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April 2019 Moms
rache1990
member
Parenting Books and Baby sleep schedules
rache1990
member
Anyone else reading interesting books or non-first time moms have experience and advise for getting babies to sleep through the night in the first few months?
A friend recommended Babywise, the schedule they recommend seems intense but she swears it’s needed and works. I also read Bringing up Bebe where they talk about how French babies sleep through the night by 2-3 months and only eat 4x per day.
The more I read, the more overwhelming it seems and all the books say you need to start feeding and sleep schedules right away for success and if you miss the 6 week window you’re kind of screwed... Would be interested to hear what others are planning and some anecdotal evidence.
A friend recommended Babywise, the schedule they recommend seems intense but she swears it’s needed and works. I also read Bringing up Bebe where they talk about how French babies sleep through the night by 2-3 months and only eat 4x per day.
The more I read, the more overwhelming it seems and all the books say you need to start feeding and sleep schedules right away for success and if you miss the 6 week window you’re kind of screwed... Would be interested to hear what others are planning and some anecdotal evidence.
Re: Parenting Books and Baby sleep schedules
It probably sounds trite to say, but what works for one family (or even baby) won't work for another. It's definitely frustrating, but for the most part every family has to figure out what works for them, regardless of parenting "advice," they are given.
That being said, some moms I know stick to a sleep schedule like glue and it works for them. Some (like me) go with the flow and it all works out eventually, haha.
DS1 would sleep 8 straight hours through the night at first, but only because I ignored the nurses/doctors/moms who told me I needed to wake my newborn every 2 hours to nurse (he was gaining weight and clearly wasn't hungry if he was sleeping that well). After he started rolling and couldn't be swaddled at night anymore in the bassinet, his sleep became erratic. Honestly, those first few months were a blur for me. I couldn't stand cry it out or any method that left him on his own once I had done some reading about attachment parenting (and just my own hormones and feelings). We did our best to establish a bedtime routine (diaper, read a book, nurse to sleep). We also co-slept to save my sanity (I exclusively breastfed at first before going back to work and would bring DS back into bed with me after his first wakeup of the night).
So obviously I did all the things you're "not supposed," to do (co-slept, nursed to sleep, naps/bedtimes weren't always consistent) but now I have a 4yo who sleeps a solid 12 hours every night
For example DD slept 6hours a night from day 1 and 12 hours by one month. And always in her own crib
Howver DS didn’t sleep alone thru the night until 18months.
Reallg I guess it comes down to your parenting approach. I tend to fall between gentle parenting/on demand feeding, and scheduled when they get older. But it also will come down to baby and circumstances. If this baby has a strong latch and is eating really well to start off, I might try to push a longer schedule at night. Maybe. But I’ll probably just end up cosleeping again in the firstborn months because it’s easier. For me.
Sleep is developmental. Around 4 months babe will go through a sleep PROgression and after then, it when I found any sleep coaching to work. Around 6 months, naps and nights became consistent and we were able to establish a routine.
We had LO in his own room from day 1 home. We plan to do the same for #2. We didn't sleep coach until 4 months and since then, LO has gone to bed awake for nights and naps.
We loosely followed eat-play-sleep and still do at 18m. Babies thrive on consistency and routine so whatever you do...be consistent and follow the same routine everyday.
Married: 6/2016
TTC:6/2016
BFP: 11/22/2016 | EDD: 7/29/2017
Babywise: eat, play, sleep method to promote putting baby down awake instead of feeding/nursing to sleep.
Happiest Baby on the Block: The first few weeks/months are the "fourth trimester" so you should create a womb like experience at home using the 5 S's: swaddle, side or stomach position for calming babies (NOT sleeping), shushing, swinging, and sucking.
The Wonder Weeks Book & App: Baby development over the first 20 months of their life and the impact on their feeding/sleeping/disposition. Essentially these are leaps in brain development that your child will make over time that will result in crankiness, crying, and clinginess. The app notifies you when a leap or wonder week is happening and lets your know what baby is developing.
Precious Little Sleep: this is a new book, but she has a website/blog and a huge, highly active FB group. This summarizes seven methods that you can use to get your baby to sleep through the night and find which one works best for you and your baby. Includes cry-it-out methods.
The No Cry Sleep Solution: Tips/guide of gentle ways of getting your baby to fall asleep after feeding/nursing for naps and night-time that is not cry-it-out.
The one book I can't do without is Baby 411. It's a reference guide for the whole first year, and is written by a pediatrician in a brief, practical tone.
It has a GREAT sleep section that summarizes all the different views on the sleep question and gives the basic instructions for each of them (which I appreciated; dude, I don't have time to read 200 pages on your sleep method when you could fit the actual info on 3 pages without the sob story anecdotes).
I also really enjoyed having the book for things like puffy eyes, stool colors, etc. instead of having to rely on Google or do the 45-min nurse-call dance that ends in her being like, that's normal, simmer down.
But that being said, I read this article the last few days that feels really relevant here.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/parenting-books-improv/580795/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-01-18T17%3A43%3A16&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1kCuhqT2MlL--1-h5C2PLyQtwFsw90FHefWFvL2D5hc9RM7RR1p33fcis
I actually kinda want to laugh at the idea that you can read a book (or books) and it will some how give you a magical formula for a baby sleeping through the night. It might work once or twice. Or you can get super lucky and it will work a lot. Or you can try them all and it works never. But if there was a magic button that could make it so your kid STTN consistly we wouldn’t have a million different parenting books. There would be someone very very wealthy somewhere though.
