Counting Sheep & Catching Zzzzssss

Happy Tuesday Mommies!

Did you know that this is National Sleep Awareness Week?!  Kind of ironic considering we have an infant and the last five months of our lives were all about NO sleep.  Although, I can’t blame my lil SG….she can’t help it that she was a hungry lil hippo and couldn’t stretch through the night…that was until very recently. 

Before SG arrived I remember hearing everyone tell me that we would be sleep deprived.  So I did what anyone would do…I hibernated and napped as much as humanly possible, as if all those naps would create a sleep reserve that I could dip into once she arrived.  LOL.  I also remember thinking, “it won’t be that bad.  I am sure we will manage just fine.”  After all, I had read Becoming Baby Wise.  Wasn’t that the sleep bible for all parents?  Um, no, not for our kid.  So here’s the thing about SG, since birth she has marched to the beat of her own drum.  Not surprising I assure you, both her daddy and I do the same.  Others may refer to this trait as stubbornness.  Now don’t get me wrong, we have an AMAZING child but she just likes to do things her way on her own timeline and her timeline was always early.  The first few weeks weren’t so bad.  Every two hours she would wake like clockwork.  But then the six week mark came…and it felt like it never ended.  This was about the time that SG went through her first big growth spurt (a lot of babies hit this at 8 weeks).  We had already implemented a pretty good feeding schedule of every three hours but it was at this point that she wanted to always be held.  I love holding my child but holding her all night and through all naps is just not an option.  A momma needs to sleep, shower, go to the bathroom for goodness sake!  I remember thinking that I just wanted to make it through to the eight week mark.  She was also a bit colicky, mostly due to some minor reflux and LOTS of gas which was a result of formula issues (that’s a whole other story).  I began to suffer from sleep deprivation and by the 10 week point I told my husband that I needed help with night feedings (originally I told him I would do all of them since he had to work and I didn’t---not sure I will do this next time).  I became so sleep deprived and desperate for any help that I started reading EVERYTHING I could get my hands on.  I read the Baby Sleep Solution, The No Cry Solution, Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy Child, forums on sleep, blogs….literally everything!  We tried all types of techniques and nothing seemed to be helping SG sleep.  This is what I mean when I say that our child is stubborn, things that worked for other babies didn’t seem to work for SG.  Even worse as she got older she became more dependant on her paci and being rocked.  By three months I was waking up every hour some weeks to replace the paci.  Finally, husband asked me if we should let her cry it out.  “NO WAY!” I replied.  I had let her CIO once and it was the worst experience of my life.  Seriously my heart just broke and I had to down two glasses of wine over the worst 30 minutes ever.  Now I know some people are big believers in this but it was just not for me.  I told him I had no interest in that.  Side note: I don’t condemn CIO, it’s just not for me.  Maybe it’s because I am a first time mommy but I just didn’t have the heart to do it so it was off the table---not an option for me.  It was during one of my sleepless nights where I decided to just let SG fall asleep on me so I could get some sleep that I stumbled upon a Google result that led me to The Baby Sleep Site.  This was a site that claimed to help you with getting your baby to sleep.  They had a PDF pamphlet/booklet that if you signed up for you could receive for FREE.  I was skeptical at first but as many sleep deprived moms know, desperate times call for desperate measures.  I downloaded the “booklet” then visited the website where they offered a personalized sleep plan for a fee.  Yup, I knew it…they were only after my money.  So I tossed the site aside and decided I would just have to stick it through.  Our pediatrician also told us that babies younger than 5-6 months simply do not have the skill set to self soothe…”great, I guess I won’t sleep for six months” I thought.  Then one day when I went back to work I received an email from The Baby Sleep Site.  I had forgotten that I had signed up and since I hadn’t been at work for almost four months I wasn’t receiving these emails.  By this point SG was starting some major sleep regression…I am talking back to being up every hour AND I was back to working full time.  I began to get desperate again.  Not even giving her cereal was helping.  I decided to ask my husband about his thoughts on paying for a custom plan.  He said yes (again desperate times J) and the rest changed our lives. 

I LOVE to go mimis now!  Look how happy I am when I wake up!

