I am one of 5 friends that had babies within the last two months and I have been sharing how well Goose has been sleeping on my Facebook page and I keep getting questions on what I'm doing to get him to sleep so well at night.
Currently at 6 weeks he is doing 6 to 7 hours a night! I love it but I will first say that there are three things that I think help. One, luck. Two, Genes. Three, A Schedule.
I think I'm just one of the lucky mom's that has a baby that sleeps. Monkey was the same way although his was partly because of the bilirubin in his system. He was sleeping through the night around this age as well.
Then there is the genes. M's family can sleep like crazy! All day, any time of day, for any length of time. Me on the other hand not so much but it seems that both my boys got the sleep gene which I'm grateful for.
The last part is a schedule. I started working on a schedule as soon as we got home from the hospital with Goose but with Monkey I didn't work on it until he was almost 9 months old and the schedule is very important! I can't take credit for the schedule though because I got it from Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam.
The basic steps are to have a schedule of eat, wake, sleep. It wasn't the easiest thing to do that with Goose right when we got home but I started it and just tried my best to keep him up for a few minutes after nursing before he went to sleep. Now he does this really well.
Here's our current schedule:
Between 8p.m. and 9p.m. Nurse and Rocked to Sleep
Between 3a.m. and 4a.m. Awake, Nurse, Rocked to Sleep
Around 8a.m. Awake, Nurse, Playtime for at least an hour, then back to Sleep for about 2 hours
Then we repeat Awake, Nurse, Playtime, Sleep for the rest of the day
It's almost the perfect schedule and I'm happy that he is doing so great with sleeping. Now I just wish he could get to the 8 or 9 hours stretch because waking up between 3a.m. and 4a.m. and going back to bed almost makes me more sleepy then when I was getting up at 1a.m. and 5a.m. At least when I got up at 5a.m. I would just stay awake for the day. I'm just not sure that waking up at 4a.m. everyday will make for a happy mom, especially when this mom is a night owl!
So that's it! That's all I do. I make sure that they are on a schedule. Right now we are rocking to sleep because I personally believe that it is to early to teach him to self-sooth. We will start that around 3 months old during the day and still rock to sleep at night for a few more months.
Please follow along on my blog for more updates and other fun things that I do with my boys and you can always vote for me on Top Mommy Blogs by clicking the banner at the top if you like what you have read ;)
Currently at 6 weeks he is doing 6 to 7 hours a night! I love it but I will first say that there are three things that I think help. One, luck. Two, Genes. Three, A Schedule.
I think I'm just one of the lucky mom's that has a baby that sleeps. Monkey was the same way although his was partly because of the bilirubin in his system. He was sleeping through the night around this age as well.
Then there is the genes. M's family can sleep like crazy! All day, any time of day, for any length of time. Me on the other hand not so much but it seems that both my boys got the sleep gene which I'm grateful for.
The last part is a schedule. I started working on a schedule as soon as we got home from the hospital with Goose but with Monkey I didn't work on it until he was almost 9 months old and the schedule is very important! I can't take credit for the schedule though because I got it from Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam.
The basic steps are to have a schedule of eat, wake, sleep. It wasn't the easiest thing to do that with Goose right when we got home but I started it and just tried my best to keep him up for a few minutes after nursing before he went to sleep. Now he does this really well.
Here's our current schedule:
Between 8p.m. and 9p.m. Nurse and Rocked to Sleep
Between 3a.m. and 4a.m. Awake, Nurse, Rocked to Sleep
Around 8a.m. Awake, Nurse, Playtime for at least an hour, then back to Sleep for about 2 hours
Then we repeat Awake, Nurse, Playtime, Sleep for the rest of the day
It's almost the perfect schedule and I'm happy that he is doing so great with sleeping. Now I just wish he could get to the 8 or 9 hours stretch because waking up between 3a.m. and 4a.m. and going back to bed almost makes me more sleepy then when I was getting up at 1a.m. and 5a.m. At least when I got up at 5a.m. I would just stay awake for the day. I'm just not sure that waking up at 4a.m. everyday will make for a happy mom, especially when this mom is a night owl!
So that's it! That's all I do. I make sure that they are on a schedule. Right now we are rocking to sleep because I personally believe that it is to early to teach him to self-sooth. We will start that around 3 months old during the day and still rock to sleep at night for a few more months.
Please follow along on my blog for more updates and other fun things that I do with my boys and you can always vote for me on Top Mommy Blogs by clicking the banner at the top if you like what you have read ;)
I remember when I was first a Father, I took a picture of the baby... awake near 3:30 in the morning. It was a novelty that didn't honestly last, babies for us were pretty easy and we did a lot of the same things you mentioned. You are wise beyond your years. :)
ReplyDeleteI need my sleep so I figured I would do whatever it takes to get them to sleep. At least these things aren't hard!
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