Sleeping

For the first three months of life, Lacey, like a typical baby, was a really good sleeper. Not that she every really slept through then night, or anything, but when she was tired, she would just fall asleep. I didn't have to worry about whether or not she was getting enough sleep, and, occasionally, I would get a good stretch of sleep at night myself. Then she turned three months old and everything changed. Instead of falling asleep when she was tired, she got fussy, and then she got over tired, and then it was extremely difficult to get her to go to sleep and stay asleep, especially for naps during the day. I was going a little crazy from the sleepless nights and fussiness during the day. I read this book, and found it to be extremely helpful:


I had no idea that my baby had to mature into sleep, or that I needed to wait until she was 4 months old to really expect her to take regular long naps during the day. The first thing I did was start putting her to bed earlier. That was helpful, since she got up at the same time in the morning regardless of when she went to bed. So now she goes to bed at about 7:30.

One of the criticisms of Dr. Weissbluth's sleep method is that it does include some crying, even quite a bit of crying if you have a difficult baby. Before Lacey was born, I told myself that I would never let her "cry it out." It did seem like an extreme method to me and I didn't want my baby to cry when there were other ways. Then frustration and sleep deprivation set in and I realized that just letting her cry it out a couple of times would be easier on both of us in the long run than trying more soothing methods which would take longer (which I tried for a little while but were too frustrating for me). I knew that I would be able to be more consistent with Dr. Weissbluth's method, which was the most important thing for teaching her how to sleep. It's effective, and it's effective fast, and that meant that I wasn't nearly so frustrated and that I've been able to get more sleep sooner myself and retain my sanity.

So now, Lacey goes to bed as soon as I put her down for the night (which I also attribute to the fact that we've had a bedtime routine since almost the day she was born), she sleeps pretty well during night (last night she went to bed at 7:30, woke up at 2:30 to eat, then again at 5:30, though I didn't get her up, so she fell asleep until about 6:30, then she ate and slept again til 7:30). We're working on not waking up between 2:30 and 6:00. She's getting good at going down for a morning nap, too. This morning she went down with 0 fussing, which is amazing to me, and it really only took a couple days of "training" to get to this point. Yay!

I don't really mean to be all in praise of a particular method of sleep training, I'm just so glad that Lacey is sleeping better and is a much better-rested, happier baby since she's getting so much better sleep, and glad that I understand better what her sleep needs are. She's such a sweetie when she's rested and happy, it's all been worth it. :)