Mama Monday Disclaimer: I am nowhere near an expert mom. I am on a mama journey just like all of you are. However, I'm more than willing to share my experience with you guys. If today's topic is something that you have an experience with then I hope you'll share too...either on your own blog (be sure to leave us a link) or in the comments section.
Sleep. Mmmmmm, glorious sleep! I could talk about this all day. There are a lot of things I stress about as a mama but sleep has never been one of them (theirs OR mine). I realize that this isn't the case though for lots of you out there...nothing can get a mama riled up like her not-sleeping baby! So I hope this post, the buddy posts, and the comments will help those of you who might be struggling with this issue. Let me start by saying where we are and then I'll list some ways that we got there. Ephraim sleeps for 12 hours straight every night starting at 6:30 or 7:00. He takes three naps during the day that each range from 45 minutes to over two hours. Sarah sleeps for about 11 hours each night starting around 7:30. She takes one nap in the afternoon for about an hour and a half.
List form seems to work well for MM so here it goes:
1. Swaddling. We have always swaddled our babies from the time they were in the hospital until they find their hands (around 2-3 months). We always swaddled with two thin thermal blankets (a tip learned from J.J.) One thing I realized early on though was that swaddling did nothing but tick the kiddos off unless it was done right...and right=TIGHT. There are a handful of things that I know I do well and one of them is swaddling a baby. Maybe I should add that to my profile...master swaddler. I'm willing to make and post a video if anyone is struggling with this and would like to see it in action! When Hayden was first born and I visited him in the hospital I swaddled him up as a nurse walked in. She took one look at him and said to me, "you must be a nurse." To which I responded, "nope, just a mommy!" :) At any rate, swaddling has always worked for us. Let me add though that "worked for us" doesn't actually translate too "babies always liked it and cooed and babbled up at my adoringly as I wrapped them tighter than a bandito burrito." Which brings me to my next point...
2. Crying. When it comes to sleep I have always been able to keep in perspective that *I* know best what my babies need. They have often fought it and cried about it and I'm totally okay with that. I don't think teeny tiny babies really benefit from lots of crying but between birth and like 2-3 months I totally think it's okay to let them fuss for a couple of minutes during a nap(probably not more than five) to give them a chance to calm themselves down. Occassionally it will work, usually it won't, but giving them the opportunity to soothe themselves back to sleep will only be good for them (and you!) in the long term.
5. Noise. I realize that some people are really anti-white noise but it's always worked for us. With Sarah we ran a humidifier everytime she slept...partly for the humming but also because of the horribly dry air in Colorado. We do the same thing for Ephraim now. Sarah still sleeps with a small fan in her room that runs for background noise but she can totally go to sleep without it. In the beginning it was one of the strongest sleep cues for both of our kids and Ephraim still depends on it for a strong cue. As soon as I bring him in his room, turn the lights off and start the humidifier his thumb goes straight into his mouth...sleep time!
6. Sleep cues. Let's face it, these little creatures are trainable...probably even more so than adults. The more cues we give them that it's time for sleep, the easier it will be for them to rest well. And that means ROUTINE. Our nightime routine has always included a bath, books, and then a feeding before sleep. We bathe both of them every night and I really thinks it helps them wind down and know what's coming next. For naptime Ephraim's sleep cues go like this: walk in the room, turn the lights off, draw the curtains, turn on the humidifier, swaddle from the waist down and lay down in the crib. Even though all of that takes 10 seconds or less by the time I lay him down he knows that it's time for sleep. Of course, he didn't know this in the beginning but after weeks and weeks and months and months of the same thing he's totally trained. He goes to sleep without a peep about 99% of the time.
7. The first 3 months. I always soothed my babies to sleep until they were 2-3 months old. Sometimes that meant rocking, sometimes swaying, sometimes walking, sometimes even nursing. It ALWAYS included swaddling. Once they found their hands and could bring things to their mouth independently I took that as a sign that they didn't need the soothing/swaddling anymore. At that point I made both of them figure out how to get to sleep on their own.
8. After 3(ish) months. I put the -ish in there because it's not so much a date as a developmental milestone. Even if your kids don't soothe themselves with their hands (sucking thumbs, holding a lovey, whatever) finding and being able to use their hands means that they have enough control of their body to not need swaddling anymore. When they're itty bitty and jerky and spastic they often need help holding it all together...after they find their hands they don't. This is the point when I started swaddling both Sarah and Ephraim from the waist down so they had access to their hands. Ephraim is 5 1/2 months and I still swaddle him this way as one of his sleep cues. As an added bonus it discourages him from rolling over onto his tummy and getting all ticked off and screamy (although he's quickly outgrowing that thank goodness.)
