The King's: The Baby Whisperer

Ingrid and I brought in some outside assistance to try and help Max get into a better, more consistent feeding and sleeping routine. A friend of mine from work had used...hang on wait for it...someone called "The Baby Whisperer" (TBW) when she was having problems with her own baby last year - and she swore black and blue it was the best thing she'd ever done!

So Kate, TBW arrived on Sunday morning and immediately looked concerned at Max's weight - she thought he was extremely small and had very little fat on his face - her first words - "he's not getting enough food" (and here Ingrid and I thought he was turning into a little fatty!) - Basically, TBW determined Max was missing the equivalent of one entire feed over the course of 24 hours - so she designed a very strict plan that we had to put in place over the following 3 days - it involved Ingrid having to express everyday rather than breastfeeding, and giving Max exact amounts of milk (both breast and formula)-...and then waking him / putting him down at exact times during the day and night - and not deviating from the plan. The first 24 hours into it were absolutely disastrous...Max became hysterical at one point and we both wondered what the hell we had done!...thankfully, Max was a little better the next day, and now it's nearing the end of day 3 and touch wood, he's settled and sleeping very well. I must admit, we were hoping Max would start sleeping 8 hours overnight, but apparently 7-weeks old is far too early and unhealthy for that sort of carry on...(bugger!) - so now I'm doing the 10:30pm feed and Ingrid does the horrid 4:30am feed - but at least Ingrid can get around 6-7 hours sleep uninterrupted overnight. As stupid as "a baby whisperer"sounds though - she does seem to know her stuff - and the photo below shows just how happy Max has become in 3 days.