Sleep Training and Baby Wearing

I shared this link on my facebook wall and was going to respond via fb comments, but it would’ve turned into a blog post anyway.

So! Attachment Parenting, co-sleeping, cry it out….there are so many labels we go around sticking on people and ourselves. We’re parents. We’re survivors! We’re…..exhausted…

A late night with Levi

 Seriously though. Sleep deprivation is no joke. I found with each baby that recovering was the part that took the most out of me. The hormones, nursing, fussy nursling, grappling with formula vs. boob juice (a whole other post!), and later on juggling other kids that deserve some mama-time as well. (And for a few of us, there is the baby blues, and PPD that may show their ugly faces.) For me to be on my game I’ve got to have sleep. Kherington, our youngest girl, is a lot like her mama. She get’s sleepy and turns into one big emotional time bomb. That’s me. Not ok when little ones need me. Enter Sleep Training.

Daddy and Levi at the Houston Zoo

Levi napping in the sunlight

Like I’ve said before, Mike and I did a lot of reading. We tossed out what we didn’t agree with and stored what made sense to us in our brains for later use. The question was: Do we want kids in our bed or not? For us the answer was no. After making sure we were on the same page with how we were going to go about making this a reality, we committed. Each kiddo was a little different and we needed to tweak things a bit depending on their personality. 

Jace was not a fan of that goat!

Jace absolutely needed routine. We had to get him to bed at the same time every single night because he woke up at the butt-crack of dawn whether he’d gone to bed at 7pm or 11pm and was a bear without enough sleep. He’s always been our early bird. Also we didn’t begin sleep training with him until he was a little over 4 months old and that made things even more difficult. Aubrie was easy-peasy. Kherington has always needed a little more reassurance, but once she got it, she got it. 

A brand new Kherington

 Levi was our odd ball. I nursed him the longest and so he gave us our first real taste of co-sleeping. Not my thing usually but I had 3 other little beings to tend to the next day. He was in bed with me so I could maximize on those night time hours. Once he weaned (a little past 6 months) we did sleep training with him too. 

Aubrie is a wild sleeper

Sleep training means different things to different people. When I say sleep training, I mean we established a predictable bed time routine and laid the baby down in their own bed to sleep for the night and did not pick them up again. Again, we tweaked things for each kiddo but really they all followed the same routine.

At the San Antonio Zoo with a napping Levi and the rest of my littles

In our family when the babies are new, we tend to stick close to home to try to figure out where their body clocks are. Once they have their nights and days figured out we try to stick to a pretty rigid routine until good sleep habits are mastered. My kids tended to want to go down for the night around 7-730pm, so we began calming things down around 530-6 so as not to have an overstimulated baby on our hands right before bedtime. Our bedtime routine would start with a bath or a diaper change depending on the day, followed by pjs, a bottle or nursing, then some cuddles and maybe a book, and finally saying “Night night, I love you.” All of this being done with soft, calm voices and dim lights (after the bath). Then we lay them in their bed (I’ll usually rub their head for a second and say an extra ‘I love you’) and walk out of the room with confidence. That’s important!

Aubrie before bed so happy to be in her pink pjs!

We just act like it’s another day. The sky is blue. The grass is green. You fall asleep in bed. It’s a concrete fact around here. Inevitably there is fussing and sometimes (read: Jace Moore!) some all out “someone come get me this instant or so help me I will scream until my head explodes and tell the world what awful people you are for making me….*snore*, *snore*”, but we don’t abandon them or withhold love. We’d go in at regular intervals (the microwave timer was our dictator there for a little while) and lay them back down (if they were sitting up) and pat their little backs or rub their little heads and remind them “it’s night night time, I love you.” and walk out of the room again. This period of adjustment always felt like it would last forever and it was never what I would call ‘fun’, but for us it was necessary, temporary, and completely worth it.

Aubrie was always smiling! Here she is before her nap.

On baby wearing. I do it because sometimes a stroller is bulky, my babies would sooner become discontent in a stroller than in my arms, and because if they're happy on my back (or chest), then they're not sprinting away from me or knocking things off shelves, or getting kidnapped. Plus I'm not a fan of strangers touching my kids, and they're less likely to do that if I'm holding them. #doiknowyou #wherehaveyourhandsbeen #backupoffmybaby 

 

Levi still loves being up in a carrier

Out for a walk when they were tiny.

Some notes:

*Be on the same page! I firmly believe that the reason this worked for us was because we were on the same page about our desired outcome and our method of getting there. You better believe there were times I wanted to just walk it and pick up my little one, but Mike reminded me of what we were doing and why. To us picking them up was like hitting the reset button and undoing it all. Not fair to them. Not fair to us. 

*Surround yourself with people that have your back! People that empower you and instill confidence in you when you may doubt yourself. Don't hesitate establishing some boundaries if necessary.

*In the end it was us sticking to the plan that made the process go so quickly and now we’ve got 4 littles that will sleep anywhere. I’m down with that.

*With our girls we used a baby lullaby CD for some additional continuity each night since they’ve shared a room their whole lives and one or the other was always tossing, turning, babbling, or fussing.

My sweet girls as toddlers

Let me finish by saying that this is what worked for us. I don’t think for one second that this is the right way for everyone else's family. I’m for building each other up. Parents gotta stick together.