9. Nightime waking. Sarah started sleeping through the night (11-12 hours) around 2 1/2 months and was doing it consistently by 3 1/2 months. She pretty much did it on her own. In the interest of full disclosure she weaned from breast to bottle just before three months. She was sleeping through the night about 30% of the time before weaning and within weeks she was doing it all the time. I think she would have done this weaned or not. As for Ephraim, he would still be waking up once for a feeding if it were his choice. He weaned from breast to bottle at three months (a mama monday for another day...and another blogger...unfortunately nursing is just not my strong point) and was getting up once in the night at that point. He continued to get up once every night until he was just over four months old. At that point we started letting him cry it out. It took about 3 nights before he stopped waking up at all. Now, let me say this: if I were still nursing him I would not have done this. But not for the reason you're probably thinking. Some people will say that formula holds them longer because it doesn't breakdown as quickly and I'm sure that's true to an extent. But. I didn't notice a difference in either of my babies eating patterns when they weaned. They still ate just as often during the day and at night. The only reason I was comfortable letting him cry once he weaned was because at that point I could actually SEE his intake. And I saw that he was taking a full bottle in the middle of the night and then literally nibbling an ounce or two in the morning. He clearly didn't need that nightime feeding. He just needed to learn to wait. If I had still been nursing him though I wouldn't have known that and I would have been too nervous about my supply to nighttime wean him. I probably would have cut him off at six months though.
Okay, I'm going to go ahead and hit "publish" and I'll come back and add to this if I think of anything else or if there are questions I can answer.
Buddy Posters:
Mandy
Megan M.
Becca
Colleen
*Be sure to check the comments section for other great ideas and routines, including a great post from Krista about sleep as it relates to a baby with colic.
40 comments:
I'm going to post about this, too, instead of filling up your comments page. Don't add me to your buddy post or anything, I doube it will be indepth enough to count as that :o)
Lots of good info there!
For us what has worked is finding a routine and STICKING TO IT! That has always included a bath, straight into pj's, time for teeth brushing, book-picking (followed of course by book reading), bedtime prayers and then bed.
I recently (as in about 6 months ago) switched my kids bedtime from 8pm to 7 pm. My daughter is in Kinder this year and I was finding she really needs that extra hour. With the 8pm bedtime it was sometimes (ok, a LOT of times) being drawn out and not really truly wrapping up until almost 9pm. Whoa - way too late!
My son, on the other hand is 3 (about to turn 4), does not nap consistenly every day and is picky about whether or not he wants to go to sleep at 7. Which is OK with me, BUT by 7 he's done the "routine", has his books read, prayers have been said and we leave the room. If he is not yet ready for sleep he is free to play quietly with his toys or "read" his books. Once he's tired enough, he climbs into bed and dozes off (usually by 8pm).
That's what works for us. Where I really need help/advice is sticking to the routine when we travel or have guests at our home.
Thanks again for Mama Mondays!
Crissy
I decided to join in the Mama Monday fun for the first time on my blog!
http://meganmilbradt.typepad.com
I posted a buddy post. My kids are older, 3 & 6, so we're out of the baby phase of sleeping-thankfully so!
I thought I had the whole sleepin thing down-pat with my first son. I followed the Baby-wise method, which I know is not everyone's fav. thing, but it worked for us! Camden was sleeping 12 hours straight by the time he was 10 weeks old, and by the time he was 6months he took a 2+ hour nap in the morning and again in the afternoon. He had a few spells where he would wake up and we would have to make him cry it out, but that only ever lasted 2-3 nights. That said: there were some times that really made me stress when he was learning how to sooth himself. He would NOT allow me to comfort him, so there were many instances where he SCREAMED himslef to sleep, whether I held him or not...agony for me, but we survived.
Twins are a whole different story. It was stated in Baby Wise that multiples will not wake each other with their crying...NOT TRUE...for us anyway. I found myself scooping them up as soon as one started to cry just so I wouldn't have to listen to the other scream while they waited for their turn to nurse. In the end it was like shooting myself in the foot...they still have sleeping issues at 2 years. If they wake I have to lay them down and tuck them in again before they'll go back to sleep...which is usually once a night.
