To all the new moms and moms to be.......
My little Britan Rae has not by any means mastered sleeping! And last Wednesday I realized something had to change because 6 straight months of MAYBE sleeping 5 nights all night, no interruptions during this time frame had taken a toll on this person that LOVES and MISSES sleep BADLY!
Granted we have adjusted to not much sleep, but my mood and attitude have been severely affected by the loss of sleep...SO....I did some searching and came across the book Baby Wise, which I had looked at a couple of months ago, BUT I thought, I don't need a book to tell me what to do and it probably will not work anyway....wonder where we would be had I bought it months ago??????????
Brooks took the kids to Barnes and Nobles to find me this MAGIC book while I took a nice nap. When he got home I fumbled through skipping around trying to find the chapter that would make her sleep that night....eventually I started from the beginning and read 4 chapters that night. We decided that we would put her in crib and see what happened to give it a try because what we had been doing WAS NOT working....
I hadn't gotten to this chapter yet, but Brooks convinced me that we should put her in her crib and let her cry, which has never, ever been my moto....but I wanted to give it a try since she had been in our bed most nights kicking me and Brooks to each edge of our king sized bed and nursing ALL night long! So we put her in and waited over top while she cried and cried and screamed....I finally said, after what felt like years, pick her up I can't take it...Missy had no tears and as soon as we picked her up she laughed and smiled! WE HAVE BEEN PLAYED! I knew at that moment she was fine, she just wanted to get her way like her mommy!!! We put her back down and within 10 minutes she was asleep. Night #2 she cried for only 10 minutes and was asleep...night #3 NOTHING! WOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!!!!! We were sold!
I kept reading and determined that she needed to be placed on a strict feeding schedule as well....which I look back and think as much as I love to keep things scheduled and in line why oh why have I not done this before!!!!!!! We started feeding her every 4 hours instead of every time she whimpered which could have been every hour, every 3 hours, every 30 minutes, etc! So now she eats every 4 hours or before if we know she is crying and starving, but in the past week, we have been very close to the 4 hours at every feeding.
She is now in her crib all night and napping during the day in her crib and I have to say...it feels pretty GREAT! She is continuing to get up a couple times a night, mostly about every 4 hours due to her feeding schedule, but it is nothing like every hour of the night like last week and the week before and the month before! The book says that by 8-9 weeks old on the PDF feeding schedule babies should be able to sleep all night, so I am HOPING since she is a little older than a newborn maybe it will not take 8-9 weeks, but anything different from what we were doing is better!!! SO I am willing to wait and see when our baby girl decides she wants to sleep all night!
I have to say I was very confident coming into baby #2...you know, I have one, how different will it be? We have learned that it can be very different and that our Missy loves a schedule just like her mommy!
If you need help getting your baby or even toddler to sleep or if you are expecting this book is WORTH the $14.95!
Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite, Love, Alysha!
