Category Archives: Babywise

When aliens came to visit

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I would probably consider myself a “Sleep Nazi”, meaning there is not much that I will allow my children to miss sleep over. If it is naptime, we are home so they can nap and if it is bedtime, we are home so they can go to bed on time.

While on vacation I allowed for some missed sleep for both girls here and there and oh.my.goodness. Saturday evening, we thought our kids had been abducted by aliens and replaced with two girls who were cranky, whining, and having a meltdown over seriously every.little.thing. It was NUTS! Absolutely NUTS!

In Sweet Pea’s defense, she hadn’t reached that stage…yet! Probably because I did guard her sleep a little more than Little Bug’s because she is still so young and an overtired baby is absolutely no fun.

But Little Bug? Wow. The kid was delirious by bedtime. The combination of waking up early (which she does EVERY SINGLE TIME we go on vacation) and some shorter naps and she was a complete mess on Saturday. It is simply amazing what a lack of sleep will do to a kid!!

I was beginning to see signs of being overtired in Sweet Pea, too. She was not sleeping as long for her naps, and she was waking up early in the morning – two sure signs of an overtired baby.

Saturday night we put both girls to bed before 8pm. Sweet Pea hit the sack at 7:25 and Little Bug at 7:55. I don’t think I have ever seen Little Bug so tired in her life! I laid her in bed, told her goodnight and she turned her head and said, “Okay, I’m going to go to sleep now.” No adjustments in her blanket needed. No “one more hug/kiss” needed. She just needed sleep and she knew it! I bet she was asleep before I even closed her door. Sweet Pea woke up at 7:35am and Little Bug woke up around 7:50am. So both girls FINALLY slept 12 hours and got a good night’s sleep.

Early bedtimes really are the best “cure” for being overtired. Often times the misconception is that if you put a baby (or child) to bed early, they will wake up early. And while both of my girls woke up about half an hour earlier than their normal wake up times, (since they both usually wake between 8 and 8:15am), they got 12 hours of sleep and that is what is important when a baby/child is overtired. They just need sleep because sleep begets sleep. And since babies tend to wake earlier if they stay up later, early bedtimes are the best solution to help a baby get out of being overtired because babies tend to sleep longer the earlier they go to bed.

Vacation only reiterated to me that my “Sleep Nazi” ways are not insane. Smile Sure it is very inconvenient at times to respect our kids’ need to sleep, but in the big picture, it truly is worth the sacrifices that must be made to have well rested children. Especially after dealing with those space aliens on Saturday night!

This is just my (humble) opinion but I think so many times it is just assumed that tantrums, whining and having meltdowns over everything is just “part of being a baby/toddler/preschooler”. I am certainly not saying that my children never throw fits or whine! (In fact, they do this when they are well-rested, but that is a matter of teaching and training a baby/child the correct ways to communicate what they want/need.) But what I am saying is that behavior is not the norm for my children and I do believe it is directly correlated with the fact that 95% of the time, they are well-rested. It is only when they are not well rested that I start to see an influx of these behaviors. Like I did on that Saturday night!

I would rather deal with sticking to nap schedules than having to deal with tantrums and whininess on a daily basis. Children do not have to behave like that – if they are well rested – and it is my belief that the majority of those types of behaviors can be eliminated if the baby/child is getting the sleep that they need every day. (At least it seems to work that way for my children.)

Once we got back from vacation we stayed home for two days straight. I put both girls down for early bedtimes and early naptimes to get them rested again.

And before you think we have no fun around here, we certainly do! There is a time for everything though, and when it is time to sleep, we will be home napping so the crazies stay away from my kiddos! Smile

Last week was exhausting!!

Full Swing

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Summer is in full swing around here!

Uncle (my brother) is in town and Little Bug is one happy little girl about that. She wakes up every morning saying, “Are we going to see Uncle today?” The answer is usually, “Yes!”. Uncle has two more semesters in seminary and then we hope he will be back for good!

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Taking away milk time apparently got the message across that climbing out of her crib is unacceptable because, since that morning earlier this week, she hasn’t done it again.

I am actually less worried about the crib to bed transition now! I was mostly concerned with how I would get her to stay in her bed until I come get her in the morning, but we’ve pretty much established that rule this week so I don’t think it will be difficult to carry it over to the toddler bed when we make the transition at the end of this month.

I’ve decided to go for it (the transition) at the end of this month once things settle down a little bit.

Here is her little toddler bed. I think it is just adorable!