As far a routine, I'll be honost, I've never done a bath as part of their bed-time. There were just too many nights when we were away from home and it didn't work with Camden, and now I just don't have the time it takes to bathe three babies every night and still have them to bed at a decent time. We just get our jammies on, brush our teeth, say our prayers, and give numerous eskimo hugs and kisses and that's it! At nap we read books and say prayers.
Man, sleep is a battle, isn't it? I really love hearing what everyone else is doing. Terah, kudos to you for getting THREE babies down...I can't even fathom a routine with multiples!
I totally agree! And, swaddling is like magic. Sweet slumber magic.
I'm taking notes every Monday. I'm due in November and would love to know how you swaddle.
TIA!
I agree that consistency is best. My daughter was not a good sleeper as a baby, so I bought The Sleep Lady Solution, and although I didn't follow everything in the book (I didn't agree with all of it), it really helped. I know some don't agree with crying it out and I don't completely, but I did let my daughter cry some. The book suggests extending the period of crying each time after you check on your little one, so that is what I did and it worked! Also, laying them down sleepy, but awake worked wonders. My daughter learned to put herself to sleep. Before, if I put her to bed asleep, she would wake up screaming and we had to start all over again! We also have had a bedtime routine since she was just a few weeks. Bath, pjs, (now) brushing the teeth, book and a song. I'm due with another in about three weeks, so hopefully all of these "tricks" will work with this one!
I did a buddy post!
brelandfamily.blogspot.com
This seems like such a big topic--I'm sure I left something out!
I'll post a comment with our thoughts on on COLIC!
Our first daughter, Leah, had colic - not tummy problems, it just seemed that she couldn't handle life outside the womb. Her first two months, she would cry from about 5 p.m, until we could get her to sleep by around 1 a.m. She also didn't take naps much longer than 30 minutes when she was a newborn.
1. Do whatever it takes to get your baby to sleep.
We discovered that "sleep begets sleep" - the more sleep she got the more she slept, and the more exhausted she got the less she slept. So we decided to do whatever it took to get her to sleep. One night, she slept in the bouncer chair in the bathroom with the fan on. During the day, her only naps were often in the swing. Or in the carseat after she'd fallen asleep in the car. She didn't like to rock, so in the evenings, my husband and I would take turns walking her around fast until she she fell asleep and would sleep in our arms for a few minutes.
2. Don't worry about teaching your baby to sleep by herself until later.
We were able to tell when Leah was growing out of her colic around two months. That was when we started putting her down while she was awake on occasion. She started sucking her tumb at 3 months, and that's when she finally started taking longer naps. From 3 months on, she was a great sleeper!
3. Stick to a routine as much as you can
We woke Leah up at 7 a.m. for her first feeding every day, even the night she didn't fall asleep until 3 a.m. Even athough this was miserable for us (and who knows how long she would have slept in the morning!), we really think it helped her grow out of the colic quicker than the average colic-y baby. Also, we followed the Baby Wise recommended order of activities during the day: eat, then play/awake time, then nap.
4. Do what you can to keep your sanity
My husband and I were both home every evening with the crying baby. It was the "misery loves company" philosophy. But, looking back, we should have taken turns and gone out more. Also, sometimes evening drives that she fell asleep on were the only time we got to talk, so we would have done that more often. We were new in town and didn't have friends or family around, but definitely take advantage of offers to babysit. (Though I'd be selective - definitely with an adult, not a teen, and even only an hour would help.) And, sometimes we would just put her down and close the door for a few minutes. Since she was crying while we were holding her anyway, she would just cry on the bed for a few minutes.
Anyway, if you have a little on with colic, hang in there! Leah is a wonderful, well-adjusted 2 1/2year old and doesn't seem to have any lasting effects from her traumatic first few months!
Krista, I so clearly remember when you guys were struggling with Leah's colic. And I can certainly vouch for how lovely and well-adjusted she is! Thanks so much for posting these awesome tips...you're such an amazing mom!
Our bedtime routine is very similar to Erin's. Bath, bedtime story, bed. Every. single. night. When I was nursing, they nursed to sleep for night and nap. Now one of us reads a story to the girls (usually me) while the other (usually Jeremiah) walks/rocks Jacob to sleep. I usually dance with Jacob until he is asleep for his nap. It works for us and I still get to snuggle a bit. Jamie crawls into bed and falls asleep for naptime. (yep she is 4 and still takes a nap) She is the only one of my three who has ever done this. Mazie would need a story to go for a nap.
