We have finally achieved a nighttime routine that gets Hadley to bed relatively early and helps her sleep longer!
The first two nights we were home from the hospital, Hadley had her days and nights mixed up, so we were up with her until around 4:30 in the morning each of the first two nights at home. After the first two nights, she got a little better, but still would not let us put her down until around 11pm. We were struggling to stay up long enough to get her to sleep! So we started looking at sleep books early. I bought two books--"The No-Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley and "The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West.
We are not following either book to the letter, but we have selected a few of the methods suggested in the books and made them work for us. We've learned that it is mainly about establishing a routine (something I am admittedly really bad at--but I am learning too). It is actually working! We start our routine around 7 or 7:30 every night and usually have Hadley put down by around 8:30. Then we usually feed her again right before we go to bed, and she usually sleeps from 4-6 hours. Sometimes she wakes up more often to eat, but she goes right back to sleep.
So here is what has worked for us:
Early on, when Hadley was about 2-3 weeks old, we started to do things to help her establish the difference between night and day. So, in the daytime, we opened the blinds, turned on lights, and talked to her and played with her. Around 7 or 8pm every night we would start to quiet her down by dimming all the lights in the room we were hanging out in and turning the volume down on the television. We would hold her, but would not really play with her or talk to her (other than as necessary to calm her down if she got fussy). That helped her start to sleep better at night, but she still was not getting to bed until around 11pm.
The next step was to establish a bedtime routine. We just started doing the routine this month, but so far it is working wonders. Around 7 or 7:30 every night we feed her a bottle. Then we give her a bath (if it is bath night), change her diaper, put on her pajamas and lavender lotion, and swaddle her. Then we sit in a dark room and play lullabies. We play the same 4 lullabies every night, and we play through them twice before we put her down. Oh, and she demands that we actually sing along to the lullabies--no sing, no sleep!
I am just amazed at the difference we have seen, so I thought I would share the solutions we have found. Now, if I could just get her to take a nap in her crib for more than 5 minutes during the day . . .
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Hadley slept 7 hours last night without waking up!!! 8:30pm to 3:45am. That's the best sleep I've had since she was born!
ReplyDelete--Amanda
I am so glad that she is sleeping, that is a HUGE milestone. When Andrew started sleeping through the night, we were putting him to bed around 11, and he would sleep until around 5. Totally sleeping through the night in my book. But then I read in one of my parenting magazines, that when babies are overly tired they do not sleep as long at night and to try a bed time closer to 7-8, and bingo, the very next night we did, totally expecting him to wake up, and he actually slept long lengh wise and time wise. He was in bed around 7:30, and woke up around 6:30! Now during that time we were in our first or second week of daycare, so I am not sure if that had something to do with it, but I am not picky on the reason behind it, just as long as it works. He has been like this for a month now, and only on one or two occations will he wake up in the middle of the night. And that is usually because he has a poopy diaper. If he wakes up before we go to bed I put his mobile on and usually he will go back to sleep on his own. If he wakes up early morning, I usually have to feed him for him to get sleepy again.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your new found freedom and your nights together as a happy couple once again!
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