Sleep

Now that Benton is almost 3 months old we decided that we needed to get more of a consistent schedule in place for him. At least a regular bedtime routine and then soon after more of a nap routine.

he has been all over the place lately. Luckily he usually sleeps well at night but it can be a struggle to get him to sleep and stay asleep. Then his naps are crazy! One day he will take one or two 30 minute naps and we spend the rest of the day trying to get him to sleep because he is tired and a little cranky. Or he sleeps from 10 to 4:30 only waking up to eat. On those days I get A LOT done, but the other days drive me bonkers. Yesterday was one of those days.

And of course on those days he will only go to sleep if you hold him, and stay asleep if you hold him. So I read a good portion of the day. What did I read, everything I could about sleep. My wonderful mother-in-law bought me Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth and I read half of it yesterday, pretty much anything that had to do with newborn/infants.

I thought we were doing pretty good (that is up until about a week ago) but after reading this book I found a ton of things we could do better and a ton of things I didn't know!

Like...

You should put the baby to bed BEFORE he is tired. Once he is rubbing his eyes and cranky he is overtired and it will be harder to put him down.

Once a baby is overtired their body actually releases hormones to keep them awake! So it is even harder to get them to sleep.

A baby Benton's age shouldn't be awake for more than two hours at a time

The baby should take a nap within 1 hour of waking up in the morning

The baby should go to bed early and they will sleep better all night

Babies under 12 weeks old are unable to soothe themselves so letting them cry themselves to sleep doesn't really work (we tried that once, did NOT work) but that doesn't mean that you have to hold or nurse them to sleep. You can lay them in their crib and help soothe them by patting them on their back or singing to them

Okay, honestly there were a lot more things but these stood out to me the most. We have been putting Benton to bed around 9:30 or 10:00 every night. It has been nice because he sleeps for about 5 hours the first shift so I get a good chunk of sleep, but he is usually cranky from about 6 on.

Last night we started a bedtime routine and it went pretty well. We gave him a bath at about 6:15, read some stories, sang him a song and fed him. He feel asleep and stayed asleep until 6:30 this morning, OF COURSE with waking up and eating but he fell right back to sleep every time. It wasn't perfect as he woke up 5 times, but he was tired and went back to sleep within 10-15 minutes each time. So we will keep trying this and see how he does.

Sleep baby, sleep

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Comments

  1. Ya, reading those books are definitely helpful. Reading your blog actually reminded me of some of the things I forgot, but totally remember being worth it, so thanks. Perhaps I should read up on that stuff again before baby number three... :)

    Brandy

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  2. I understand completely! That book was a big help to me. Just keep at it. Now that Kade is 7 months, she is on a really good schedule... but it took this long! But it is worth it when they are! I hope everything is going well, and keep me posted on how he's doing.

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