Happy Hump Day Mommies!
So I thought I would continue with
the theme of sleep since it is Sleep Awareness Week. I found this awesome article with great tips
on how to navigate sleep during daylight savings (DS). As you know, most babies don’t get the DS
memo and just keep on with their original sleep times. So I thought this article would be helpful to
some.
3 Tips Daylight Savings
SG was born right before Fall DS
which meant we were going to fall back…or gain an extra hour of sleep….errrr
that was B.B. (Before Baby) because after baby all that means is no extra
nothing. Boo dat! My lil Nuggy woke up at her usual time bright
and early which at the time was about 4 AM.
So much for falling back! But hey
now that we are about to Spring forward maybe I will reap the benefits of
getting that extra hour of sleep back (assuming SG continues sleeping…although
I’ve come to expect the unexpected since becoming a momma). Either way, this article offers some great
tips.
I also wanted to touch on a few
items I left out in my post yesterday.
First, let me start by stating that before you start any “sleep training”
please consult your pedi first. We did
and were told she would be more prepared for sleep training around 5-6 months
but since SG has always been about 2 weeks ahead on certain items we started a
bit early. We were prepared for it not
to work but God bless our lil one because it worked! Second, I also had to verify that if she
slept through the night did I still need to wake her to feed. The response I received was, “if she’s
getting plenty of formula during a 24 hour period (approximately 32 oz.) then
she should be ok…then again you do have a healthy
girl.” Translation…our chunky Nuggy is
in the 98th percentile for weight and still eats plenty during the
day so we were cleared for letting her sleep if she didn’t wake up hungry. No we do not make our child starve through
the night in hopes of restful night.
Third---while we are on the topic of food SG started rice cereal a bit
early as well…4 months old with approval by our pedi. And to answer the question, no this did not
make her sleep through the night…in fact she would still wake up hungry. Again, we have a hungry hippo on our
hands. We then introduced other foods to
her right before the 5 month mark. We were
told that as long as she was still getting the correct amounts of formula and
the food was NOT eliminating formula intake then we were still good. If you can believe this (which you will once
you see all her rolls) this lil Nuggy eats cereal for breakfast and dinner with
a bit of homemade food (i.e. apple sauce, pears, sweet potatoes, peas,
etc.). We introduced each one separately
to make sure she didn’t have any bad reactions (this will have to be another
post). She eats all of this and STILL
takes her full bottles. Fourth, we no
longer swaddle SG which actually came as a recommendation from our Personalized
Plan from The Baby Sleep Site. The reason was because she had started to
battle the swaddle because she wanted to be able to suck on her hand which is a
sign of self soothing. SG now sleeps in
a sleep sack. This is a great way to graduate
from swaddle blanket. Fifth, it was also
recommended to us that we get SG a lovee AKA blankie/stuffed animal (see link). My dear friend, Adrienne, bought SG one for
her baby shower. At first I thought,
what do I do with this and will she ever need it?! Now I LOVE it. This was introduced to help eliminate the
paci since SG was too small to replace her paci and this was the root of many
of her night wakings (waking up in a zombie like state to replace a paci 5-10x
a night is torture). The way we were
told to introduce the lovee was to have her hold it during bottle time. She quickly adapted to it. We only use it for naps and night time. We also let her hold the lovee at night
during her bottle and she now loves it.
In fact she rubs it to sleep. Lastly,
routine is KEY! I cannot stress this
enough. One constant I have read is that
babies like routine. Trust me; my Type A
personality appreciates this. So every
night the routine is the same (we’ve even kept it the same when we have
travelled with her or had someone else watch her). The key to the routine is that SG knows we
are winding down and this is bed time.
No surprises, no anxiety, it is what it is and she now loves the bedtime
routine. Here is our routine below.
·
6 PM-Dinner (cereal)
·
6:30 PM-Playtime with mommy and daddy (usually
we play with toys either in her high chair or her room)
·
6:45 PM-Bath time
·
7 PM-The three B’s---Bottle, Bible and Books
(One of us feeds while the other reads to her)
·
7:15-7:30 PM-Lights out, kisses and good night
(this time ranges a bit depending on how sleepy she is, trick is to put her down
AWAKE which is why we keep her lamp on until we put her down)---she typically
talks and laughs herself to sleep in about 5-10 minutes.
 |
| A snapshot of our nights. There is a photo of SG with her paci which is actually an older photo but I wanted to show how she sleeps with her lovee. |
Again, we always keep this the
same. Yes it can be a pain at times
(i.e. no going out at this time, early dinners, etc.) but the payoff is far
greater than missing a dinner with friends.
I would much rather have a happy sleepy baby than an overtired grumpy
baby. If we travel we repeat this same process
and when we left for our ski trip the grandmas followed this same routine. And if we do plan a night out then our
babysitter also follows this routine.
Hopefully, there is some nugget
of information that you find interesting or helpful. I know when I was looking to improves SG’s
sleep I searched a lot of blog postings for tips from other mommies. At the very least hearing someone else’s
experience helps. As always, I want to
state that this may not be for everyone but it is what has worked for us. Trust me there is no judgment when you become
a parent. As my great friend once said, “it’s
all about survival of the fittest!”
Oh and last night SG slept all
the way through the night until 6:40 AM!!!
PS...I included links for The Baby Sleep Site, sleep sack and lovee.
No comments:
Post a Comment