Newborn sleep

I've been very lucky this time around.
Since Ev was born she sleeps all night, from about 8pm to 6 or even 9 am, waking to nurse then falling right back asleep.
Liv took 6 weeks to get on a schedule like this. But I sometimes wonder if I delayed it for her.
As a second time mom I have a little more know how behind my belt, I guess I am no longer a tenderfoot, at least when it comes to newborns. Every newborn is different, but I think getting them on a day/night schedule as early as possible can help every new mom.
Expose them to sunlight during the day. I just read somewhere how children and babies exposed to sunlight from 2pm-6pm sleep better, longer and go to sleep faster.
Make night wakings boring, quiet and keep them dark. I change Ev in the dark, only with a night light, unless its super messy or absolutely necessary I avoid the lights for her from 9pm on.
I would love to type more, but newborns are fussy creatures, especially in the sixth week which we are in so I will continue another time.

Related articles

• New Mom Sleep Tips (enfamil.com)
• Four Myths About Babies and Sleep (webmd.com)

Transitioning to a Toddler Bed

Last night was Liv's first night in her new room with her new bed. She did amazingly well.
I have been prepping her a lot for it.

She helped us put all her clothes in her new closet, bring in her toys and books too.
She also watched Daddy take apart her crib and turn it into a toddler bed in her new room. He asked her to help him. She would give him screws and hold the flash light.
After the bed was set up we had her help put in her night time toys and let her play in the bed reading to her dolls for a little bit before bed.
We went through her normal night time routine and she was out. She didn't wake up once the whole night.
I think she enjoys the freedom of being able to get out of the bed when she wakes up.
We talked about her new bed for a while and how she is not a baby any more and gets to sleep in a big girl bed. She loved the idea, which is why I think she has done so well.
I didn't not push her before I felt she was ready. Since her bed converts all the way to a full we got another set like this for the baby so worse case scenario she could of stayed in her crib.
Liv is almost 2 now and does not think she is a baby any more. She loves the idea of being grown and likes to cuddle and kiss babies and her dolls. I just hope this keeps up when our new baby arrives.

Helping Liv get through this sleep regression

I had to implement the No Cry Sleep Solution back with Liv since her nights have got so bad.
In an ideal world I wouldn't have to worry about her night time seperation anxiety getting to her. I would love to be co-sleeping still, but with my husband and I both being poor sleepers we were actually disturbing Liv too much a night. So the next best thing for me would be to hsve her crib in my room, but my room in way too small for that. So we are stuck with her in her own room and having to work through seperation anxiety.
Many parents books say go in, check on them, if nothing is wrong let them cry and they will stop. As some one who as panic attacks and anxiety I could never let my paniced daughter just scream and cry. I know how horrible anxiety feels, like your heart is going to jump from your chest, like you might sufficate, like the world is spinning out of control. I can not let her go through that alone.
When she first started to have these night wakenings she was very paniced, shaking and screaming. I would immediately go to her, pick her up and rock her or nurse her back to sleep. This is also the first phase in the NCSS. We already have used her plan before so some of the other pre-steps we already have. Liv sleeps with a snoedel that I wore to make it smell like me. She also sleeps with a Seahorse that plays soothing music.
We also have key words.
Next after about 2 weeks of doing this Liv was still waking a lot, but not as paniced so I felt it was time to go on the phase 2. This involves not picking her up, but using soothing pats to get her back to sleep, while she is still in her crib. We have been doing this now for about 2 weeks and are moving on to phase 3. Phase 3 is comfort with out pick ups. This does not work to well for Liv so I modified it for her. That is one of the things I love about the NCSS. It is not a strict program that you must follow to a tee. You have flexability so you are able to do what feels right to you.
This, to me, is what is wrong with most Cry It Out programs. There is no flexabilty. You must follow the program, no matter what, or they claim it will not work right. No matter how hard or long your child cries you either check on them at timed intervals (Feber Method) or just leave them to cry alone (extinction method).
Our modification of phase 3 goes like this, when Liv stands up and goes to the side of her crib and cries out for me I immediately go in and first check to see if anything is wrong. If not I lay her on her belly or side (she is over 1year) put on her seahorse, tell her its night-nights and leave the room. I leave the door open and the door to my bedroom is open. The doors are right across for each other so she can peak into my bedroom. Then if she continues to cry I wait a min or so. How long I wait depends on how she is crying. If she is wailing I go right back in. Then I repeat. Since she has been weaned to this gently this whole process so far as not lasted more then 10 min, usually closer to 5. With the Ferber method she would have been left to cry the whole time. With this method, yes there is some crying, but I reassure her, give her some love with a hug or some words and let her know that momma is here in something is wrong, but right now you just need to sleep. At anytime she is too upset I stop the "training" and either nurse her, rock her or bring her in bed with me. This is a huge no-no in other methods. But I use my momma instincts to guide the way of getting her to sleep. Also if she is just whinning I leave her be, unless she stands up. For Liv that is her "I need you"
One good point Pantley makes in her book that children do make noises in there sleep. Sometimes they even cry, so give them an minute to resettle themselves and see if they really need you. This is why I love having a video monitor. When Liv cries I usually check it first. If she is not standing she usually cries out, grabs her pacifer or she snoedel and is right back asleep.

