SORRY MY BABY SLEEPS
One thing I found difficult to navigate as a new mom, was discussing things that were going really well for me with other new moms. It was so hard to look into the eyes of a fellow human-maker while they are sharing a challenge they’ve had with you, fully expecting you to respond with “O-M-G saaaaaaame”. But instead the brutally honest response of “Oh, we actually haven’t had to deal with that” comes out and you burst the only little bubble they had left for the day. This was no more true than when it came to Lou’s sleeping habits, particularly her nighttime sleep habits. When you’re faced with a woman whose been forced into insomnia with no nap in sight, it’s not easy to tell her that your baby sleeps through the night. Every night. Trust me, we’ve had our days! The first night we brought Lou home she cried for 6 hours and cluster-fed. I actually made Chris call the mother/baby care unit at the hospital and ask them what happened to our baby. The first thing the nurse said was “Give her a pacifier.” To my utter shock after all the blogs and articles I read about not introducing a pacifier until your baby was at least a month old, I responded in a panic with “But won’t that cause nipple confusion!?” The nurse calmly replied with “Listen to yourself. You and your baby are both better off if you get some rest.” The judgemental nurse had a point… so we gave Lou a pacifier, and she instantly fell asleep on Chris’s chest. The dreaded nipple confusion everyone warned me about never happened, and that was the beginning of the end of sticking to any sort of rules about soothing my baby. We had to find what worked for us and go with it.
Our biggest challenges with sleep came in the daytime. Lou would sometimes go days without napping and be exhausted. She’d have bags under her eyes bigger than mine, and trust me it was not a good look on either of us. It was such a struggle because I knew my baby was tired, I just could not figure out how to get her to sleep. I felt a desperation to succeed, so I read and researched anything and everything I could. I tried a million tricks and strategies and then I stumbled across a blog that stopped me instantly. It explained how with so much information at our fingertips, we are able to access a million different solutions to any one single problem. And if that first solution doesn’t work the first time, we panic, and abort the ship. Never to return, as we sail onto the next strategy. It’s exhausting, unproductive, unrealistic and (most importantly) incredibly confusing for a new baby. When it comes to sleep you are trying to develop habits. Habits take time and consistency, and are rarely a one-punch knockout like ‘the chair’ Miranda discovers in that one episode of Sex And The City. I realized everything I was doing was just confusing my new baby, so I stopped and hit the reset button. I gathered a small collection of the best advice I’d found in my travels, that matched with my parenting style and accommodated my everyday lifestyle, and I went with it. After a small adjustment period, it worked. Lou still sleeps through the night and now has a predictable daytime sleeping routine. She still has her off days, and thats okay. Routines and habits can never be perfect, and they shouldn’t be or they can affect your baby’s adaptability.
So, to those of you who zoned out after I said “Lou always sleeps through the night”, I respect you, and here are my tricks of the trade. They are not a step-by-step guide and they absolutely might not work for you. But you might be able to take the message behind them and use it to develop your own habits and routines that work best with you and your baby. Either way, I hope it helps you get some sleep!
routine routine
This is the part that’s tricky, because it’s very personal. You can read a million tips and tricks for establishing routines but the best thing you can do is build your own bedtime routine that works for you and your family. I have a year of maternity leave, so I intended on being very present with my baby for the first year of her life. As of right now, I’ve been home with her every night. So what worked for us was a hands-on bedtime routine; she is nursed for dinner, followed with little oat-based baby cereal, a little playtime, then bath, story and a bottle (with Daddy), a lullaby and it’s off to snooze town. We still room-share, mostly out of convenience for me because it’s easier to roll over and put the pacifier back in her mouth from the comfort of my pillow than having to walk down the hall (the Achilles heel of having a baby take a pacifier). And, as of now, she is only five months old. For naps we have her in her crib, so when the time does come to transition her to her own room it won’t be a shock. We love Copper Pearl blankets for swaddling because they’re so stretchy and allow us to wrap Lou nice and snug (so her Houdini arm stays in place), and use the Hushh sound machine by Marpac. My best advice, start them young. Younger than you may think and ignore your partner when they say “Is this really necessary already?” They’ll thank you later. Routine can be a blessing and a curse, because with a strong routine your baby can be limited on the opportunities they have to learn how to adapt when their routine is thrown off. So to that I say… throw off the routine once in a while! Maybe you’re meeting a friend for lunch at a time that might interfere with nap, that’s okay! Sure your baby may be fussy, but they may not, and either way they will come to learn that they may not always be in the same bed, in the same blanket, with the same white noise, and that’s okay too!
