Sleep Training Secrets

Part of me can hardly believe it, and part of me can totally believe it.  We are halfway through Isla Jane’s baby year!  I know I’ve said this once or twice, but I am not really a baby person.  I do really like my own babies, but I have to say, little toddlers and little kids (and even teenagers!) are probably more fun for me than babies.  But, this time around, I think I’ve been enjoying her “baby-ness” a lot more than Landon’s–probably because I know how short the time really is.  One year?  That’s not very much at all!

However, let it be known.  I have baby opinions.  (You probably guessed that…I’ve had two home births by now.)  And if there’s one thing that I have a fully formed opinion on, it’s sleep!

I am actually quite a huge fan of sleep.  I should have written the book on napping.  It’s kind of like, “Oh, what are my hobbies?  Oh, you know, cooking, photography, racing, hand lettering, and napping.”    (When my Hashimoto’s got better and I wasn’t so terribly tired all the time, I tried to take a nap just because it is fun!  I was so bummed that I couldn’t!  Ha!)

So, yes.  You could say, mama needs her sleep!  I was not cut out for night shift.  I am naturally an early to bed, early to rise kind of person.  So, hello, tiny human, but why are we looking at each other right now?  It’s 2 a.m.  You will be cuter when the sun comes up.

It is my goal from day 1 with new baby: get that baby sleeping!!  (Lots of you will say, well, yes.  That is always the goal for everyone.  But ask my husband.  I am fanatical.  I am putting my game face on as I crawl into bed at night: Baby, I will win. You will sleep.)

So, yes, we only have two kids which means I have only done this two times.  There will be someone out there who has had like 13 children and will claim the first 5 slept great, and then 8 were terrible.  There will be a baby out there who will be the exception to all the rules.  I know this.  Please don’t blow up my blog with nasty comments.  All I’m saying is what I did because some people seem to want to know.  Take it or leave it, but we are two kids in, and the first one slept 11 hours solid at 12 weeks, and the second one slept 12 hours solid at 10 weeks.  I don’t personally believe I got lucky.  Here’s what we did…

We “baby wise.”

Yes, we read that terrible, strict, baby damaging book called On Becoming Babywise, which was recommended to me by, like, every parent I knew who actually liked being a parent and who did not have gigantic bags under their eyes.  So naturally, that seemed attractive to me (the lack of eye bag thing), so I decided it was worth a shot, and, by golly, I think it worked!!  Here are the cliff notes: eat, wake, self-soothe, sleep.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.

That’s it!  Seriously.  Do you have rhythms for your day?  Like, first you wake up, then you eat breakfast, then you go to work?  Your baby needs a little help establishing these rhythms, but he wants them, too (and doing those things in that exact order is crucial…the book explains why!).

From day one, we begin “baby wising” by just trying to get baby to do a full feeding before he falls back to sleep.  (With Landon, this was a TON of work because he had a tongue tie so nursing hurt like the dickens and took him all freaking day long.)  Then, we make sure baby is eating just as soon as he wakes up.  So, once you get the “wake up and eat a full meal” thing down (no “snacking” whenever baby feels like it), you just make sure they get to their crib for their next nap as soon as they start appearing tired.

Baby takes care of the rest all on her own.  She finds her rhythms and extends her nighttime sleep.  In fact, by about 5 weeks, baby should be able to sleep an amount of hours at night equal to his number of weeks old.  We have found this to be really consistent within an hour on either side (Landon did 7 hours by 8 weeks, and Isla Jane probably did 9 hours by 8 weeks, etc.).

I definitely recommend reading the whole book (it’s not that long!) as it shows you how to progress as baby gets older, but those are the cliff notes.

We let our babies sleep on their tummies.

I know, I know.  This is so “out,” and my doctor seemed convinced my babies would die of SIDS from this.  Here’s what I’ve heard.  SIDS was linked to tummy sleeping a while back right around the time they started putting flame retardants in crib mattresses.  So, these babies that were dying from being put on their tummies were actually breathing in a ton of chemicals that were killing them.  (Simple solution: buy an organic mattress if you can.  If you can’t, let that thing air out for a few weeks before baby starts sleeping on it.  We couldn’t swing for organic for our kids, and they are alive.)