This way takes a lot longer then sleep training. I have been doing this for weeks now when most sleep training books say it takes several nights or so to get results. But to me I could not take hours of her crying. It doesn't feel right and it just hurts me so I can't imagine how Liv must feel. This was she is eased into sleeping right and I am seeing good results.

As a parent I feel much more comfortable with this method then any cry it out method. I also just feel that it would not work well with my child. She is stubborn at this young age. I feel she would cry forever till I gave her some attention.

And really what is wrong with giving you child attention when they cry? No contrary to popular belief that it will not spoil your child or teach them to cry for attention, as long as you child is getting positive attention. It will teach them that my mom and dad care, and will respond to my needs, love me uncondionally and help them be more secure and independent in the future

transition to one nap

Image by island artist via Flickr

Liv very suddenly transitioned to one nap. She was giving me a very hard time about going down for her naps and at night for days. She would fuss and fight and act wide awake. She needed to be rocked for almost an hour. Well on Saturday was her first birthday party and I did not have time to take hours to get her to sleep so I waited. I put her down for her first nap at noon, she slept only an hour and a half and needed to go to bed by 6:30. She passed right out.
Now she is taking a nap at noonish, about 5 hours after she wakes up. The nap is now longer now that she is realizing she is getting one nap. Some days it has been 3 hours.
Today we were in the car at the time of her old morning nap and she passed out. I awoke her at our destination, 10 min later. She did find and still took a decent nap at 12:15. So I guess she still isnt totally used to one nap, but it hasnt even been a week.
Liv took so long to get down to 2 naps I'm suprised that she dropped to one so quick.

Sleep essentials

I've posted before about the trials and tribulations of Liv and her bad sleep patterns. Now at almost a year she goes down very easy. She has been doing this for a while and on most nights only wakes once between 2-5.
Liv has a few sleep essentials that help her get to sleep.
Binkies-Liv needs a binkie, this option can be controversal, but she really seemed to need it as a baby, and does not seem to be ready to wean at all.

Snoedel doll-this organic cotton doll is Liv's lovey. This lovey was pushed upon her for a while. Since she was such a poor sleeper, waking often I used this to help. It took a bit for her to want this doll, but it works wonders now. I wore the doll under my shirt so it smells like me and for months this doll was only taken out at sleep time and in the crib. Now when she is tired she reaches for this doll and strokes it against her face.

Seahorse- This little glowworm like doll sits in the corner of her crib. I put her in the crib awake and push its belly. Its lights up and plays 5 min of music. This was key when I was trying to get her to sleep on her own and now its just a nice part to her routine.

