Eating my words (kinda long)...

sharksfan

So when I was pregnant, I was obsessed with figuring out a way to get little man to sleep through the night as quickly as possible since shortly after I go back to work my husband deploys for a year.  A coworker gave me this book that she used to sleep train her baby and swore by it, so I bought a copy for my MIL (who will be watching him when I go to work) and made my husband read it....yeah, now that I have actually been caring for this guy for almost 2 months, so many things in the book seem absurd to me.  I'm all about schedules, but keeping such a regimented schedule for such a little baby seems unrealistic.  Ronin has kind of settled into his own schedule, which does not exactly match up with the ridiculous one I had created when pregnant.  He doesn't exactly sleep through the night, but he goes down sometime between 7 & 8, wakes up sometime between 2:30-3:30 to eat and is back asleep within 30 min, then wakes again between 5:15-6:00...that's pretty darn good.  Would I love to skip that 2 am feeding? Absolutely, but I now believe that it will happen naturally.  I don't want to follow this book that I preached.  Now I'm trying to figure out how to get my husband to understand that I don't want to follow the book anymore, and it's not because I'm giving up b/c it's too hard...it's b/c I feel like I know my baby more now and what will work for him is what I have been doing, not what the book says.  Even worse...I have to figure out how to tell my MIL that I don't want to follow this book that I made her read and preached to her about without getting any "I told you so's" or open the door to future critiques like "You thought you knew best when you got the book but you changed your mind, just listen to me about (fill-in-the-blank) now and save us all the time"... ok pity party over, if you made it this far, thanks for reading! 

thetheisens

I know what you mean. I used a book for my first ds to get him on a routine right away after he was born and it worked really well for him, he was sttn around 2 weeks old. He also did really well with the nap and feeding schedule, no problem. He was such an easy baby! He barely ever cried, fell asleep on his own, and liked to "play" on his own if you put him under his gym or in a bouncy chair (he entertained himself). I gave all the credit to the book and wanted everyone to use it this time. I knew things would be different because I ff my first and I bf ds2. The routine/schedule of the book just don't work well with this baby! I just think ds1 naturally took to sttn and a schedule, but some babies don't. I really don't want to be obsessed with sttn. It would be nice, but I think he will do it when he's ready to. Now we just do a basic eat, play, sleep routine if we can. Don't worry about your MIL, no matter what you do I'm sure there will be plenty of unwanted advice and I-told-you-so's!

ababymaybe

Is the book Babywise perchance?

 Honestly, 7-8 til 2:30 or 3:30 sounds pretty freaking amazing to me for this stage in the game. DS has started doing 10 to 3:30ish some nights (not all sadly) and I have been thanking my lucky stars. 

 I think it is ok to "encourage" a routine-- like helping them get more ccalories in during the day, distinguishing from day and night in your behaviors, implementing a bedtime routine etc. but like you have discovered, you can't force it. 

And at this stage in the game, I believe night wakings are almost always legit reasons. If not hunger then a dirty diaper or whatever. When they are older and the wakings might be habitual, that is a different issue. But when DS wakes up at 3, I know he needs to eat. I wouldn't want someone depriving me of food when I am hungry and would never do that to a wee one (not that you would; but a regimented schedule might) 

 

sharksfan

ababymaybe:

Is the book Babywise perchance?

No, it's "Baby Sleep Solution: Getting your baby to sleep 12 hours by 12 weeks"...there are some good things that I have taken from the book-like making sure that he isn't getting his days and nights confused-but I'm just not using it like my baby bible as previously planned...

 and yes, I am a FTM (as if it wasn't obvious from my posts! ) 

HappyAardvark

Hey, live and learn. That's all you really need to offer up as an explanation if anyone has the balls to try and give you any "I told you so" bullsh!t.

jonnygurl76

Ehhh, we all eat or words sooner or later especially as they get older. I think everyone has grand plans while pregnant and then it all goes out the window once baby is actually here!