i love sleep. i was worried for myself of how little sleep i would get. miles slept in the bassinet right next to our bed up until he was around 6 weeks old. we never thought about putting him in our bed since i tend to move around, so i was too nervous that i would squish him.
around 8 weeks he was waking up about 2 times a night:
- go to sleep at 9 pm
- wake up 1 or 2 am, eat, change diaper, fall asleep
- wake up 4 or 5am, eat, change diaper, fall asleep
- wake up 7 or 8 am
at his 2 month check up, i told his doctor what his pattern was like, and she said to start feeding him less when he woke up at night. at that point, he didn't really need to eat-- he just wanted to be soothed.
because miles didn't latch on very well, i was mainly pumping (i'm a diary queen) and knew he was drinking about 4 oz per feeding so we started to give him 3 oz, than 2 oz, etc. the first week was brutal. normally, he pass out once he was almost finished with the bottle, burp while half asleep, and go straight to sleep. now that we were giving him less, he would cry wanting more. in the beginning, we gave in and gave him his normal amount just so we could also sleep!
i was motivated to try again so i remember singing and rocking him for almost two hours one night, half asleep with my back feeling like it was going to break. at this point i had let him cry it out (CIO) to fall asleep on his own a few times but never in the middle of the night. CIO initially didn't work, and i wasn't ready. the longest i let him cry was 45 minutes and i felt horrible. but after about a week of giving him less and rocking him to sleep, he slowly dropped one of his feedings and slept almost 7 hours from 8pm until 3am. at 9 weeks he slept almost 9 hours straight, 8-4:45am. at 10 weeks, he slept from 8pm until 6:15am! 10 hours! hallelujah! i still remember me and my roommie (husband is roommate for life! i like the sound of it more than husband) waking up and both looking at each other as to who woke up in the middle of the night-- neither of us did b/c miles never woke up! we felt sooo refreshed being able to sleep through.
since then, miles goes down every night around 7:30pm and sleeps until 7am. he may wake up around 6 but he tends to play in his crib or fall back asleep so i get to sleep in until 7:30am, sometimes 7:45am! having him sleep through the night seemed like the best thing ever but having him fall asleep on his own was another hurdle. every time it was time for him to nap or go down for the night, i had to rock and feed him at the same time, praying that he'll pass out by the time he was done. he would burp while half asleep and i would gently put him down. if he was still awake by the time he finished his bottle, then i was in trouble. it was so tiring doing this EVERY time.
miles was now almost 4 months. i decided it was time to really let him CIO. amy was over during the day once and saw me struggling to get him to go to sleep. having amy with me made me feel a little more encouraged to try CIO again, so i did. even with her being around, 5 minutes felt like 50! but after she left i knew this had to change. the next day i started with his first nap. she had mentioned it would be the easiest to start. miles normally took his first nap around 8:45-9am. i put him down and walked away. he cried for about 20 minutes and fell asleep--i guess that wasn't too bad. he slept in the stroller for the rest of his naps that day. but that night, i told my roommie that we HAD to try this again. we made sure to give him a bath that night, closed the door and ate our dinner watching the monitor. we told ourselves, if he still cries after an hour, we will stop. thank goodness, after the longest 40 minutes ever, he passed out.
ever since then, miles falls asleep by himself for his naps without any crying. he may fuss a bit but as soon as i put him down, he'll go to his position, on his tummy with his 3rd and 4th fingers in his mouth, and pass out. night time sleep is another story: there are times when he's totally fine, but other times will cry for 15-20 minutes. i don't know why some days he's fine and others he's not. i thought maybe if he didn't nap well, that's why he was crying but even if he took all 3 naps and was good all day, it didn't matter. it'll always be a mystery why they cry so much at night. why can't they just tell us?? :p in any case, it's SO liberating being able to put him down and walk away because i know he'll be ok and wake up with a big smile.
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| miles awake with a big smile! |
Could you post a typical sleep schedule day? I feel like penny's schedule is pretty similar, and need some base to go off of for the day sleeping, 'cause I really have no clue when she needs sleep during the day and her day sleep is only ever for 30 minutes tops.
ReplyDeletesure!
ReplyDelete-wake up 7:30ish, drink 1st bottle
-1st nap 8:45-10. wake up drink 2nd bottle
-2nd nap around 12:30/1-2, sometimes 3. naps either 1hr-2.5 hours. wake up drink bottle 3.
-3rd nap (if 2nd nap was past 3, he doesn't always take a 3rd nap) around 4-5. wake up drink bottle 4.
if bath day, bath round 6:30, last bottle around 6:45. play, digest, and in crib by 7:30.
he usually doesn't fall asleep until 7:45ish.
does that look similar?
Our schedule's kind of like this:
ReplyDelete6-6:30: wake up, nurse
7:30 drop off for daycare
according to daycare, typically
8:30 - 10 nap, wake up bottle
1:30 bottle, then nap until about 3 (she probably needs another nap in here somewhere)
usually another nap around 5:30 until we pick her up at 6.
6:15 bathtime, 6:30 nursing, 7:30 down for the night.
on weekends, we just try to have her nap whenever she's getting tired, but she never sleeps longer than 30 minutes, ever. ONE TIME, she slept 2 hours, and that was awesome, but 99% of the time, she sleeps almost exactly 30 minutes. Maybe I'll try your schedule this weekend, complete with CIO techniques =P
i know Logan also didn't nap very long in the beginning but started to nap for at least 60-90mins after he started going to daycare. (right amy?)