don’t let the overtired bug bite
This was an eye-opening concept for me. One of the biggest frustrations on this planet, must be having a tired baby that won’t sleep. The only thing that could possibly make it worse, is that you are also tired and not sleeping. “I don’t get it, you’re exhausted! Why won’t you sleep?!” was something I must have asked my newborn ten times a day when she was going through her daytime sleep-strikes. Then, I educated myself on what it meant for a baby to be overtired. You know when you start a project, yard work or something, and shortly after starting it you’re already sick of it. Then, after a few hours of working away at it, you go into a superhuman level of auto-pilot and could pretty much do it for another few hours. That’s an overtired baby. Chances are, once they are crying to be put to sleep, you’ve already entered the red-zone. All it means is that you’re going to have to work a little harder to soothe them enough for them to fall asleep and stay asleep (let’s be honest, that’s the real trick). When babies get overtired their somewhat-survival instincts kick in and their bodies respond by releasing hormones (like adrenaline) to keep them awake. This makes it hard to get your baby to calm down enough so that they can relax and fall asleep. Once they do finally close their eyes the hormones don’t instantly leave their sweet, snuggly, stimulated little bodies. So if they stir in the slightest they usually end up waking back up with a vengeance, no where near fully rested. We were going through this around the holidays and when Lou would cry we would attempt to soothe her by showing her the Christmas lights. In hindsight, all we were doing was stimulating her more. To combat this all, think of your baby as having a sleep bank. For every hour of sleep they missed, they are going to need to make it up. Every little 15 minute cat nap (as frustrating as it may be) counts. Stick with your instincts that your baby is tired and keep going. Stay calm, and do your best to keep them calm. Slowly climb back up the calming mountain until you reach the peak and your baby can glide into the deep sleep on the other side.
the sweet self-soothe
Chances are that you’ve already read all about the importance of teaching your baby how to self-soothe, and there’s good reason for it to be plastered all over any baby related content you can get your hands on… it’s true. Teaching your baby to self-soothe is critical to them developing good sleep habits. If every noise, bump, bit of light, creaky floor, etc. is going to wake up your baby, you’re going to exhaust yourself trying to keep them asleep. And if you don’t sleep when they do, well, you don’t sleep. Ironically, the things that often result in a baby who can’t self-soothe, are sometimes the things that come most naturally to us. There are a million little things that loving, hands-on parents do every day that can hinder the development of our babies strategies for sleep. Let me be clear, I don’t believe in letting my baby cry it out. Five minutes of her crying and needing me is a sure fire way to make me cry just as hard. It’s how we handle the cries that matter more. Rushing in the nursery and scooping your baby up teaches them cause and effect pretty quick. Take your time going in to get them, maybe start by just opening the door when they wake up from nap, then turning on a light and unswaddling them. Teach them that waking up isn’t a traumatic experience that they need to be consoled from. The same goes for putting your baby down to sleep; you don’t need to lay them in their crib and crawl out of their room like you’re putting down a grenade. Do your usual sleep routine; rock them, sing them a song, whatever it may be (our personal fav is La La Lu, go figure). Then put them down in their bed drowsy but not fully asleep, and let them fall asleep on their own. This is key! Each and every time they do this successfully it builds into their muscle memory and they are better able to self-soothe when they need to. Especially when their sleep is interrupted by an ahem sleep cycle…
sleep cycles
This was fascinating to me; did you know your baby has a sleep cycle? And it is the exact same almost down to the minute every time? Seriously, time your baby sleeping! They will get restless at the same time, every time. Once I learned about baby sleep cycles I started to pay attention. We have the Nanit Plus baby camera and it tracks what time Lou is put in her crib, what time she wakes up, and how long she slept for. Considering I rarely know what day of the week it is, let alone am able to remember the times of all her naps, this was a godsend. It was always almost exactly 42 minutes after putting Lou to sleep that she would start to stir and inevitably wake up (still exhausted). The trick is teaching your baby good self-soothing habits so that they can put themselves back to sleep if they start to stir. This teaches them to roll one sleep cycle into the next and lengthen their overall time asleep. Along with the self-soothing strategies discussed above, we also just remained cautious of that 42 minute mark. We didn’t make as much noise around the house, and tried to keep the area around her nursery free from any sounds or distraction that might challenge her efforts to self-soothe. Another big bonus of the Nanit, is the breathing wear technology. If you have a new baby you’re probably all too aware of the fear-of-not-breathing initiation we experience as parents, and the Nanit sells a swaddle or a band (depending on the age/size of your baby) that syncs up with the camera and monitors their breathing. Which means less sneaking in their room and holding your ear to their mouth for proof of life (my god they breathe silently don’t they), and less disturbances to both of your sleep. Take everything I own, take my soul, just leave me the Nanit… am I right?
