Baby Life - Sleep Is A Wonderful Thing

I probably shouldn't write this post - it may jinx the amazing thing we have going for us....SLEEP! Sleep has been had in this household, it's amazing!!!!

Little Miss Ryley, at 6 weeks old, slept through the night for the first time on August 16th. She slept 7 hours!! What 6 week old does that? Apparently mine. Since that Saturday night there have only been 2 nights where she hasn't slept from about 10pm until 5am. And for the past week she's slept until 7am. Sleep is the most wonderful thing!

Sleepy baby!

I read a crap ton of books about sleeping so I thought I'd share a bit about how we "think" we made it work. First off I want to say - it's not normal for a 6 week old to be this good of a sleeper (now 9 weeks) so if your little one isn't sleeping this much, don't worry as you are actually the norm.

Let's start by saying that Ryley has always been a good sleeper. For the first 6 weeks of her life she only once woke up 3 times during the night, every other time it was either once, at 3am, or twice, at 1 and 4am. We never really had to do any training to get her to that point so we started out very lucky.

I read Babywise, Baby Whisperer, and 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks. All of the books had great ideas that I made my own. The main thing was creating a consistent plan but being flexible with what your child wants.

We focused on a few key points (**note that this is what worked for us, it may not work for everyone and we are definitely not experts, this is just my experience**):

1. Eat, Play, Sleep and repeat - this pattern helps the baby get into a habit so they know what to expect next and you to better understand the needs of the baby
2. Yawning? Time for a nap - during play time as soon as I see the first yawn it's time for a nap
3. Crying isn't bad - depending on her age I let her cry for a certain amount of time before I go in to comfort her. This isn't a hard and fast rule, I base it on her crying but I do let her cry. Plus if you go in for every sound you may actually wake the baby up - there have been many times where she will let out a little squawk while in the middle of a nap and then be asleep again
4. Put her down for a nap awake - I get longer naps when she gets herself to sleep over me getting her to sleep and then putting her down

These are all things that I've been very consistent about and it seems to have worked. We also LOVE our footie PJ's. The first night she slept through the night was the first nice we put her in the footie PJ's so now we put her in them every night - it's adorable!!

Footie pajamas are my friend!

I'll post more posts with additional information on each of the things we found helpful so be on the lookout.

Thanks!