We, too, use noise makers. Always have and it works for us. Also our kids are in bed at night time by 8 or 8:30. We try to get bath time started by 7:30 or so but with three, that doesn't happen all the time.
I do have to say that my baby Lawson, who is a month older than ephraim, is a pretty good sleeper too. But i think it has alot to do with routine. And sleep cues like what you were talking about. I swaddled lawson until he was about three months old but he is so squirmy it didnt work after that, he flips all over the place in his sleep. When its about six every night we give lawson a bath and put him in his pj's read a story, turn on some music (he LOVES music) and his fan and turn off the light. He is usually asleep after all that. If not we let him cry it out which normally only takes five minutes tops. His naps are a different story, he takes three naps a day but never at the same time or for the same length, but i can tell when he is sleepy and he always goes down. So my biggest recommendation is routine, and dont change it if you can.
Sorry that was so long
hope i helped someone!
What happened to 3 and 4? ;) It goes from 2 to 5! Emma had horrible reflux but still started sleeping through the night (from about 8:15 PM to around 6:00 AM) at 4 months. I think it was due to putting her in the crib in her own room instead of the basinet by our bed. Our problem lately is naps! She likes to fall asleep with Mommy in Mommy & Daddy's bed which is fine - I enjoy the snuggling as she drifts off but this is hard on naps. I have stuff I need to do! She naps fine at the sitter's in a pack & play. She has a big girl bed in our house and won't stay in it long enough to fall asleep! Any advice on this one, ladies? We did try to put our pack & play up in the office but she just screamed for about 10 minutes when we tried to get her to nap in there. :(
Okay, I have to ditto what Terah said about Baby Wise. I know it isn't everyone's fav., but with twins and then Zoe 12 1/2 months later it was a matter of survival for all of us. What I liked with Baby Wise (especially with multiples) is it put them on the same schedule (wake, eating and sleeping) and it helped me in realizing when they were crying from hunger, discomfort, or simply being fussy. What I didn't like about Baby Wise was the amount of time they recommended allowing the baby to cry. We didn't follow that at all. We did exactly what Erin did in her posts and went according to developmental milestones.
Just a note...Luke and Jack were born at 35 weeks and were both home within 5 days after their birth. There were special circumstances we had to follow and therefore did not begin Baby Wise until they reached their full term due date plus two weeks. We made sure they were at all developmental milestones before we even considered incorporating Baby Wise!
Once we began Baby Wise Jack slept through the night, (10 hours) within eight days and kept going from there up to 12 hours. Luke was a bit trickier because he had to wear a helmet because of plagiocephaly so he would sleep through the night, but would intermitantly wake up from "helmet discomfort".
We began Zoe on Baby Wise (same exceptions as Luke and Jack) immediately and she was sleeping through the night by 6 weeks. I really grabbed onto the idea of coordinating their eat, wake and sleep schedules. ROUTINE - which works well for us.
I'll stop now, but I do agree with the fact that you cannot spoil an infant in the first few months. Snuggle, love, craddle, SWADDLE, rock those little ones! It is such precious time to spend with them!
Oh, forgot to say we follow a bedtime routine as well. Bath, snack, books and bed:) Every night and I'm dreading the soon to come day when it won't happen anymore:(
I agree with everything Erin posted.....routine, routine, ROUTINE and swaddling are major componets of getting a baby to sleep.
My first experience as a mom, I had twins, one with acid reflux, so our early months were pretty intense when it came to getting them to sleep. My son, who was the reflux baby, could not eat anything 30 minutes prior to going to bed and when he did go to bed he had to sleep with his head elevated. With my daughter swaddling was key for us, plus she had a pacifier for the first 2 months. Pacifiers work great as soothers for babies with reflux, unfortunatley for us my son HATED pacifiers from day one.
My 3rd baby was born just 13 months after the twins. She was my most difficult!!! Swaddling again was key for her, the tighter the better she liked it. She needed movement to fall asleep, so I would have to bounce her for about 20 minutes EVERY TIME SHE SLEPT for about the first 6 months of her life.
When baby #4 came along, my easiest by far or maybe I was just more relaxed as a mom, went to sleep with just swaddling. She is now 3.5 and is STILL my best sleeper.....she will tell me she's ready for bed and naps and goes right to sleep.
All of my kids were sleeping through the night by 4 months.
One thing I did with my kids, which was recommended to me by my pediatrician, was to always put the baby to bed with the same blanket.
