My little piggy

Leah just won't stop eating! OK, obviously I don't want her to stop eating. But whatever I thought was a growth spurt / cluster feeding / a lot of work before - this is a whole new level. For the past 2 nights she's been up about every 2 hours wanting to eat. And she's been eating for at least 30 minutes. I don't mean just sitting there pretending to eat - I mean actively eating. If I take her off after 20 minutes or so but before she's done, she'll be quiet for a couple of minutes - but then she's screaming - her hungry cry. And I have to put her back on. Sometimes I think she's done, but no, she's just nodded off for a bit and after I get her re-swaddled and try to put her down, she's giving me that hungry cry again. And during the day she's eating at least that often. Yesterday there were 2 times that she went 3 hours between feedings - but other than that it was about 1.5 hours during the day and 2 at night.

I'm seriously exhausted. Basically I haven't been able to sleep for more than an hour stretch at a time at night - by the time she eats and I get her to sleep it's been an hour or so and then she's up in an hour to eat again. Yesterday I napped for 2 hours when Shafi got home. That was somewhat helpful - but not enough to catch up on sleep. And during the day she just won't sleep in the crib - or anywhere but in my arms. At least I've figured out that even though she cries for a couple minutes when I put her in the sling, then she gets comfortable and falls asleep. So while I can't nap with her in the sling, at least I can be somewhat mobile and have both hands free - helpful for eating, doing laundry, typing, writing thank you notes.

I can't imagine that she needs to grow any faster than the pound a week she has been growing - but I don't know what else would be causing this voracious appetite. I'm just hoping it subsides soon!

This is what she looks like when she's not getting what she wants:

Still cute - but oh-so-loud!