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Napping is another story. She is still playing for over an hour (but…in her crib!!) before finally going to sleep. For now, I will just continue with naptime consistently and hopefully she will start sleeping again because she obviously still needs a nap. She’s been going to bed at 8pm lately to help catch up on missed sleep from naptime.

Party planning is also in full swing as Little Bug’s Minnie Mouse party is this weekend! Some of the décor is currently sitting in my bathtub to keep it out of eager little hands’ reach.

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Did you know spray paint eats Styrofoam balls? I did not until yesterday when I sprayed one and it melted away to half it’s original size! Back to Michael’s I went for tempera paint which worked great.

Summer break for my blog will be the week of June 18th. No posting that week as I take a break from blogging.

We are in the middle of getting the hardwood floors done in the hallways. It looks awesome, even though it has been a HUGE ordeal getting the materials to be able to do the work. After numerous wrong orders, it is all finally in, and the installer should be coming soon to finish up the job. (The floors are all laid. We are just waiting on some trim and the transitions from carpet to wood.) I am so glad that nasty-could-not-keep-clean hallway carpet is out of this house!

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And…I’ll leave you with this. Sweet Pea, in the crawling position, but not crawling! I was trying to get her to go after that ball you can see there in the background.

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Hope you are off to a great summer and have some fun things planned!!

A Cup of Milk

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Little Bug keeps me on my toes.

For the past few weeks she has started not going to sleep right away at naptime. Naptime is 2pm and after hearing her play in her crib for a while, I would go in her room at 2:15ish and tell her to go to sleep and she would.

Then things escalated from there. The past few days I’ve found myself going in there multiple times from 2-3ish, telling her to go to sleep and taking friends out of her bed if she doesn’t.

Then yesterday, she did the unimaginable – although I have learned to put nothing past this girl!

I put Little Bug down for a nap at my parents’ house and left for the Crisis Pregnancy Center.

At 3pm, after hearing strange sounds, my mom opened Little Bug’s door to find she had climbed out of her crib, turned the lights on, pulled numerous wipes out of the container and made a mess all over the room.

When I got back from the center, I talked to Little Bug about what she had done. We talked about sleep time rules: lay down, close eyes and go to sleep. Then, I talked to her about the danger of climbing out of her crib. (And yes, I realize it is time for a big girl bed. Thanks for your comments yesterday! We have lots of out of town family coming and going during the month of June so I want to wait until things calm down towards the end of June and then we are going for it.)

This morning, while warming Sweet Pea’s bottle, I noticed Little Bug’s light was on in her bedroom. I opened her door and found her sitting in the middle of her room, playing with a toy. She said, “I’m just playing with this.”

I calmly picked her up and told her, “You must stay in your bed until Mommy comes to get you.” I closed the door and left to go feed Sweet Pea and talk to Dave.

But first I prayed that God would give us wisdom on how to handle this because the issue had become more than just needing to adjust nap time or making sure she was good and worn out before laying down for a nap. (Little Bug still needs a nap. When she does not get one, by dinnertime, you can tell.)

A friend had suggested to me that I needed to take something away from her that would be a big deal to her. So I got to thinking. What could be taken away?

Dave and I started talking about this and I threw out the idea of “no TV”. Little Bug watches a 20-30 minute show while I feed Sweet Pea at noon. We didn’t really think that would be effective because the consequence wouldn’t be immediate upon waking up for the day.

Then I thought of “milk time” and as much as I hated to take this away from her, I knew that was the something that would speak to her the loudest that her disobedience is unacceptable.

I could already see the alligator tears that would be pouring from her eyes when she learned she had lost “milk time” and, I also felt like a mean Mommy.

But I knew it was the right thing to do to hopefully solve this issue.

When Sweet Pea was finished with her bottle, I left her in bed with her Daddy and walked to Little Bug’s room.

“Little Bug, what did you do this morning?”

“I climbed out of my crib.”

“Did you choose to obey Mommy?”

“No.”

The stinker was smiling through this whole conversation. It is one thing to do something wrong and then be sorry for it, but to smile and be proud of the wrong you have done? Help me raise this child, Lord, ‘cause this isn’t something I can do on my own strength!

I started talking about the story of Adam and Eve. I said, “Little Bug, did Adam and Eve obey God?”

She quickly said, “No they did not.”

I asked her, “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Good answer, kid, since we have only talked about and read this story about a million times since your birth.

So I prompted her, “What did God tell them not to do?”

“Eat the apple.”

“And what did they do, Little Bug?”

“They ate the apple.”

“So did they obey or disobey God?”

“They disobeyed God.”

I then explained to Little Bug that Adam and Eve sinned when they chose to eat the apple and that sin always has consequences. Adam and Eve’s consequence was that they had to leave the garden.