Today my kids are 6, 5 and 3.5 and they ALL still need their "Nigh-Nighs" to go to bed. And each one does something different with their blankets to sooth themselves. My son LOVES the tag on his and puts it right under his nose, DD#1 loves the silky edge on her blanket and rubs it between her two fingers. DD#2, who was a pacifier baby, puts a corner of hers in her mouth. And DD#4 wraps hers around her shoulders like a scarf.
Wow Amy! Have we gotta lot in common! We also waited to start any scheduling with the twins as they were born at 34 1/2 weeks, but let me tell you, they caught up fast! I vividly remember having only about 45 minutes to break up the 1 1/2 feeding sessions, around the clock! UGH!!!
My oldest son had plagiocephaly also, because he was born early at 35 1/2 weeks (and no one told me anything about watching head position. Learn from my mistakes ladies! Rotate that head when it's still soft!) But even with the helmet discomfort he never woke us up at night.
I think the eat, wake, sleep pattern is the ticket!
wow! you are so LUCKY> we have not been so lucky in the sleep department! my girls are 8 and 6 and sometimes still wake up in the night and come in our bed....i nursed ava until she was 3 years old and she nursed around 1-8x per night. it was RIDICULOUS looking back, but the ONLY way i could get her to go back to sleeP!
even now we have our little routine but it takes ALOT of my time. we do a bath, brush teeth, get our jammies on, then we climb in mama and daddys' bed and read a book or write in our journals or sometimes read devotionals. it all depends on what they feel like doing....we probably spend an hour in bed reading/writing! but they let me write in my journal too while they write. and they are both reading their own chapter books now and rarely want me to read to them. but after lights out by 9 i lay by them til they fall asleep which usually is within 5-10 minutes or so...it's a crazy thing to do! but i really enjoy it 99% of the time! i figure they won't want me to be doing this within a few years, so i am enjoying it now. once they are asleep i carry them to their own beds! they stay there most of the time, but about 2x a week one of them finds their way back in by midnight or so!
tara
Oh goodness...according to "them" whomever the proverbial them is, I did everything wrong and I always felt like I was doing everything wrong as well. But I did what worked for Katie and low and behold she's one of the best sleepers I know. Just a list a few of the no-nos I partook in:
1. I nursed her to sleep until she was 1 year old. Lord did I try to break the cycle and try to put her down awake but it just didn't work. So I did it my own way and started rocking and singing her to sleep and we both rested easier trust me...which leads me to no-no #2
2. I rocked and sang her to sleep until last week when she got her big girl furniture and there was not place for the glider anymore. She's 2 1/2. Funny enough she's sleeping fine without it. Naps are a bit rougher than nightime but she's figuring it out. Go figure!
3. I keep complete silence when she naps. I hear over and over if she learns to nap with noise she'll sleep through anything. That may be true. When she first got on a good nap schedule I though YES I can get stuff done and all I did was wake her up and she and I were both miserable and tired. Nap is sacred time to me at this point and I won't risk cutting it short!!! Yes I'm the mom that has a note on the door for the delivery guys to just leave the package and I have tape over my doorbell!!
I think that's about it for the no-nos. :) But I am blessed with a terrific sleeper who sleeps from 9pm-8am consistantly and naps 2-3 hours a day no matter how much her Mommy screwed up! :P
I wasn't even sure if I should partake in momma monday, as I have 3 kids who have had VERY different sleep issues. My oldest, now almost 11, has never been a sleeper. The child gave up naps at 2 years old, it was such a struggle to ever get him to sleep. Honestly, I gave up trying after years of frustration when my pedi told me to just embrace him for who he is, a person who doesn't need much sleep. Once I gave up trying to get him to sleep and let go of that frustration, life was much better. He hasn't changed much at 11, so I really believe I was fighting a losing battle for a long time. I did cry it out with him, even though at times it made me really uncomfortable as a young mother. You gotta remember though, back then, the internet wasn't in every home yet and parenting was quite different without the ability to google!
Taryn who is almost 3 had a lot of sleep issues because we were displaced from our home when she was a month old due to hurricane katrina. She had to sleep with us most of the time or on the floor and eventually a pack n play until she was around 8 months old and we got back into our house. The disruption of rebuilding after the storm was hard on her sleep habits / routine, but we did what we had to do to get through it. Thankfully, she's my child who likes to sleep. I did a lot "wrong" with her, I nursed her to sleep, held/rocked her to sleep and she co-slept with us. We changed what we did a lot because we had to as our housing situations changed often, thankfully she adjusted to whatever is thrown at her. She had HUGE sleep issues when we brought the new baby home, but that would be a book to write it out. Consistency got her back on track, but it took a good 4-6 weeks of getting up with her at night.
