This Will Have You Sleeping Like a Baby

When people erroneously use the phrase, "sleeping like a baby", they must mean the baby you meet the day he is born and the one who goes to the nursery at night for the nurses to look after while you sleep for the first time in months without running the bathroom every two hours.  It seems once that baby is at home, no one is "sleeping like a baby".

The day after we announced our pregnancy publicly, we attended my husband's company holiday party.  After the quick congratulations, two people told me you have to sleep train your kid.  And both people said the preferred way to go was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child By Dr. Weissbluth.  Luckily my sister-in-law had already handed down her copy to me. 

I have to be honest, I didn't like the book.  I found it somewhat confusing and more scientific then it needed to be.  I had an internal fit where a screamed, "just tell me what to do!". The real reason I didn't like the book was you had to wait until 12 weeks to start, it involved more crying than I personally would feel comfortable with, and despite the sometimes convoluted advice, it seemed his answer for a fussy baby was to put him to bed 15 minutes earlier.

Luckily my friend, a doctor no less, said she was working with her 7 week old on a sleep book called,  Baby Sleep Solutions.  I really should build an idol in my friend's likeness and the author's, Susie Giordano.  This was the right book for me.

I truly believe Ms. Giordano should be sending me royalty checks because I have been acting as her undercover publicist since my little guy started sleeping through the night and I mean 8:40pm to 8:00am at 10 weeks.  

Her premise is simple. A baby needs to be 6 weeks old,  eating 24 ounces a day, and 10 pounds to sleep train.  First you need to get your baby to eat 24 ounces during waking hours, every 4 hours.  I just logged every time I feed him and how much he took. By 6 weeks I had abandoned breastfeeding so it was easy to figure out but she has a way to figure out breastfeeding based on minutes.  Once they meet this criteria they are physically able to sleep through the night and you use your "tool box" to stretch them until the next feeding.  She thinks a baby should only cry for 3-5 minutes before you go in.  I didn't wait that long.

The best move I made was reading this before the baby arrived because I didn't create bad habits I would later try to break such as relying on a swing, the vibration mode of the bouncy seat, rocking him to sleep, putting him down once he was asleep, or picking him up from his crib when he cried.

She also gives advice on how to set up a napping schedule. 

Final Thought: Buy this book and finishing reading it before the baby comes. Refer to it often.  The hardest part of being a new mom is the lack of sleep.  If you thought your third trimester was bad, you have no idea how much harder it is to be that tired AND getting up to take care of someone else.  My son hasn't woken up once during the night since 10 weeks.