How we Dealt with our Baby's Sleep Issues

I have always really needed my sleep. I have very little tolerance for getting less than 8 hours of solid sleep at night. It makes me feel horrible, like my head is filled with sand. It makes me irritable and miserable. Caffeine does not help me much. I feel that way until I catch up on my sleep. So, you can imagine my fear of having a new baby in the house.

When my son was born we had the same sleep issues as lots of other people do. He was up every two hours to eat for the first month or so. This is a normal and necessary part of development because baby tummies are very tiny, but it does not last forever. Here are some options to help you deal with this stressful time.

• Get Expert Help Read a book on infant sleep. You will get more ideas than you can even imagine, and most will have ideas to use as your child grows and his sleep needs and patterns change. My absolute favorite, and the only one I ever needed, was the No-Cry Sleep Solution. This book will not only give you knowledge and tools, it will also give you the confidence to parent in a loving manner, responding to your children's needs without worrying about "but will she ever sleep through the night?" Of course she will.

  

• Accept it. Accept the fact that you won't be getting as much sleep as usual for several months, maybe even a year or two. If you resist it, you may just start feeling even worse about it and resenting your child. You don't want that, it gets in the way of love, and oh boy, does the love you can feel for a new baby feel fantastic :). It really can make everything OK - and isn't that why you had a child? Believe me, your child will eventually sleep through the night.

  Help with Accepting it, and making it easier on you

  • Think of a mantra you can repeat to yourself when you are exhausted and your child is crying again. Something like "this won't last forever" or "she needs me so much" or "I'll take a nap later". If you don't put something positive in your head to repeat over and over your brain may start saying things like "I'm sooo tired" or "I just can't stand this any longer" and I guarantee that this kind of self-talk will make you feel worse and act badly. Repeating something positive can really take the edge off of any stressful situation.

  • Don't schedule much for the first month or two of the baby's life. Sure, you probably will need to take him to the Doctor's and you may have family and friends wanting to come over. Just make sure your family and friends bring the dinner and drinks with them, and try not to do much else. If you don't have any commitments looming over you the next day, being up for the third time at 3 am won't seem so bad. You'll know you can nap when the baby naps.

  • Sound and light-proof one room in the house. You are going to want to sleep during the day, and it will be much easier if you have a quiet, dark place to do it.

  • Don't worry about gourmet food - think easy and fast and little cooking time needed. I froze a month's worth of meals using the method in the book Once a Month Cooking. It was really helpful. Even though my husband was home with me for the first 4 weeks, I still loved having all those home-cooked meals available with little prep time. If I hadn't had them, I think I would have done a lot of crockpot meals and a lot of easy meals like spaghetti.

• Get help for Mom
  
  

  • Even though I was nursing, we had a need for our son to take a bottle sometimes, so my husband and I split nightime feeding. My husband and I slept separately, and I would get up with Joe from bedtime to about 5 am. After that 5 am feeding, I would put the baby monitor in with my husband and I would go into a different room and shut the door and sleep solidly until about 10 am (5 solid hours, plus several interupted hours let me feel completely rested). My husband would have to feed my son at least once during this time and he would use expressed breast milk in a bottle. Be aware that this will decrease milk supply a bit, and is not advised for any mom who is having supply issues, as night time is the best time to work on supply.

• Try cosleeping If mom is nursing exclusively, mom could try sleeping with baby in the bed with her. I was uncomfortable with this and did not do it until my son was 9 months old, but I wish I had. If I ever had another infant I would not even buy a crib. That baby would probably sleep with me. If the baby sleeps with mom, mom can nurse without hardly waking up at all. If you are concerned about rolling over on the baby, watch this Cosleeping study video. It really opened my eyes. Also read this Cosleeping Safely Article

• Make good use of daytime naps Did you know, that when you are overtired due to lack of sleep, your body releases stress hormones which then make it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep the next time you go to bed? Babies have the same problem. If your baby does not get sufficient naps during the day, sleeping may be harder for her at night. I have seen this firsthand with my son. When we first experimented with dumping his daytime nap at almost three years old he had a horrible time falling asleep at night due to being 'all wound up'. Then, he would be horribly restless all night. We re-implemented the nap for a few more months. He exhibited similar, if less obvious, behavior as a baby when he would miss a nap.

  • Determining your child's sleep patterns and work with them. When my son was a few months old and I felt kind of frantic because I didn't feel like I was ever able to get anything done or know what he was doing from one minute to the next I downloaded a sleep chart and started tracking when he normally slept. Once I figured this out, I created a very loose napping schedule and planned our days around it. I was fanatical about his naps (because of my own dislike of missing sleep) and he is now a fantastic sleeper.

• Start a bedtime routine As my son got older we were running into trouble with bedtime. We started a bedtime routine and it worked wonders. We started it around 4 months or so, and we still do a modified version now at 3.5 years old. It's the same with me, I have a bedtime routine that if I skip it for some reason, my body doesn't realize it's time to fall asleep, and I have trouble falling asleep. Our routine at 4 months was bath, lotion, read one book, and listen to music.

• Pay attention to cues I remember when my son was about two months old. He had a loose routine of going to bed around 7 p.m. A couple of nights in a row he started crying and fussing during his last nightime feeding. I didn't figure it out right away, but what he really needed was to go to bed a little earlier. He was tired. He was going through a growth spurt or something and needed a bit more sleep. If your baby is fussing and upset, think about if they need more sleep. If your baby is happy and playing when you think it's time for bed, maybe they need a little less sleep.

• My secret weapon - the back rub My son always wanted to sleep on his tummy and when he was old enough that we finally started letting him, we started doing a lower back rub while he was laying there to fall asleep - it wasn't a massage type of rub, but more like a fast rub back and forth over the diapered area. When he was younger, doing it fast enough that his head jiggled slightly seemed to put him right out. This is my very best secret for 2 reasons: 1. It felt good enough to my baby that he would stay still long enough for his body to start falling asleep 2. It was something we could do anywhere and anyone could do - even if we forgot the books or he couldn't take a bath, as long as an adult was present that adult could rub his back and his body would get the message that it was time for sleep. We still do this at 3.5 years sometimes, and it still works like a charm. We have no bedtime battles in this house. It's a wonderfully positive sleep association.

• Swaddle your child as long as he will stand for it I think I swaddled Joseph, until he was 3 months old. It was hard, because he was a big baby and it was hot, hot, hot, here - but he just slept better. Actually, he slept best on his stomach, and that's how I would put him if I were there to watch him sleep, but I know not everyone is comfortable with the risk the experts tell us is inherent in stomach-sleeping, so the next best option is definitely swaddling. If you don't know how to swaddle a baby, here are step-by-step instructions, with pictures.