The one thing I have always done with our children is keep them up later than most families. We chose to do this early on, mostly because we wanted to spend time with them. If they went to bed at 7, my husband would barely see them. An hour or so a day with them, just wasn't enough. And with the age difference of 8 years between Ty and Taryn, no way is she willing to go to bed with him still up for several hours, we wanted to spend as much time as possible with them. For this reason we keep Taryn and Teagan us later and then they take longer naps during the day when Ty and Jason are at work. This works great for me too, as I can get more done during the day during quiet time. Taryn takes a 3-4 hour nap during the day, sometimes longer.
I'm just starting to figure out Teagan's routine as he's almost 3 months, but he usually takes a long nap in the morning and then a shorter one in the afternoon. As for sleeping through the night, he sleeps in about 6 hour stretches, but it doesn't bother me a bit. Maybe I'm one of the crazy people who doesn't mind getting up with him to nurse, its our time together and it's quiet, which is rare around here and I cherish that, more than sleep :) I figure it's a limited time gig, someday they'll be big like Ty is and I'll miss this time, so I'm all for rocking babies to sleep, cuddling and getting up to nurse. Probably a result of knowing this is my last baby.
Awesome tips! I am not a Mom yet but I love reading your input and advice. I was just wondering, pretty please, if you could make labels for posts like these?! I would love to come back when that time comes and find these entries easily :) Your amazing! Love your photography and you and your family are adorable.
Wow, I am LOVING reading all of these stories. Wow, who knew there were so many ways to love our babies to sleep! :)
hc - I actually added a sidebar section for Mama Mondays with all of the topics underneath. I did it a while back but I don't think I've actually called attention to it so thanks for reminding me. I guess it's time to do a "go check out the sidebar!" post.
We were blessed with a great sleeper. Gabby Grace was sleeping completely through the night around 1 or 2 months.
If she was/is really wound up, we'll rock her for a minute to calm her down, but she's always put into her crib to go to bed on her own.
I definitely think that teaching them to put themselves to sleep is AWESOME!
I hesitate to jinx myself, but I'll just say that she absolutely never wakes up at nite. There was a horrendous thunderstorm the other nite, that had me up from 3am to 4am, and she slept right through it. I was amazed.
Anywho - We've always had a schedule, since the day she was born. Eating, sleeping, going places, etc...was all scheduled. This worked best for us.
She's normally an 11-12 hour'er at night, and a 1-3 hour napper (1 a day).
Thanks for all this Erin. Loads of useful stuff here, we certainly found that routine helped loads and still does as they grow up. Also, you relax more after your first child (so I guess the message is, have more children if we want to relax?!! Wait, no, that doesn't sound quite right...!)
Anyway, I also remember someone waying to me "the nights are long but the years are short" and I think that's so true.
Debs
PS: my children go to bed at 7pm (younger 2 aged 3 and 2) and the eldest (age 6) at 7.30pm. All sleep for 11-12 hours straight, usually 12, and we start the whole bath etc routine at 6.30pm if that helps anyone at all. I am waffling now, but I was shocked to learn recently that children in my eldests class at school play outside until 9 - 9.30pm and THEN watch TV/DVD's in their bedrooms! What is that all about???! Or perhaps it's just me...
Some things that worked for us:
-White noise (we use it and since she slept in our room for the first 3 months, we figured she was probably used to it and needed it)
-Swaddling- (tight!)
-ROUTINE!! So important. Although she was about 3-4 months old til we started this. Before that, we figured that it was the 4th trimester and she was getting acclimated to her environment so it seemed that we just held her and fed her and did things that made her happy! But we always tried to do the "E-A-S-Y" method. Eat-Activity-Sleep- YOU!
-And last but certainly not least.... probably the best baby-related item I've purchased (only $30 mind you) is our Fisher Price RainForest Crib Soother. It has been attached to her crib since about 6 months and at 19 months she still uses it every night to fall asleep and occasionally during the night when she wakes up to soothe her back down (something I was doing before this purchase!) and in the morning she turns it back on and sings along and talks to it for about 15-20 minutes until I go get her. It has been a life-saver!! When she figured out how to turn it on, our nights got SO much better! It has different sounds, nursery rhymes, and classical songs (her favorite)- they are all just instrumentals. It also has lights and movement, too. Going to sleep for the night or naps is so easy... we just take her into her room, close the blinds, turn on humidifier and noise machine, she gets her blankie, we lay her down and turn on her crib soother and she doesn't even notice us walking back out the door. Out within 5 minutes!
