The only way to stop his crying and get him to feed is to first calm him down. But no matter how we hold him, how we hug him, how we pat his bum, or sayang him, he will not stop yelling. Only in the arms of our confinement nanny will he stop. And it's not even like she holds him any differently, I think it's just a matter of chubby arms (or maybe confidence).

To cut a long story short, Lovebell and I tried to calm him down last night for 45 minutes to no avail, in the end, Lovebell succumbed and went to ask our nanny to help. Within 3 minutes of her holding him, he stopped yelling.

Sigh.

If you're wondering what his nightly schedule is like, here's a short summary.

As I write, the cycle is starting. He has started crying (not yelling, thank heavens) and the feed is beginning.

9.30pm - Feed
9.40pm - Mid-feeding burp
9.50pm - resume feed
10.00pm - Finish feed burp (IF NOTHING HAPPENS IN BETWEEN, like pooping or crying from uncomfortable gas)
10.15pm - Sayang for bedtime
10.30pm (if we're lucky) - Falls asleep

Depending on whether he poops or pukes, that will shorten the amount of time in between feeding as it reduces the milk in his belly.

If nothing happens, cycle starts again at about 12 midnight.
Finish cycle at 1am

New cycle at about 3am till 4am. This is usually also the time when his diaper will be soaked through and/or he's pooped so he needs changing. Oh, and when you change his diaper, the movement will cause him to cry, thereby interrupting the feed, and since he is still hungry, esp. if the movement causes him to puke up some milk. This is where we ran into trouble last night. He refused to go back to drinking after we were slow to burp him and caused him to cry from the gas problems.

After all that, at around 4am, he won't go back to sleep cos he's been asleep the last 8 hours, if you include his feeding time, cos he's half asleep when he sucks.

*Yawn*

Anyway, Lovebell was incredibly smart to start this on the Friday night of a long weekend so that I may have some time to recover in between. Hopefully, tonight we will survive this and that our love for XP (AND EACH OTHER) will continue to help us get through this.

Really, all that keeps us going is our love for XP, our love for one another, and pure adrenaline.

SO dear friends, please stand by us for the next 2 months ok? Donations of Illy coffee powder always appreciated. :P