Sleep Habits

Lately I've been finding that I'm getting more and more comments and questions regarding Adly's sleep schedule, so I thought I'd write about it. My favorite comment has been, "wait, you just put her down and then she goes to sleep?!" Before I get into it though, I have to add a disclaimer. Google "sleep training" and you'll find a plethora of information. Go to a book store in the baby section and you'll find books upon books offering different ways to get your baby to sleep. And as soon as you get into reading about it, you'll quickly find there are a thousand different opinions on how to get a baby to sleep or how not to. Everyone has different views on babies and sleeping. So whenever I tell people what we did with Adly, I always start by saying something like "everyone needs to do whatever they are comfortable with". Because everybody is different. And every baby is different.

If you read this blog, or know me in any way, you'll know I'm a planner, I like routines and I like to have some semblance of organization in my life. As you can imagine, have a crying newborn at all hours of the day certainly provided some stress in my life. I can remember when Adly was 5 days old wearily going into the pediatricians office desperate for help. "How do I get her to sleep?!" was the first thing I wearily muttered to the pediatrician as soon as we were in the exam room. 

As with many things during the newborn phase nothing ever made sense until someone would say something with clarity. Our doc first recommended to start a "night time routine". I couldn't believe we could actually begin that early....that idea had never even entered my mind. Additionally, she stressed having a dark, quiet room to signify sleeping. Oooohhh....so maybe our late night music, lights on, talking feeding sessions were sending mixed signals to the little miss. Who knew?! That night we set to putting together some sort of bed time routine. Of course we had no idea what to do so we just winged it. Around 8pm, we gave her a bath, I nursed her in a quiet and dimly lit nursery, then put her down in her rock n' play and left the room. She slept for about 3 hours. HEAVEN. 

From that night on, we kept with the night time routine listed above. Sure enough, as the weeks went by, her sleeping stretches became longer and longer. Don't get me wrong, there were still plenty of random sleepless nights; including a 3 day stretch around 6 weeks where she was up every hour on the hour. That was a hell I hope I never know again. 

But for the most part, she began to recognize night time as "sleep time". At her 8-week checkup, the doctor informed us she weighed enough to make it all the way through the night without eating. Her recommendation was around 11 pounds. This was fantastic news to me and of course I gleefully put her to bed that night telling her she was going to sleep through the night now. Because, you know, newborns totally listen. She didn't. It was also around that time that I moved her out of our bedroom. Babies are noisy and I wanted my room back. We did a gradual release by starting with her sleeping in the nursery in her pack n' play and then transitioned her to her crib a week later.

After Adly had transitioned to the crib and was 10 weeks old, there was a night where I had a large glass of wine. On top of that, I was exhausted. Adly was going on day three of another no-sleeping binge, which meant so was I. That night I hit the pillow and was out cold. I didn't wake up again until 5am. I shot out of bed thinking, "Oh my god! My baby! Is she alive!?! I'm the worst parent EVER! Of course, she was and she was fine. There's no telling if she woke up at her usual 3am feeding time or not that night, as neither of us heard a thing (you'll find that men have amazing sleeping super powers and almost never hear cries at night). The next night, when she woke up at 3am, at the encouragement of my much more stable husband, I didn't go in and let her cry it out. She cried for a little bit and then fell back asleep. Same thing the next night. A few days later, she was sleeping solidly from 7pm-5am. Oh my goodness I can't even tell you what sleep like that does for a human being. It was from that point on, that I did everything in my power to maintain her sleeping patterns.

Through some trial and error over the last year, we've created one very routined sleeper. There are upsides and downsides to this, but overall, it has really worked for our family. Therefore, I thought I'd put together a list of the things I've found that worked well for us in getting Adly to sleep through the night. Take some of it, take all of it, take none of it. I will add that most of this came from bits and pieces of advice I've received from many different moms throughout the last year or so.

Routine, routine, routine. In my biased opinion, routine is so important when it comes to babies. The same is also true for older kids. Therefore, from the start, we created a routine for Adly to help her "expect" when it was time to go to bed. This is the same for nap time as well. She goes to bed at the same time every night (for us, it's 7pm). There is no exception. This piece of advice came from a mom of three I used to babysit for. I babysat a TON growing up, and I've never seen kids go to bed as easily as these three. I probed her for a lot of advice when Adly was a newborn and I took it all to heart. The most important thing she told me was to always make sure Adly was in bed at the same time. No matter what. Yes, it sucks for your dwindling social life, but this, I believe, was key to Adly's sleeping. Additionally, we do the same little things every day to make sure she's aware it's bedtime. Silly things like we made up a song about bath time and sing it every time. She now hums the tune as we sing and and she crawls her way to the bathroom. We also have a song for bed time. It's as simple as, "It's nye-nye tiiiiime." Seriously. But she knows whats coming. Here is our bedtime and nap time routine:

Naps:

-Head into nursery, put on sleep sack. 

-Turn off the lights, on the fan

-Kiss night-night, lay in crib. 

-Say night-night, close the door. 

Bed:

-Bath

-Lotion

-Nakey quiet play time to air out her bum. She loves to read her books during this time. 

-Get dressed into pajamas and sleep sack

-Read a book together in the rocker

-Kiss good night, lay down, turn off lights, shut the door. 