Something I've come to realize though is that every child is different and will learn to sleep pretty much on their own time. It took our daughter about 9 months, but now she is an amazing sleeper. I wish I could take back all of those months of stressing about it!!
Erin... thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions! I'm sure we'll use some of these when our Little Dude shows up. Just out of curiosity, what happened to numbers 3 and 4? Were they discarded? :)
such great ideas! i had to comment after reading shannon's comment ... i too am one of those moms that tries to keep complete silence during naptime. i hear that delivery truck coming down the street and meet him at the door. lol! i tell the older kids not to flush the toilet unless really necessary. lol!
my girls are older (8 & 11). but i've been doing daycare in my home for 7 years now. so i have had lots of babies to train ... and usually several babies at once. and the biggest thing with me ... is teaching them to fall asleep on their own. i have had babies that were terrible sleepers at home ... or the parents would rock them to sleep (not saying that's a bad thing) or never let them cry. but i'm very proud of the fact that i can train the babies to sleep on their own while they are here. mainly because, with so many kids here ... i don't have time to spend getting each of them to sleep. so they have to learn to do it on their own.
routine is big. that way they know it's coming ... they know what to expect. most of them have blankets and/or pacifiers. and i always start them off on a specific stuffed animal ... even if they have no interest in it, i assign one to them and they use it for as long as they're with me. and as they get older, they associate that with naptime ... along with their blankets and paci's.
i have no words of advice on nights though. lol! my girls still tend to get up and come in my bed halfway through the night. but i'm usually too tired to care at that point. plus, my husband works nights ... so there's room. lol!
My daughter (turning 6 months on Saturday) slept in a snuggle nest in our bed and was nursed to sleep for the first 3 months of her life. Then my husband's snoring kept waking her up, so we put her in the crib and that transition went well. Then she needed more than being nursed, she needed to be rocked to sleep. Then she needed to be bounced. I tried putting her down drowsy but awake many a time, and she would have none of it. So bouncing until fast asleep was what we did (we even moved the yoga ball into her room to facilitate the bouncing).
While this worked for our survival at the time, it developed a bad habit. She still woke up several times in the middle of the night and I would nurse her and bounce her back to sleep.
Her sleep got worse and worse, she was waking up the minute we put her in the crib, sometimes it would take an hour of bouncing to actually get her to sleep, then it would only be 2 hours until she woke up again and everything started over. She would often be up 6-8 times a night despite having a strict bedtime routine.
I read the "no-cry sleep solution" and it didn't work for us.
So I read Dr. Ferber's book and gritted my teeth and we went with it. We got her a "lovey" and I held it between us during nursing sessions for two weeks before we started. We also worked to unswaddle her so that she would have her hands to soothe herself and bring the lovey to her face if needed.
I know that people who are anti-"cry it out" methods are probably cringing right now, but I stand firm when I say that it was the right thing to do for our daughter. We never did it to get her to sleep through the night, she still doesn't, she wakes up to eat 1-2 times a night. But she can put herself to sleep and STAY asleep now with very minimal fussing.
She's also a MUCH happier baby, and everyone can tell! She was usually a smiley baby in the morning, that's when I would get the happiest pictures of her, but towards the end of the day, she would just be a crankster. Within a week after we started Ferber she became an all-day smiley baby and everyone comments on how happy she is.
So we "Ferberized" our daughter. And at some point we'll see about weaning her off the night feedings, but right now, things are going well in our household.
But wait, I just realized I have a question! I would love to have a consistent bed TIME every night. We aim for starting bath at 7pm and getting her to bed by 7:30. I would say 3 of the 7 days a week this works.
The problem is the other days--because her nap times are inconsistent, I never know when her last nap of the day is going to end.
She's usually only happy for about 2-2.5 hours before next naptime, so if she wakes up from her late afternoon nap at 5, that works really well. But what if she wakes up at 4? She gets cranky towards the end, but we keep her up and does well. 3-3:30 is when I have a problem. If she gets up at 3:30, she's not tired until 5:30, but if she takes a 20-30 minute nap, I have to wake her up at 6, which makes her SO not happy, and she's miserable until official bedtime at 7:30. Or we put her to bed early (bath at 6, bedtime 6:30) but then the next day she naps until 5, so there's no way she'll be ready for bath at 6.
