A Year of Sleeping Differently

Sleep. I don't care who you are, if you're actually parenting a baby your sleeping patterns do change. 

Those first few weeks were brutal. Mostly because we didn't have structure. I'm convinced that the hormones (or something) basically make moms superheroes, because I went several weeks without sleeping for longer than two hours at a time. 

That's about when my Pediatrician recommended I check out the On Becoming Babywise book. 

I am a believer. I recommend this book to every new mom I encounter, and three of my friends who have children close in age to Nolan have adopted this book's suggestions as well. 

There are a million suggestions and a million ways to do it, so choose any one of those, but this book worked for me and it's worked for three other people I know. 

That's not exactly grounds for a research study, but it still says something to me. 

Getting Nolan on an eat-play-sleep cycle didn't just help with sleep. It helped with everything. 

Sleep, most importantly, but so many other things. Nolan quickly adapted to it. He learned that when he wakes up he eats and after he plays he sleeps. 

Bedtime and naps suddenly became easy! This type of routine also helped Nolan learn how to put himself to sleep. 

I liked not having to guess if he was hungry or tired. I could look at the clock and and know what it was time for.

Just a few weeks in was when Nolan started sleeping through the night for 8 or 9 hours (when he was about 9 weeks old). He started consistently sleeping 8pm-8am somewhere between 12-16 weeks old. 

Glory. 

This type of schedule helped Nolan start taking full nursing sessions as well, and I'm glad I didn't have to let him 'snack' for short spurts every hour or every couple of hours. I was thrilled when he finally worked up to full feedings, so that he only needed them every four hours. 

It was an easy schedule too. Up until about 8 months old he was just awake for two hours and napped for two hours all throughout the day. Then, we gradually lengthened the awake times while shortening the naps.

That's not to say that Nolan doesn't still wake up during the night sometimes. However, that has more to do with his pacifier dependency than anything. (next on the list)

I think sleep is one of those things that parents can easily overlook. I recently heard some say in a somewhat braggy way that their child (who is close in age to mine) had 'already' dropped one of their naps. All I could think was, "your child's probably sleep deprived." 

At 12 months old, a baby still needs 12-15 hours of sleep. I think it's hard to grasp how much sleep that is. But, unless your child is sleeping 13 hours straight through at night, they probably need two naps a day.

Nolan has two naps each roughly an hour and a half long. He's also approaching a time of dropping night time sleep down to 11 hours. We'll see how stretching out his evening goes, since it's when he's most whiny anyway.  

Long story short: I recommend this book, and will be giving it as a gift at any future baby showers  ;)