Babies get hungry and babies get fussy and babies need a change. And sometimes they have no reason for being a cranky hobgoblin who refuses to sleep. Parenting is realizing you don’t totally hold the reigns anymore.
I’m not saying don’t read them. But don’t hold your breath if they don’t work.
prevously helloblueeyes
Me:32 DH:33 Married:04/2012 DD:07/2014
BFP 8/14/2018 #2 due 4/18/2019
Hes 4 now and still not a fabulous sleeper, though obvs much better. In part he just doesn’t seem to need or want as much sleep as other kids! I always see pictures of other ppls kids sleeping on play mats or where ever - my kiddo has never fallen asleep on a playmat ever in his life. In fact, he had a 1.5 hour nap today (last night we had a long drive and sleeping in the car = disrupted sleep for him) and so now it’s 8:30 and he’s laying in bed wide awake - quiet and cooperative, but nowhere near sleep. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 9:30pm before he’s actually out.
I read a book written by a pediatrician/Dad called Beyond the Checkup - From Birth to Age Four and I learned so much. What a great book! I got it from the library and then bought a copy. Granted this baby is still in utero but he gave me a lot of ideas of what to expect and answered a lot of questions I had. I know it will be a great reference, too.
Happiest Baby on the Block has some good techniques I'm sure I will use. Somewhat skimming the book as it is redundant but it did inspire me to register for 3 different types of swaddles and 2 carriers so I can see what baby likes.
I read a book called Achtung Baby about German parenting for self reliance that I liked a lot... also enjoyed learning about life in Berlin in general. Great food for thought as I think about the type of parent I want to be.
Will be reading a few more books before baby comes including No Cry Sleep Solution, Bring Up Bebe, and Ferber's sleep book... to get a few more perspectives.
I am hoping to keep baby in my room in the Halo Bassinest we got (used on Amazon marketplace - woot!) til about 4 months and then sleep train through the night. First few months I will be feeding on demand and not worrying about routine or structure. After 4 months I hope to establish a routine... but we shall see!
(Not baby sleep related but on the pregnancy book topic nothing beats Expecting Better IMO!)
Married 7/6/13
EDD 2/5/21
DD 4/19
For sleep, don't expect your child to STTN for the first year (seriously). This way, your hopes aren't dashed (like mine were when DD didn't STTN until she was 9 months old) because there are the speshul snowflaykes whose kids do and that'll just piss you off when they boast about it. It's NORMAL for a baby to not STTN.
As for help as to WTF is going on (because you'll wonder WTF is going on with your baby, why he/she is crying, won't stop, won't sleep, etc) I did like the wonder weeks app, DD was pretty much on point with every developmental milestone and helped explain why she wasn't doing or was doing _____. I also really like the baby sleep site (website). It provided good, but realistic expectations. FWIW, we did CIO at 7-8 months. No, she did not cry for hours (in fact, the most she ever cried was 10 minutes) and she is a good sleeper now.
But really, none of this will pertain to anyone else's child, or this LO of ours, because they will be completely different. But if I had to pick, routine is the most important thing.
On general parenting books I've also enjoyed "Whole Brain Child," "Simplicity Parenting," and "How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm." I also pre-ordered "CribSheets" by Emily Oster because I loved her pregnancy book so much.
We limit screen time. Before age 1.5 we didn’t really do any, then we did 6m of some music videos or whatnot on occasion and then at 2 we started little simple shows. now at 3 she likes Daniel tiger the best. And an occasional iPad game.
We did nursing on demand for the first 12m and the. Switched to more of a schedule and we started weaning around 2.5 and finished right before she turned 3.
We didnt co sleep at first, but once she was 19lbs and 7m and nursing like crazy at night I needed to in order to survive and it was a great 3-4 months. Once she started climbing out of the bed we moved her to the crib for most of the night.
We did a method of CIO (not really) that kept us in the room. If she was crying. It took about 6m of bedtime sobs for her to happily go to sleep most nights and staying asleep came with night weaning.
With discipline we do really natural consequences usually, (if you sit in the mud we will have to change your clothes) but have also included time outs for some behaviors such as clearly disobedient or hurtful things. I like how ‘super nanny’ deals with a lot of behaviors.
We plan on homeschooling, my degrees in special Ed and elem. Ed anyway, I love the freedom of homeschooling. I and my hubs were home educated. I will probably read books on that when we get there.
I haven’t read any books on sleeping yet, but I’ve been reading “Latch” by Robin Kaplan as an intro to breastfeeding. As a FTM hoping to breastfeed, but feeling like I’m being dropped into the deep end, I’ve appreciated the pretty straightforward intro to bf. I’ve also recently started reading “Strong As A Mother” by Kate Rope but I just started it so I don’t have any vibes from it yet.
Bed mtume routines are helpful... as a newborn and infant it was a general sleep routine of nurse/fall asleep to me singing a familiar lullaby either in the rocking chair or in bed with me. Around 4-6 months a pattern emerged with 2 naps per day and longer stretches of sleep (one 3-4hr stretch per night then nurse and sleep 2-3 hrs, nurse and sleep 2hrs, maybe one more nurses and sleep 1-2 hrs if I was lucky).
After 1 yr he napped once and I usually got one 4-6 hour stretch per night followed by shorter ones....
i just followed my babies lead.
Now at 2.5 we bath/brush teeth, PJ’s book, bed. And he wakes 0-2x night to be reassured with a hug or pat on the back and back to sleep.
We don’t wanna do CIO or other sleep training methods.