I'd love some suggestions!
---Monica
Monica, I loved your story. Thanks so much for sharing. I think there are probably tons of people out there that can relate to your question about naptime and bedtime times. We have the same issue in our house right now. I always wake Ephraim up from his last nap at 5:00 no matter what. Then he's always ready for bed by 6:30. Lately though he's been getting up from his last nap in that 3:00-3:30 window which means he's definitely ready for bed early. I don't hesitate to put him to bed at 6:00 on many nights. He still sleeps until at least 6 the next morning so it's all good. One thing that really, really helps Ephraim (and Sarah too when she was a baby) at the end of the evening is naked playtime. If he starts to get fussy and tired but I still want to keep him up for another half hour or so we'll strip him down and let him roll around on a towel. It always reinvigorates him and brings out the smiles and laughs. The same was true for Sarah. Plus, as cloth diapered babies I think it was good for both of them to be unencumbered for a bit every day because those things are so darn bulky.
Hope this was helpful!
Thanks, Erin! Very helpful! Addie loves being naked, so I'm sure getting stripped down will help a lot.
-Monica
Well I was hoping this post was really going to change things for me but to my suprise I'm doing pretty much everything you listed. We have a routine, bath, reading, sing a song or two, white noise, TIGHT swaddle, etc. I was really bad about rocking him to sleep and not letting him cry it out. Thanks to your post I gave that a try Tuesday for his naps... he only cried for about a minute and it wasn't a real cry either. Now he has been going to sleep on his own everytime I put him down. I will put him in his crib sleepy but awake and within 5 minutes he is out.
The new problem we have is that he will not sleep more than 2-4 hours at a time. He used to sleep about 8a night and he had done that since he was a little over a month old. He is 5 months old now. Something changed though and now he never sleeps longer than 4 hours. He is so cranky and still so sleepy when he wakes, I know he needs more sleep. I tried the letting him cry it out when he wakes himself but that didn't last. After about 30mins to an hour I can get him back to sleep for little while longer. He takes about 3 naps a day ranging from 45 mins to 2 hours & he needs those naps.
I have no clue what to do to get him to sleep longer. He is a super happy baby during the day. He is only cranky during the night when he should be sleeping.
Hi Denise,
This may be a silly question but could he be teething?
Becca, I replied back on your buddy post. :)
Denise, have you started solid food yet? I've heard that some babies who have previously slept longer stretches will start waking up more in the night when they're ready for solids. I've noticed that Ephraim has started taking MUCH shorter naps and wanting to eat more frequently so we started solids just three days ago which is earlier than I had planned. Just a thought.
We started him on some rice cereal at four months. The doc told me to go ahead and start him on it at his four month check up. What sort of a feeding schedule is Ephraim on? If you don't mind sharing. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. :(
Oh we just started Ephraim on rice cereal on Monday. I planned to wait until 6 months but then his naps got substantially shorter and he wanted a bottle every 2 hours so I thought I'd go ahead and get some solid food going. He typically does 5-6 bottles a day. Morning, evening, and after each of his naps.
Babywise worked very well for me with both kids now 2 and 4. They both were sleeping through the night by 8 weeks old. The biggest thing I think is "routine" the kids need it. It takes discipline on the parents but you'll truly benefit and kids need routine. Just a little of my input.
i think i was the most faithful babywise follower with my oldest son - i mean FAITHFUL - and he did not sleep through the night until he was 7 months old. he also quit taking naps at 2 years old no matter what i did.
each of my 3 children have been VERY different sleepers even though i have done the same thing with them. (i'll admit since babywise didn't work with my son, i was much different with my daughter and she didn't sleep well through the night for a while). none of my three children have slept through the night consistently until they were a little bit older.
ironically, my best baby sleeper has been my third child and although i've done swaddling, routine and pretty much all written here with each of them, i have had the least control with him (because of having to put 3 down on my own at nights).
i'm just saying, that babywise, or some of the others aren't always right and sometimes no matter what we do we just have to embrace the child we have. it was very frustrating me at times to hear other parents (not saying any here) brag about how their children slept through the night at 10 weeks old and look at me like I must be the reason my baby wasn't. i mean after all, they did babywise. um, yeah, i was doing that too. sometimes it has a little something to do with the baby and not just the parents.
anyhow, one book that i found to be very helpful is: healthy sleep habits, happy child.
thanks,
carrie
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