I needed to this, this is essential for Liv and I forgot it in my original post. I noise machine. Liv sleeps to the sounds of the ocean. It is so relaxing. I love listening to the noise of it over the monitor all night long. I start the sound machine when we go in her room at the beginning of her routine and leave it on all night. It keeps out noises in the house, and is just another cue for her that its sleep time. The machine I bought Liv is the Homedics one, which is very inexpensive and can operate on batteries or with headphones. So its very portable and can be used in many situations, even when she is older if she still needs it.

We co-slept full-time till 4 months and part-time till a little after 6 months. The transtion was actually very easy and very natural. We still occasionally co-sleep on nights when she is having a rough time, like last week when she was sick. These tips might help you transition out of co-sleeping if you want to or if it wasnt working out for you, which was the case for us. I love love love co-sleeping, but my little Liv is a wild girl in her sleep and would wake DH and me up. And worse I think she gets that from both DH and I so we would wake her up often too. This is when I decided to transition her to her crib and started to use some of these things to make it easy on her.


These are essential to our sleep routine and can help get your LO to sleep in her crib, with out resorting to CIO methods.

Week 22

We had more sleep progress. Liv on most nights is falling asleep in her crib after bein put down awake, and she is down to one night feeding from 7-7. There is hope for sleep. I have read so many sleep books and so many have mixed suggestions and mixed standards of how much your LO should be sleeping or eating at night. Many said that Liv should be able to sleep through the night. I was begining to think they were right, but when she woke up she seemed hungry. So on her own she just gave up one night feeding. She still eats around 12, but does not wake up to eat again till she is up for the day. I am glad I listened to my heart and what I felt she needed. Now I am hoping that when we have solids down a bit she will being sleeping through the night. But I have to admit, I do like the one feeding, getting up in the night and spending a little extra time with her. There is never enough time in the day imo so I like this little extra time.

My Sleep Tips for A 4 month Old

I have a very bad sleeper and from all my readings these are some tips that have worked for me.
1) sleep with white noise, ocean sounds all night long
2) A lovie, Liv has the Snoedel and I slept with it for several days to get my smell on it. So far she loves it and it helps her put herself to sleep.
3) A specific bedtime routine. For us, massage, change into pjs, nurse, read 2 stories, turn off lights, on nightlight, on humidifer, on white noise, sing 2 songs, all while rocking.
4)Then I put her in her crib awake. (this only started after I got her used to her crib after the first 3 months co-sleeping, for about 3 weeks after I put her in more often asleep) If she cries I go in and pat her hopefully to calm or asleep. I am not a big fan of CIO, especially at this young age, so if she is not doing well I will rock her either to sleep or try awake again. Awake in the crib works well if she is not overtired and had an easy day.
5) Key words. I have key words I say to her at the end of our routine "shhh swee'pea its time for sleep" I am trying to build an association to these words so when she is older then will calm her along and I will be able to calm her in her crib better.
6) Try to calm in crib before picking up
7) Only awake for 2 hr blocks, she can't handle more then 2 hours awake. This means she needs to be asleep by that 2 hours mark, so 1hr and 45 min or so we start a nap routine. This has helped the most for us. Liv seems to know now that sleep time is coming since I have been very consitent with the 2 hour blocks.

I also have a nap routine 2 books while rocking, one song, in crib and the better naps the better night is.

I sing the same song last at naps and night, and read the same book last at night.

Liv used to take an hour or more to fall asleep naps and night, now it is pretty smooth on most nights. I think she was often overtired and got that "second wind" and did not want to sleep. We have set backs and I just let her fall asleep in my arms those night and put her in her crib. She is still little and learning the process of falling asleep on her own, so I am not to concerned yet. Since I am not doing CIO it takes longer to learn this, its a slower, but more gentle process. It took about a month to get me happy with her sleep. It is not perfect but it is so much better. No more crying baby, because she is so over tired and can't calm herself. This mean a much calmer me.
She still gets up a lot at night, every 3-4 hours. So some days I take a nap with her. Its a nice cuddle time for us. I always bring her Snoedel with us to get in more associated with sleep.