The Sleep Chronicles: Valery’s Story

Before I start, it is worth mentioning that before Zach was born, I didn’t read any sleep books. I ordered and possessed them, but only read The Happiest Baby on the Block (which did end up coming in handy a little). But when sleep was at its worst and we turned to books for help, we regretted not having read them pre-birth, instead of with bleary eyes on limited brain power from fragmented sleep. That’s one of my tips for moms-to-be. Read your books before baby comes! I wish I had read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child before he was born. That, and The Secrets of a Baby Whisperer. Both ended up being very helpful to us in the beginning. 

Speaking of the beginning, the first six weeks were all about nursing-on-demand. Zach did sleep here and there, and for a few hours at a time at night. I felt grateful he didn’t seem to have his days and nights mixed up and figured we were sittin’ pretty. All of this time, Zach slept in the Fisher-Price Rock N’ Play next to our bed.  Breastfeeding became the *only* soothing method we had – any sign of fussiness and we assumed he was hungry and threw him at my chest. This lead to a breakdown of sorts because I realized it was completely unsustainable for me. Being stressed out from frequent and irregular breastfeeding was our catalyst to learning about sleep schedules. I started searching for references and advice on having some sort of schedule. I found many mentions of feeding the baby every 3 hours, keeping them awake for a period of time (at that age, I think it was only 45 minutes), and then putting down for a nap, while drowsy but awake, with minimal soothing (I think it’s often referred to as the “Babywise Schedule”?).

This worked out wonderfully for us. We stuck to the schedule and had great results. In hindsight, I am proud of how well we maintained it; I remember a lot of criticism about how rigid we were and how we were putting him down when he “didn’t seem tired.” But that was the key for us – that magic moment when he seemed to be getting drowsy but hadn’t gotten fussy yet. This routine lasted us for about four months. During this time, nighttime wasn’t as easy as daytime naps when we would swaddle him and plop him in his crib. At night we would rock, sway, bounce to calm him down and more often than not, we would cave in and break out the Rock N’ Play so that one of us could rock him to sleep easier. The Rock N’ Play became a crutch for us – a very bad habit. Overnight, there would be one night nursing, usually around 2 AM.

[Sidebar: I swear by Zach’s room environment as helping him sleep his best. We have black-out shades on the window and we use the Brookstone sound machine for loud white noise (loud compared to those sleep sheep and other toy versions). The white noise was initially for selfish reasons – his bedroom is under our living area, so we didn’t want to tiptoe around forever – but ended up becoming a sleep cue for him and it helps put him to sleep or calm down anywhere (plane, car, whatever).]

[Another sidebar: we absolutely LOVED and SWORE by swaddling (it is a large component of The Happiest Baby on the Block book). I am a huge believer – arms down and wrapped up tightly was extremely cozy and comforting for Zach. We used three Miracle Blankets in rotation until they were ripping at the seams. We also layered a Summer Infant velcro SwaddleMe over as added reinforcement. Swaddled up, we could count on a solid stretches of sleep from Zach.]

[Yet another siderbar: Just recently, Isis Parenting announced that they are abruptly closing. This is heartbreaking because the website has been such a resource for us. So far, the webinars and blogs are still up on the website, but it’s not clear for how much longer. I had originally written a draft of this post a few weeks ago and had a lot of praise for the Isis Parenting website, but now I’m not sure what the future of the website is and what will happen with all of the great content on there. It really is too bad, because it was super helpful and informative (not just for sleeping – there is also a ton of information on feeding, pumping, weaning, discipline, etc)]

It is through those webinars that we found a method for weaning Zach off that late night feed, intending to keep the 2/3 AM feed. Basically Matt took over the feed so that it could be through a bottle and over a period of several nights, we reduced the amount in the bottle. According to the webinar, this gives the baby’s metabolism time to adjust and learn to acquire those calories during the day instead of just taking them away cold turkey.

After the feed reached zero, we tried to sooth Zach to sleep – he was still waking for that feed, even after we had phased out the breastmilk amount. We didn’t want to form any bad habits by rocking him so we watched another webinar about “Trading Down Sleep Associations.” Basically the theory is that you do a soothing technique that works (rocking) until they are drowsy but still awake, then try a less committal technique, like rubbing their back. If they get upset, you switch back to the rocking, always trying to get them calm enough for you to exit the room on the new technique. Then you work down from there, choosing your “steps” based on your comfort level. So next could be rubbing their back and a still hand on back, or a larger jump would be to no touching, but shushing next to the crib. Ultimately working to getting you out of the room while they are calming down themselves and putting themselves to sleep. In theory, it sounded good but it was really brutal for us. We struggled with defining which associations we wanted to use, and for how many days, and it wasn’t showing a lot of success. This is where my memory of things gets a little foggy. Rubbing his back proved effective, and was less intensive than rocking, so we resigned ourselves to that – but I’m not sure how long that went on. 

During this time, I was still breastfeeding him once anywhere from 1-3 AM.  But we were coming up on June – and we knew I was returning to work and did not want to continue the night feed since my new work schedule would require a 5 AM wake-up. By that point (May?), Zach wasn’t taking a full “feed” anyway; and we felt confident that it was mostly a soothing habit for him, not nutritionally needed. I spent a few nights trying to cut the feeds shorter and shorter, but it’s not as straightforward with nursing as it is with a bottle so we ultimately ended up with a few nights of cry-it-out again – and this time, for *both* wakings, for the entire night. Again, first night or two was hard but he figured out how to self-sooth very quickly. By that time, it was simply a matter of “why didn’t we do this sooner?” It was clear Zach had been ready and didn’t need the night nursings, and could learn to put himself back to sleep on his own, it had just taken us 10 months to make it happen. 

Since then, we have had a handful of random whine/cries when Zach will wake, sit up for a moment and whine/whimper/cry, but after a few minutes, flop back over and fall asleep. We’ve seen the success of cry-it-out, so we try our hardest to not go into his room at night, now, for anything. The only exception is when he is sick. Now, after months of no issues, it still feels like tempting fate to say it out loud – like I’m saying a jinx – but things are really good. Now coming up on 18 months old, Zach naps from 1-3 in his crib and sleeps from 7:30/8 PM – 7:00/7:30 AM, all of it in a sleep sack, in his crib, with white noise and blackout shades in the room. 

• the conditions made a big difference for us…swaddling, black-out curtains, white noise…all helped greatly!
• be careful about creating any habits that you may have to break down the road (see: Rock N’ Play). In hindsight, I hate that we relied on it so much. I do think we will use it for potential future babies, but we will be much more aware of the impending transition and not put it off so long. Of course, it’s important to note that what is a “habit” in my eyes that I don’t want to commit to (i.e. rocking him to sleep), is what works for other families. After all of these months, I think the most important thing is just maximizing the sleep in the house. Whatever method is used to achieve that, is nobody else’s place to judge.
• If you are on Twitter, I recommend following @NancyHoltzman. She answers a ton of questions from new moms about anything (at all times of day!) and a lot of tips and tricks are in her replies and retweets.  

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If you’re a mom who’s interested in sharing her child’s sleep story, please let me know – I’m always looking for stories!  Email me at jess@beingmrsbeer.com.