Upon purchasing our Personalized Sleep Plan I was sent a very long questionnaire.  Basically this questionnaire asked questions about SG, her current sleep patterns, naps, her personality, our goals, our personalities, our child rearing beliefs and more.  I am not going to lie, it did take me quite some time to complete this but I was impressed with the detail of questions asked.  Four days after submitting my questionnaire I was provided with a custom sleep plan just as detailed as the questionnaire I had completed.  I dove into it and was immediately impressed. We decided to start the plan that weekend which was a bit early because she was only about four months old (I highly recommend weekends because it gives you three nights to implement your plan, which can sometimes be sleepless).  We were told by the site that because she was a bit young she might not be ready to start learning to self soothe but that it was worth a try.  Our goal was for SG to learn to put herself to sleep, self soothe and not require a paci.  I thought this would take months.  God bless our lil angel because night one with no rocking and after 20 minutes of fussing (we were allowed to help calm her—no CIO) she was sound asleep, night two she was down in 9 minutes and by night three asleep in four!!!!  We followed the plan exactly as we were told and it worked!!!  After getting her to fall asleep on her own then the next task was night wakings.  We worked on one night waking a night with no paci.  By the end of the first week SG had learned to soothe herself back to sleep even with her night wakings.  Naps were next.  Her naps were about 30 minutes long and required LOTS of rocking.  I had pinched a nerve in my back and just couldn’t rock her to sleep that long….oh and did I mention that she only wanted to be rocked while I was standing?  Awesome!  Now we are down to naps that range between 1.5-2.5 each and no rocking.  We simply put her in bed and she puts herself to sleep.  AMAZING!!!

 

One recommendation The Baby Sleep Site gave us was to give Sofia Grace a "lovee" AKA stuffed animal/blankie.  Here she is with hers one morning, happy lil well rested Nuggy!

 

The Baby Sleep Site truly changed ours and Sofie’s lives.  She is now much more happy and so well rested.  She doesn’t fight sleep at all and knows what bedtime is.  In fact at bedtime after we put her down she talks and laughs herself to sleep in about 5 minutes---too sweet.  Now daddy and I are well rested and we have so much more time together in the evenings.  Before, putting SG to sleep took almost two hours…now it’s literally a 20 minute process (including her last feeding).  SG typically is asleep by 7:30 and now she has stretched her only night feeding to 5:30 AM which is technically sleeping through the night.  Our family wake-up time is 7:30 AM and after her 5:30 feeding she goes back to bed and wakes herself up at 7:30.  I imagine she will continue to stretch and eventually just sleep through until 7:30. 

So happy to go to bed...right before "mimi" time.

I wanted to make sure to share our story and what worked for us because baby sleep, or the lack of it, seems to be a HUGE topic amongst parents.  Again, not everything works for everyone but this worked for us.  What I loved about The Baby Sleep Site is that their plan was truly customized to fit OUR family.  I didn’t want her to CIO so their plan didn’t include it.  I knew SG was still hungry at nights so their plan included feedings (some books recommend weaning your baby from eating….our lil hippo was not interested in that).  The site was started by a mother so I always felt like she was just like me.  She isn’t a doctor (although she does have a nurse on staff) but her recommendations come from years of experience and from the perspective of a mother.  She takes into account the science of sleep and blends it with your family’s needs and wants.  Our package also came with email help and her staff has been simply amazing.  They always respond within a day and what I really like is that her staff are all mommies too who also share their experiences with you.  In fact I feel like I know them personally and if I could meet Nicole, her staff and my correspondent in person I would hug them to bits to thank them for all their help and support.  Unfortunately, the books didn’t work for us (but they may work for you) and my husband and I laugh at all the ridiculousness that we read and how our child wanted none of it.  I guess that’s because we were trying to put her into a sleep mold when it should have been the other way around.  This endorsement is not paid for…it literally comes straight from the heart and just shares our story.  If anyone needs any help at all with their lil one I highly recommend The Baby Sleep Site.  Rather than reading a book by a doctor you are getting advice from a mommy which, as I have mentioned before, is the best help you can get.  You won’t be expected to make a complete overhaul of your child rearing beliefs and there is a way to help your lil angel sleep through the night without CIO.  If anyone has any questions regarding our experience or The Baby Sleep Site please do not hesitate to ask.  This was the best $100 we’ve spent since SG’s birth (now if only I could get my money back for all those other books)!  

Here's wishing all my  mommy friends stop counting sheep and start counting some ZZZZsss.

Our sweet, happy, well-rested Nuggy.