Negotiating with a 3.5 week old baby... what the??

I've been very lucky; Brody has been on a pretty good schedule all along. However, in the last week we've changed his formula twice - once because it wasn't agreeing with him and a second time because the replacement formula was discontinued, but the local store didn't feel the need to remove it from their shelves. We've had a couple of days since those switches of grumpiness, gassiness and what I fondly call "crab-apple" behavior. All of which is completely understandable of course. Fortunately, despite being a bit of a crab-apple, Brody has stayed on schedule the entire time... Until today!

Today was our first day with daddy back at work, so last night I tried to let him sleep. Apparently Brody decided that today was also going to be his first day of hardly sleeping (I thought all newborns loved to sleep and slept constantly - clearly that is a myth). He was great during the morning - he entertained himself while I got some work done.

Right after Brody's mid-day meal of formula, I decided, okay he's ready for a nap, I'll run some errands while he snoozes in his bucket and stroller (he's great shopping company I've discovered; he never tells me something is too expensive or we don't need it like his daddy sometimes does...) Great idea. Apparently though the lack of sleep for the entire morning, continued with just a short snooze after lunch, and then perpetuated into Brody deciding he needed to eat every 2 hours for the rest of the afternoon. This was not in the plan for the day.

You see, I'm a planner. I'm a need-to-know kind of girl. Everyone had warned me that I was going to have to get over that real quick with a new baby at home. Yeah, I figured that out today.

So, after Brody letting me know very clearly at 1:45pm and 3:45 pm that he was a very hungry little boy, despite having eaten 3 oz during the prior feeding just 2 hours earlier, I somehow found myself negotiating with my 3.5 week old. Yes, you read that right; I tried negotiating with him. Clearly it was lack of sleep at its best. I said to him, out loud, "okay, mommy will happily feed you again even though you just ate 2 hours ago, but can you do me a favor? Can you eat at least 3 oz for me, and try to have it keep your tummy happy for 3 hours this time?" And then, this is the worst part, I took his tiny little hand and shook it. That's right. The exhaustion has clearly taken over my rational brain.

I told my dad a while later about this little business deal I tried to strike. I know that he was making that motion with his hand, as if to say, wow, my daughter has clearly lost it. But he humored me and said something about yeah, let me know how that works out for you...

The shocking part... my son did go at least 3 hours til his next meal. In fact, he went 4 hours. He's such a great little man! Do I ever expect him to agree to or honor a sleep-deprived negotiation again, nope. But I really appreciated it today.