The reason another doctor was so concerned about my baby sleeping on her tummy was that she didn’t think Isla Jane was strong enough to move her head if something covered up her airway.  However, I had seen her move her head from side to side just fine, so I knew that she could.  Also, just don’t put things in the crib.  Use a tight crib sheet that doesn’t bunch up and make sure she’s warm enough in her clothes so she doesn’t need extra blankets.  Seemed simple to me.

So why do I feel so strongly about tummy sleeping?  The startle reflex!  Babies just kinda randomly fling their arms out when they sleep.  If they are on their backs, this wakes them up.  I do not have the patience or expertise for all that fancy swaddling that they need to keep their arms down.  I just flip them over onto their tummies and let them sleep!  Plus, between 2 and 3 months, baby starts to find her fingers or thumb to suck on.  This is so soothing for them!  Place them in their crib, they find their fingers to suck on, and boom!  They are headed off to La La Land!  (Remember, I’m not a baby person.  I rarely rock my kids to sleep.  That is, like, so complicated and takes so much time.  I need them to just go to sleep.  There are students to teach and cards to letter…)

We let them cry…a little…sometimes.

Do we do the “cry it out” method?  I guess so.  Basically, baby is allowed to cry for 10-15 minutes after we put her down.  This doesn’t even happen that often.  She knows her bed is a safe place because she’s been sleeping in it from day one, so usually she just finds her fingers and goes to sleep.  However, sometimes she’d cry a bit when she went to sleep (probably in that 2 to 4 month stage).  Sometimes, I think she was just so tired, she just had some emotions to get out.  (Please tell me I’m not the only one who cries when she’s tired!)  If she cried any longer than that, we knew something was probably wrong (a dirty diaper, needing to burp, etc.), and we would go check on her, calm her down, and fix the problem.  I think when you start with self-soothing from day 1 (which doesn’t mean she never falls asleep in our arms; we love that sometimes; she just doesn’t need it), the sleep training thing isn’t really a thing.  Baby doesn’t stop crying because he’s too exhausted to go on any longer.  He stops crying because he’s done and ready to sleep now.

We don’t co-sleep.

We just honestly didn’t want our baby in our bed as a regular habit.  It’s our bed.  (Saturday morning family snuggles in our bed are a thing sometimes, and a bad dream here and there may invite a certain 3 year old to join us for a bit, but everyone goes down for the night in their own bed pretty much from day one…maybe day three max.)  I think I’d be worried all the time about smothering the baby with covers, rolling over on her, etc., so I don’t think I would get good sleep.  Also, babies are kinda’ noisy when they sleep, and I wake up to every little sound that my kids make in the night.  (Those mama bear instincts are something else.  I used to sleep through EVERYTHING!)  So, it’s better if I can’t hear every little snort or snore.

BUT, here’s a big thing.  When babies are really little, they cry a little when they are connecting their sleep cycles.  We hear that and say, “Oh great, baby is up and needs to be fed.”  If baby is in my room, I will do just that, except that baby is actually still asleep!!!  He can’t learn to connect his sleep cycles if I’m constantly interrupting them.  So, in the time it takes me to get my glasses, go to the bathroom, and grab a glass of water, baby may have entered that next sleep cycle, quieted down, and I just get to go back to bed, too!  (So, giving baby a minute or five to see if they’re actually asleep is crucial and something that won’t tend to happen if baby is right there in or next to my bed.)

And that’s really it!

Baby takes it from there!  We provide the safety and boundaries that baby needs to begin connecting sleep cycles and sleeping peacefully.  The result?  We are all much happier because we are rested.  I am back to normal routines more quickly because I am not up in the night (and therefore more rested and not in need of naps during nap times).  Additionally, as baby gets older, she has set “nap times” that I can count on for working and getting things done (and, maybe, even taking a nap myself!).

So whaddya think?  What worked great for you and your family?  What would you do differently “next time” and what would you keep?  Comment below!

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