Baby Wise

brynagc · February 2016

For those of you who are following the principles of baby wise....

Our son is 15 weeks. He was a good napper at the start but over the past several weeks will not nap ANYWHERE AT ALL except the ergo carrier and his car seat. Obviously this is becoming very tiring for us to wear him all the time or walk him around in the car seat till he drifts off....If we try to lay him in his crib asleep for naps he wakes within about 10 minutes.

A friend lent us the baby wise book and we read it together this weekend and are preparing to implement some of the strategies of the book. However, we do realize we are coming into it very late in the game.

What should nap time look like following these principles? How long do you let your baby cry before going in to soothe them at nap time? If they wake after their first 45 minute sleep cycle, how do you handle that? Up until now he has not cried at all outside of our arms and I'm not sure how well we will be able to emotionally handle it. We both lean more towards attachment parenting but we haven't slept more than 4 hour stretches over the past (almost) 4 months so we are really starting to burn out!

Thank you for any advice you have! We appreciate this forum so much!

Christa410 · February 2016

I try and follow the eat play sleep method - loosely. However he doesn't really nap longer than 30 minutes lately. Every once in a while I can get one 1.5 hour nap.

Hes still sleeping in rock and play but if he naps in there i typically hold his pacifier and shush him til he's asleep. Or his dad will sometimes rock him to sleep before we put him down. He's almost 4 months and we definitely have to encourage him to go to sleep. There's no putting him down sleepy and he drifts off into sleep.

I don't really let him cry. He may cry when he is laid down but I'll give him his pacifier and he calms down. If he doesn't I pick him up for a few and try again. If he still doesn't then i usually give him and hold him for a couch nap where he will sleep for a good hour or two.

Lol sorry I'm not much help. I'm right there with ya - he's up every 3 hours at night too so I haven't even had a four hour stretch of sleep in soooo long. They are only little once is what I tell myself. We were driving during nap time today so I'm currently parked outside waiting for him to wake up. However I can get him to sleep works for me now. Sorry for the novel I may be a little bored in the car.

allowe · February 2016

First, it's never too late to start!! Second, I let my LO cry for 10 minutes when I put him down before I go back in and comfort (depending on the severity of the cry). I do this a couple times if necessary. Also, the crying will probably be worst at the beginning of your sleep training. If you can get through the first few days, that'll be huge! My son is 3.5 months, we started baby wise at 2 weeks and he is sleeping 7-7 in his crib and takes great naps during the day as well!! There's also a forum on FB called babywise mamas if you would like, they're a great helpful bunch of mamas on there who practice the same principles and can help with any questions, even post sample schedules!!

brynagc · February 2016

@alloweThank you so much for your reply! After two days on the baby wise routine he is going down for naps really well! However, he is waking 45 minutes into his naps continuously, but I know that he isn't hungry at that point...Any chance you went through this with your baby? And any tips to help extend his naps past that 45 minute mark??

Also, is your son sleeping 7-7 with no wakes?? That's awesome! Ours makes it about 5 hours then 7 but can't go a full 12 yet.

jessforsee · February 2016

allowe said:

First, it's never too late to start!! Second, I let my LO cry for 10 minutes when I put him down before I go back in and comfort (depending on the severity of the cry). I do this a couple times if necessary. Also, the crying will probably be worst at the beginning of your sleep training. If you can get through the first few days, that'll be huge! My son is 3.5 months, we started baby wise at 2 weeks and he is sleeping 7-7 in his crib and takes great naps during the day as well!! There's also a forum on FB called babywise mamas if you would like, they're a great helpful bunch of mamas on there who practice the same principles and can help with any questions, even post sample schedules!!

I agree completely! It has made our life so easy and we have people tell us all the time that our baby is so good, and I tell them it's cause of baby wise. To help with your 45 minute issue though, we had that constantly every single nap. For some reason it did take us a while to get naps down. But we found that she was waking up every 45 minutes cause she wasn't getting stimulated enough during the wake times. I found my self holding her a lot or cuddling a lot during wake time, and she never really had Tummy time or floor time on a play mat. My sister in law also did baby wise and she suggested making sure she was getting enough stimulation, and I'm telling you as soon and I started to give her more of a "play time/work out(tummy time)" she is now sleeping soundly at naps from 1.5-2 hours without waking up.

Sometimes she cries herself to sleep and I'll go in every 10 minutes to soothe her with a paci but I usually only have to do that once or twice. I know the book says they can try for up to 20 minutes just fine but my baby was very hard to console after that long, so that's why we would do 10 minutes.

At night she sleeps 11pm- 5:30am right now. We had been going 11-8 but now she is going through a growth spurt and has regressed a little. once this regression is over we are going to try to push back the 11pm feeding to 10,9 and then hopefully eventually have 8 as the final one of the night.

We also started late, so you can totally do it! Good luck and stay patient! It will pay off in the end

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