When I first had a baby, I assumed that sleep progress was linear. At first he would sleep 3 hours at a time, then when he started sleeping 4, that would be the normal...then 5, 6, etc. The night he slept 8 he obviously wouldn't turn back. Well that could not have been farther from the truth. I have read since then the statement that "progress is a spiral." THAT is more like it. You have really great nights followed by terrible ones that leave you scratching your head and thinking "what did we do wrong?" Overall I think Banks has been a really good sleeper. The best thing that he did in the beginning I think was right after I fed him in the middle of the night he would go right back to sleep. There were very few (if any) nights that he would not be asleep after breastfeeding him. That makes a big difference when you're literally falling asleep while breastfeeding at 3am.
From the very beginning I had started a Babywise routine. The Babywise routine basically tells you to feed every three hours during the day (even if you have to wake baby up from a nap), then play, then nap. Its premise is "parent directed feeding" which means mom decides when Banks eats, not Banks (with obvious exception if he is hungry early). It was a little tough in the beginning to establish this schedule, but it has been SO worth it. I think this has been the best thing we have done so far. Banks is happy and knows what to expect throughout the day. When he was fussy as a newborn we usually knew exactly what was wrong based on what time it was.
He made good progress with nighttime sleep and was only getting up once around 8 weeks. I started to get a little frustrated because he was having trouble moving past that once a night feeding. At 12 weeks we were still getting up once a night. Then around Christmas we hit a complete back slide and he started waking up every hour or two for a few nights. It was absolutely exhausting and so frustrating. We had followed babywise to the T except for one thing...one very important thing obviously. Banks was SO easy to rock to sleep (no lie, 1 minute and he was asleep) that we would do that for naps and bedtime. It was then I realized he did not know how to settle himself back to sleep. He was used to us putting him to sleep so when he woke up in the middle of the night he needed help going back down. It was then I realized we had to institute "self soothing" bootcamp. The only TERRIBLE thing was that I knew this was going to involve some crying.
A little aside about "cry it out." I realize (or have come to realize) that this is a controversial topic. I by no means think you are a bad mom if you don't do it, and I certainly don't think you are if you do. I do think there is an appropriate age to begin CIO, which according to the AAP (american academy of pediatrics) is around 3-4 months. I had done everything to avoid CIO up until this point...I just did not think my mommy heart could take it. Hearing your baby cry is the most anxiety-provoking, heart-wrenching noise. After a good bit of research I knew this was what was best for Banks right now, not to mention best for his sleep-ridden parents. I had put a lot of thought into this decision and did not do it without a lot of thorough research.
So we began "self-soothing" bootcamp on his four month birthday. We started by putting him down for bed awake. I breastfed him (while trying to keep him awake), burped him, put him in his crib with his big ol' eyes staring back at me (no paci), and said "night night, love you," and walked out of the room. I turned off the monitors because they only magnify the noise, a loud noise you can already hear and make it sound worse. I figured we were looking at 30-45 minutes and prepared myself for the long haul. After ten/fifteen minutes I didn't hear anything and glanced at the video monitor, he was asleep! I was SO shocked and knew he would wake up at any moment, but he didn't! He woke up once more that night around 3 (I fed him that first night which was my last nighttime feeding). The next day we did it with all his naps and by the end of the day for his last nap, he probably only cried 2 minutes. That night if he woke up we didn't go in his room, we just let him settle himself...and it worked! He probably woke up 3 or 4 times that night, each time with 2-10 minutes whimpering...and that was it! He has been sleeping 7:30/8-7am ever since. He goes down at night without a sound and most naps. I am such a believer!
One thing I will say that made a huge difference was having a video monitor to see that he was ok. It was also nice to check in at night to see when he was whimpering that I think he was actually asleep. We looked at a lot of baby video monitors, but in the end went with a Drop Cam. This isn't technically a baby monitor, but it is a camera that hooks to your wifi and you can see the live video on anything that you download the app onto. I use my iphone and Matt's ipad. We HIGHLY recommend it, I love it! Matt surprised me with it for Christmas and it has been perfect!
I am sure that we have a long road ahead of us as far as "sleep issues" go. Each new milestone probably brings another problem to be solved. I just wanted to share what worked for us as of right now. I am a huge Babywise fan and don't know how I would be surviving without it, I've already bought the next two books (Babywise II and Pretoddler-wise). Life is just a little rosier when you get a consistent 8 hours of sleep at night :)
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