Deleteamy read a book that said babies get tired about 2 hours after they first wake up. that definitely is right on the mark. miles may not go to sleep exactly at 2 hours after he wakes up but def around then.
let me know how it goes!
how long does the 2 hour rule apply? I kept reading about it in that sleep book, but it talks about both the 2 hour of wakefullness rule, as well as, a single nap at 9, a single nap at 12, and a single short nap in the afternoon, so I get confused.
Deletegosh....that does sound confusing. i'm not sure what you mean how long does the 2 hour rule apply...you mean depending on how old they are?
Deletehi, it's amy. the book can be confusing b/c of all of those rules. personally, i used the book as a guideline. the 9am/12pm/late-afternoon rule seemed too rigid for me to follow b/c i found that a lot of it depended on when he actually woke up to start the day. if he woke up at 6am, i'd put him down at around 8am for his first nap and disregard the 9am rule. i DID put him down every 2 hours since his last wake-up, and i generally still do, though now, i've been observing to see if we can cut down the naps from 3 to 2/day. on days he goes to daycare, he only does 2 naps. but when he's with grandmas or home on the wknds, he does 3 naps. i think he just gets so stimulated while at daycare that he skips the morning nap and takes 2 longer naps to make up for it. speaking of nap duration, Logan used to nap for 30 min. MAX when i was home with him. after i sleep trained him, he extended to about 45 min (so he would end up taking around 4 naps/day). but once i went back to work, he started doing 60-90 min-- i was shocked. maybe it's b/c he was forced to go on a very regular schedule? maybe his body just went through its natural changes? maybe he was just trying to torture me while he was home w/me for 4 months?? i'm not really sure. =)
Deleteagain, i think the book has some validity, but i would use it as a loose guideline-- it's ok if you're under/over 30-45 min. i feel like baby just naturally gets into a rhythm (which happens to be the 2 hour of wakefulness rule), but reading sleepy signs before he gets overly tired is pretty important.
Hi Jean & Amy! Great blog! It's always fun to experience motherhood through someone else's eyes. Really helps me to reflect and remember my own experiences without the haze of stress and fatigue that was ever present back then. As for me, for both my kids, I developed their napping schedules based on their feeding schedules. My pediatrician recommended keeping them at a strict 4 hour feeding schedule to cut down on the in-between "snacking." As soon as mealtimes were established (6, 10, 2, 6, with them sleeping through the night from about 3 months old) i just kept up the pattern of feed, burp, sleep. It worked like a charm!
ReplyDeleteOops! I didn't mean to be anonymous. It's Cathy Gilchrist :) I didn't know how to show my name...
Deleteyay! thanks for reading cathy!
DeleteHi Cathy! Thanks for reading and commenting! I (Amy) also follow a similar rule-- I've been feeding Logan every 3 hours since around 2-3 months too. Now with solids, I give breakfast, lunch, dinner and another bottle in between lunch and dinner (bottle with each meal). All of the meals/bottles are still 3 hours apart. I'll write a post next on feeding/eating...that gets really confusing!! I'd be eager to hear readers' experiences on that too.
ReplyDeleteSo, for those that feed then nap, how do you reverse the timing of the morning feeding, for example, penny wakes up at 6, and we feed her, so she's up for a bit, then, after she naps, it's time to feed her again, so I'm stuck in the "Feeding after nap" loop, which doesn't help her nap, of course =P
ReplyDeleteSo, I discovered this weekend, that penny has no problem going down for the nap, she's quite good at falling asleep on her own, even for the naps, I just can't get her to nap more than 30 minutes. She took four 30 minute naps this Saturday. It's almost to the minute that she sleeps 30 minutes. Sometimes when she wakes up, she looks rested, but other times, she looks like she could use a lot more napping time. Any tips/suggestions?
Hi it's Amy again. Logan actually fed after his nap (and still does). So his cycle was sleep, eat, play. I didn't want him to eat before napping because I didn't want him to associate the bottle with napping (though we did that for night-time sleep until he started solids).
ReplyDeleteYou're very fortunate to have a baby that can fall asleep by herself! Trust me, I feel your pain re: 30 minute naps. Logan was the same way- sometimes rested, sometimes not. Did you try just letting her fuss for awhile after she wakes up? The book says that babies naturally wake up after the first sleeping cycle (which can be between 20-30 min) and have to make themselves go back to sleep to continue on to the next cycle. I KNEW Logan would wake up after the first cycle, so sometimes I would just wait for it at the 20 min. mark, and try shushing/patting him down once he started to get up. It would occasionally work, but not always. Then, I started to let him fuss it out to see if he could go back to sleep. It only really worked after I sleep trained him. I guess b/c then he knew to continue sleeping instead of waking up completely.
But you know, every baby is different. Maybe your baby only needs 30 minutes of rest several times a day, and that's OK (for her, maybe not for you!). Maybe as she gets older and gains more weight, she will nap longer. I can't exactly explain when/how Logan started to nap longer. I think it was a combination of sleep training, getting into a regular routine once I started work, and new stimulation at day care which resulted in him being more tired and taking longer naps.
Thanks for the input =) Didn't know about the waking up after first cycle. I couldn't get her to sleep after waking, but, perhaps I'll give some of these ideas a shot. Thanks again!
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