The Roller Coaster of Naps. Naps were the bane of my existence for so long. The fact that she would not nap at certain times every day drove me nuts, since it was impossible to plan for anything. Unfortunately, I think this ability only comes with time. I had one mom friend who's son started napping regularly at 6 months. I set myself up to think that on her 6 month birthday, she'd just start napping at 8am and 12pm and 3pm. Not so much. It took us until around 10 months to get to a time nap-time. Meaning, she goes down at a usual time, not when she's tired. Until then, we lived and breathed looking for sleepy signs (yawning, whining, rubbing eyes) and would immediately put her down for a nap then. Until about 8 months, she was taking three naps a day. Now she is down to two naps, for about two hours each a day. The length of naps also took a long time to settle down. When she was younger, naps could last anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours. And every baby is so different. I've also met a handful of moms who's babies refuse to nap at all. The difference is, a cranky baby and a happy baby. If your child is happy as can be without naps, then obviously they don't need them. If your child becomes an alternate personality that closely resembles the devil reincarnated when it is time for "nye nye", the kid needs to sleep!

Sleep Buddy. Going into parenthood, I did not want a thumbsucker, I did not want blankies, I did not want binkies. I know how hard all of these soothing habits are for kids to break. Unfortunately, I can't control everything. As karma would have it, my child came out of my belly sucking her thumb. "Awwww look at her self soothe!" the nurses exclaimed as I shuddered at the thought of having a thumbsucker. However, over time, my opinions have changed. I now think they are vital to getting a baby to sleep. We'll deal with breaking the habit someday when mom and dad need to take a vacation and the grandparents are watching her.

Once she was old enough (she could roll over easily and was moving around her crib) I introduced a blankie for her to sleep with at night. She actually picked the blanket itself out on her own, as she began snuggling up with it whenever she was tired, so one day I put it in her crib with her. To her, the blankie now means sleep and comfort. Because I'm mean, I won't let her take it out of the crib. This is because it is my philosophy that it helps to even further signify sleep for Adly. It's not something she can have at any time, but only when she's tired. On a recent long road trip, I was worried about her sleeping in the car seat because she never does anymore. In the car, as soon as I tossed her the blankie, the thumb went in the mouth and she was out soon after.

Crib Only. Adly only sleeps in one place: the crib. This is a sticking point for a lot of moms I know who love that their babies can sleep anywhere. And to be honest, I'm somewhat jealous of them. We are pretty tied down to our house for nap time and bed time because of the routines we have set in place. Additionally, those delicious baby snuggles have all but disappeared. I think that is largely due to her sleeping habits. However, anytime I get sad about missing my baby snuggled up on my chest snoozing away, I think about how blissful it is to sleep through the night and to get things done during nap time. For me, it's for the better. She still snuggles when she's really tired or hurt or having her morning ba-ba, and I can live with that.

Cry It Out. The dreaded words. There are two major camps on this subject, and obviously I am in the cry it out camp. Those who are not, I totally think whatever you chose to do is fine too. Crying it out just seemed to work best for me and for our situation. For my own mental health, I had to get a good nights sleep. I can't say that I was totally fine with it at the time or that it wasn't hard for me. As new moms, our instinct is to stop the cries. and to help our babies in every way we can. As you read above, our crying it out adventure began unintentionally. I can't say for sure I would've done it that early otherwise. However, I do believe it is the best way to get your child used to sleeping through the night. Once we got the go ahead from the pediatrician, I felt comfortable with implementing it for our child. When she was younger, I would keep her awake while feeding, kiss her goodnight, lay her in her crib and walk out. Now we don't do a night time bottle, so the routine has turned into putting on pajamas, kissing goodnight and then laying her down. I don't rock her, hold her, or stand and rub her back to get her to sleep. It's my belief that she should be the one to be able to get herself to sleep, and she does. 

Be Prepared to Do Over. This part is tough because you've set in place some amazing routines, you've got your baby sleeping like a champ and then.....it all goes out the window. Sleep is a fickle thing with babies and it comes and goes like the wind. Anything that is "off" can change a baby's sleeping patterns. The usual culprits are the 4 month sleep regression, teething, and illness. If you choose to do cry it out, you usually have to re-do your hard work around these times. It never gets easier to hear your child cry, but I swear, it always resets itself in one night or two.

Where to Start. Like I said, I never actually read a sleep training book. Instead, I chose bits and pieces from all of the people I talked to and research I did online. In the beginning, some of the most important steps to get Adly sleeping, that I found, were the following:

-Create a quiet, darker environment for them to sleep in

-Look for any sleepy cues: rubbing eyes, yawning, fussing (when not hungry)

-As soon as you get a sleepy cue, put them to bed immediately

-Use some sort of pajamas to signify sleep. We've always used a sleep sack. 

-Same bed time every night no matter what

-Have a routine in place to signal that its bed time

-Let them cry for at least 10 minutes before going in to soothe

To all you new mommies or seasoned mommies looking to get some sleep once and for all, I wish you luck! Sleep is a beautiful thing and we all deserve it. However you go about getting it, I hope that some of these tricks of the trade can be helpful to you. 

Sweet dreams!