Showing posts with label sleep schedule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleep schedule. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Babies Don't Keep

I would love to have a sleep schedule for my newborn. It would be so nice that at 9, 1 and 4 I could put her down for a nap in her crib and do what I need to do. Some people somehow manage this with children this young. I think they must have easy babies, or have nothing else to do then get them on a schedule or spend all their time working on one.
It is very easy for a newborn to get over stimulated, and once they do it can take a lot to get them to sleep. After an hour tops, Ev starts to show signs of over stimulation. In an ideal world before this I would go up to her room (as most parenting books suggest) do a nap routine and put her in her crib sleepy. Since she isn't over stimulated and just starting to get tired theoretically she should easily go down.
This is great in theory, but who has the time. Every 2 hours to make sure this happens, I would have no time for anything else. By the time a basic breakfast of cereal is over Ev is already in over stimulation mode. Things like this is why idea like Babywise and other baby theorist drive me nuts. Yes if I had the time maybe, but who does?
So for these first few months I do what I have to to get my little girl to sleep. Often that is putting her in a baby carrier and getting ready or cleaning or doing whatever was needed to be done, and in the carrier she falls asleep. She may fight it if she is very over tired, but its rare that she gets to that point. Often I will sit on the couch and read with Liv while Ev nurses to sleep. We have a nice relaxing family time. When we are done reading I often sit with Ev for a bit, I am tired from having a newborn wake a night, and when she is over stimulated she wakes very easily when first falling asleep. This is common.
So I made sure to stock my mind, and bookcase, with nursey rhymes, fingerplays and movement songs to sing to my older daughter. She will dance around while we sit and watch. She will also read to us.
We sometimes dance or walk around the house or yard. I just put Ev in the moby or bijorn (always the bijorn when dancing)and Ev gets lulled to sleep while Liv gets some one on one momma time.


Today I laid down with Ev during Liv's nap to get her to sleep. I could use the rest too. I should of showered, cleaned, done laundry, all sorts of things, but I just laid down with my newborn and relaxed.
I learned with my first that these first few months can't be bothered with sleep schedules, or strict feeding schedules or worrying how clean your house is. Getting your child to sleep more at night, and soothing them when they are tired and upset is more important. And getting some rest for yourself too.
This is not the time to worry about when they can self-soothe, it will happen eventually. When they will sleep in their own crib, or or when they will sleep on schedule. It will happen. These first few months are a hard adjustment to your baby too. They spent 24/7 in your womb, being a nice warm temperature, being held and rocked, and always having a nice full belly.
I learned with my first this time goes so quick, so don't stress, enjoy this time. I keep telling myself this. It goes so quick. I don't know how I have a 2 year old already. That time went amazingly fast.

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep
-Ruth Hamilton
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Saturday, October 15, 2011

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.
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Friday, August 27, 2010

Keeping a baby on a strict schedule?

My sister and her baby.Image via Wikipedia

Solve Your Child's Sleep ProblemsI always thought I would go with the flow when I had liv. She would sleep when she is tired, we would eat when she is hungry and just live. On demand parenting this is sometimes called and it can work great, for some children. But children crave rhythm an consistence in their life. This is something Liv needed and all my AP books did not offer. She was cranky, fussy and over tired.
I am not a CIO fan, but for a while I was so desperate I read several popular CIO books. 2 I would highly recommend are Dr. Ferber's book, the father of CIO and Dr. Weissbluths book. They have great ideas and tips on how babies should be sleeping and how to be consistant. Doing the tips in there helped me greatly and I never resorted to CIO methods. I also used The No Cry Sleep Solution to implement a sleep plan. But with out the first 2 books mentioned I don't think the NCSS would of worked.
Babies need a schedule, or a rhythm of their day. The wake, eat, sleep. This is very babywise, but really helped. Babies like to know what to expect. Rhythm in your day can help this.
Rhythm is much looser then a schedule. With rhythm there isn't a specific time. I have seem on some Babywise blogs questions on how to get their LO to sleep to a specific time. This shouldn't be important. But what happens after they wake should be. So they know what to expect. It makes them feel safe. If Liv wakes up at 6 or 7 or anywhere inbetween I don't worry. When she was younger 3 hours later she needed a nap. I didn't look at the clock for its 9am every day naptime. No, she wasnt sleepy till 3 hrs later, why force her to stay up or force her to sleep early. There was a rhythm to out day inbetween. She knew that nap time was coming and for the most part goes down easy.
Now that we have switched to one nap our rhythm is off and she is giving me a little problem with going down. But I'm not worried, I know once she gets used to the new rhythm of our day everything will be fine.
In someways rhythm is a go with the flow. It just helps go with the natural flow of the day, in a consitant and predictable manner, but with flexablity when needed.
This is very "waldorf" style parenting, which goes a lot with attachment parenting, but is not usually mentioned in any ap books. If you are having problems with the sometimes chaos that can devolp with parenting a rhythm to your day can help greatly.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

transition to one nap

Photo sessions can be tiringImage 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.
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Monday, June 7, 2010

Down to 2 naps

It took till week 41, but Liv is now down to 2 naps. The first one is around 10, the next at 2, and she is in bed by 7:15. Usually before that. She still struggles, yesterday she needed 3 naps and today she had to nap a little before 10 and 2 but it is going well.
Most babies drop the third nap around 6 months, Liv took it up and part way through her 9th month, guess she just needs a lot of sleep.