Sleep

Before I had a baby, I had heard friends and co-workers discussing sleep techniques, sleep books and sleep schedules. It sounded like a pain in the butt and a big stress to many of them. I gathered bits and pieces of their conversations and remembered things that made sense to me. Now that Rowan is here, I can see why sleep is such a hot topic. I have thought a lot about everything from SIDS risks, to napping without sleep aids to getting a bedtime routine. Matthew and I decided for our family that a loose schedule would be best to try first. We understand the importance of structure for babies and the benefits it brings, but we did not want to be so rigid that our baby could not adapt well to something off the norm. We know once I go back to work that Rowan will have days she goes to grandma's, days to goes to Leslie's and days she stays home with me, so it is important for her to be flexible....if you can instill flexibility at this age.

Here is what we are usually successful with

-Sleeping on our back at nighttime in the pack in play
-Sleeping for one 6 hour stretch at night (skipping one feed basically)
-Taking good naps
-Waking for feeds in the middle of the night and going right back to sleep

Here are our usual struggles

-Napping in our crib
-Must be swaddled to stay asleep
-Often needs a binky to dose off for naps
-If she wakes up during naps, she needs help to go back to sleep

So as you can see, she does much better during the night than during the day. Naps are tricky for us. I can rock her to sleep no problem but if I lay her down she only stays asleep in her boppy or swing (something enclosed around her like a mimic to my arms). If I try to put her back to sleep in her crib, even if she is swaddled, she wakes about 30 min later max. Sometimes it is 5 min. She will not put herself back to sleep once she wakes, but if you pick her up and rock her again she is out.

I think the hardest part of the sleep issues is knowing at what ages things are appropriate. Some say cry it out at an age younger than Rowan, others say that is a ridiculous expectation. Some say don't use sleep aids like a binky or rocking or feeding to put the baby to sleep, even at a young age you can instill bad habits. What is a young age though? If I let her take a binky or rock her now at 8 weeks, will she be hooked to these devices? People caution against using them because if your kid wakes up on her own, she will need them to go back to sleep again. This makes sense but how many naps does she have to "fail" and cranky days do we have to go through just because I am trying to put her down to nap on her back and not in her boppy or without a binky? It's a tough choice. Take one for the team, and risk her throwing off her nighttime sleeping schedule because she is so over tired without knowing if there will be reward for all your efforts.....not sure I am on board with that. Pus, if the binky soothes her and the swaddle blanket makes her feel safe, who am I to say that is a bad thing? Am I going to deny her these things because I don't want her dependant on them?

And the whole nighttime routine....what about that? Some people say to start it right when they come home from the hospital, how does that even make sense. Do you pick a feed to be your bedtime feed? We tried to start a feed, change to pjs, read a book, say our prayers, go to bed routine this past week and the results were....two nights of sleepy baby who went down great, two nights of wide awake baby who still wanted to play and was up for the next hour, and one night of I won't even wake for my 9:00 feed because I cried two hours long during the witching period before this and wore myself out. What do I do with this? Keep trying? Wait til she is older to have a bedtime routine? This is the stuff that makes parenting not so easy and have you thinking, "What the heck am I doing?!"

Bottom line, like any parent, I want my kid to be a good sleeper. I feel like this should come more natural than it does. I do not want to stress myself out, read a million books all with different opinions and make all these rules that govern sleep. But maybe that is what it will all come to in the end. For now we are still figuring our way through it, going with our instincts and praying answers come easy. We are taking a little of everything and mixing in her personality to find something that works. We are also choosing to be thankful for the sleep she does get, knowing it could be much worse!