Sleeping Beauty

For my own personal reference when I have more babes and for anyone else trying different methods of getting their baby to sleep through the night...this was my experience.  I do also acknowledge that each and every baby is different and this may not work for my next child, much less for yours.  But it may be worth a try.

Quinn has always been a great sleeper, she does what I expect of her in the night hours.  Meaning, if I am willing to feed her, she'll eat.  If I want her to sleep a little longer, she gets it.  If I expected her to go to bed without a whole long bedtime routine, why would she ever know any different?  Sounds simple, but I think the biggest key to her responding so well to what I wanted her to do at night was that I didn't expect too much of her too soon.  I was perfectly fine and willing to feed her every three hours at night when she was a newborn.  I was fine feeding her three times a night when she was a few months old because she was still so tiny and I wanted to give her as much nourishment as possible.  Of course I would have loved to sleep through the night like I did before she came, but that is unrealistic expectations to me.  I had a baby now.  And when I decided to have a baby I knew I was giving up a lot of luxuries and I would have to be more selfless.  Giving up some of my sleep was one of those things.

That being said, from the beginning we never had a big bedtime routine.  I didn't want to be stuck HAVING to give her a bath, read a book, sing a song, drink a bottle, etc. before bed.  We do all of those things during the day so I didn't see the point in needing them to signal bedtime.  She knows it's time to sleep when she gets laid in her crib...done.  When she woke up throughout the night, I would wake up, without talking to her or turning on lights, pick her up and feed her, then tighten her swaddle and lay her right back down.  She knew it was not playtime and it was still time to sleep and she wouldn't protest.  Even when she would wake up at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, I would feed her, tighten her swaddle, and lay her back down because that was just too early for us to be awake still.  Since I did this from the beginning, she learned that we don't wake up at that time and learned to sleep until 8:30 or 9:00 from a young age.  Often times she'll wake up and either talk to herself or just lay in bed looking around her room for 45 minutes in the mornings...which I love!  I love that she knows morning times are a quiet time and I am not going to run in and get her to play the second she wakes up.

(Again, I am NOT a morning person...so this is what works best for Quinn and me.  You may have no desire and not see the point for me getting her to be like this, but for me it's what I needed.  And what Quinn needs to.  I have gotten her up before when she wakes up at 7:00 or so and she is the crankiest little baby ever and I end up putting her back down for a nap by 8:00, so I just don't see the point in that?)

I continued feeding Quinn three times a night until she was about 7 or 8 months, which I know is crazy to some.  But as long as she was sleeping later in the morning so I could get a little more sleep, I was fine doing this.  She needed the food and I didn't want to take that from her until she was really eating solids well.  She really started having a good solid three meals, which small snacks in between around 8 months, so I decided I was going to cut back on nighttime feedings.  I didn't want the poor girl to have to go from three times a night to nothing though (unrealistic expectation), so I used the Ferber method to help adjust her.  When she woke up for her first feeding, I waited about five minutes and then went into her room without picking her up, gave her the Binky, tightened her swaddle (I was definitely lucky that she still liked both of these things), rubbed her hair and gave her kisses telling her it was still sleeping time and then left the room.  She continued to cry of course because she wasn't used to this and I let her cry for ten minutes this time, then went back in and did the exact same thing.  I think the first night she continued to cry and I waited 15 minutes before going back in and doing the same thing.  She eventually settled down and went back to sleep for another couple of hours.  Then when she woke up next I fed her so that we would still have one feeding in the middle of the night.  It only took two or three nights of this method before she was sleeping longer and only waking up once to eat.  I had conveyed my expectations to her and she got it.

I did not try to change her routine again for another couple of months, I didn't want to expect too much of her at once.  So when she was about 10.5 months, I decided she could be sleeping through the night now just fine and didn't need her nighttime feeding.  So the first night she woke up to eat and I did the Ferber method again.  After the first ten minutes I went in, did my routine and left.  She screamed as I walked out, but within 30 seconds was quiet and fine and went back to sleep.  It only took once and she slept until morning!  I had to do this again the second night, but by the third night she slept from 8:00pm-8:00am.  And she has slept a perfect 12 hours every night since :)  Love her.

So, as previously stated, I am not saying I am perfect or this method is perfect.  But it did work for us and I do love the idea behind and process of the Ferber method (after researching other methods that I just did not like the concept of).  I may have just gotten lucky with a great sleeper?  It may be just a one time thing and never work with another one of my babies?  But when I was researching I liked to read other people's experiences and methods, so just in case anyone was wondering..

Every baby has their own timetable for things, but I think the biggest thing for me as her momma was not to expect too much from her just because it would have been more convenient for me.

Now everyone knock on wood that she doesn't become a crazy sleeper now!! ;)