Little Bug looked up at me and asked, “What is my consequence?” The smiling faded. She knew this wasn’t good. Finally.

And then I told her, “You chose to disobey Mommy. That is called sin when you disobey Mommy. Sin always has consequences. Your consequence is that you will not be able to have your milk time this morning.”

And then the buckets of tears fell right on cue as Little Bug realized her choice of disobedience cost her “milk time”.

It was in that moment that I realized something, too.

I felt horrible taking her milk time away but better for her to learn a lesson in sin and their consequences with climbing out of a crib and losing “milk time” at age three, than to learn with something like premarital sex and pregnancy at the age of 16.

Little Bug doesn’t need me to ensure her happiness and pleasures in this life. This morning she needed a mother that was willing to stand in the gap between learning to choose wisely in this life and being left to flounder around without clear boundaries and standards.

And, thank God, the only loss suffered this morning was a cup of milk.

I learned something invaluable too.

These are the moments God is giving me to mold and shape the heart of my little girl so that she will hopefully one day grow up and love our Lord and desire to do what is right and pure. I cannot allow myself to fall prey to the lies out there that would suggest my daughter’s happiness is more important than teaching her that sin has consequences.

No, it is my greatest responsibility and privilege to teach Little Bug, at the age of 3, that sin always has consequences. The choices we make have consequences and while our sins are forgiven because of Christ’s death on the cross, the consequences of our sin live with us forever.

Today was humbling for me because I feel so inadequate for this job of bringing this (stubborn, hard-headed) child up in the Lord! I must just press on and trust that God will continue the work He has already started in the life of this precious child.

And that she will learn these lessons well and only have to lose her cup of milk.

Anti-Babywise Articles

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I’ve said it before that this blog isn’t for debates and this remains true even though I am about to talk about something controversial. I am writing this as information and NOT to open up a debate on my blog. Go elsewhere if you are looking for debates on this subject matter. This is not the place because I will not engage you in debates.

But, the fact of the matter is, I am tired of Babywise getting a bad reputation! I am tired of reading articles that claim Babywise leads to “failure to thrive”.

Contrary to what many people believe, Babywise does not advocate feeding a baby just by the clock!!! Yes, Babywise is about scheduling, but Babywise does NOT mean you feed your baby by the clock with no other factors involved!

To me, it comes down to two simple words: common sense. If your baby is hungry, you feed him/her, regardless of what time the clock says and when the next scheduled feeding is suppose to happen!!

To make himself clear on this matter, the author of Babywise, has clearly stated to feed a hungry baby multiple times throughout his book!

See for yourself:

[Please note: These quotes are taken from the book but I gathered these quotes from an article that Babywise Mom wrote on her blog.]

  1. Both the variable of hunger cues and the constant of time guide parents at each feeding." page 37
  2. "When the hunger cue is present, the clock is submissive to the cue, because the hunger cues, not the clock, determine feedings." page 40
  3. "Responding promptly to a newborn’s hunger cue is also a central part of Parent Directed Feeding." page 64
  4. "The first rule of feeding states: Whenever your baby shows signs of hunger, feed her!" page 74
  5. "Sometimes it may be less and sometimes slightly more, based on your baby’s unique needs" page 74–talking about how often to feed baby
  6. "As stated, there will be times when you might nurse sooner than 2 1/2 hours…" page 74
  7. "There is only one Babywise feeding rule for the first two weeks. Mothers and fathers should take their clocks, turn and face them against the wall." page 77
  8. "…even feeding as often as every two hours." page 79 (in discussing jaundice)
  9. "Be careful not to compromise your baby’s nutrition while attempting to establish healthy sleep patterns." page 98
  10. "Remain mindful of growth spurts that may require additional feedings for a few days." page 113
  11. "As stated, your baby’s normal feeding periods fall between 2 1/2- and 3- hour intervals. But there are times when you may feed sooner than those time increments." page 115
  12. "…it might be that she is hungry and in need of another full feeding. If that is the case, feed her again…" page 115
  13. "…just know that hunger is always a legitimate reason to feed less than two hours." page 115
  14. "There also may be medical reasons for feeding a child more frequently. For example,…premature newborns…jaundice…" page 115
  15. "…it’s okay to deviate from the 2 1/2- to 3-hour feeding norm." page 116
  16. "Don’t be afraid to add an extra feeding if you think your baby needs it." page 118
  17. "If you feel you need to add an additional feeding during the day, do it." page 121
  18. "Our emphasis and encouragement is to first approach the 45-minute intruder as a hunger problem, not a sleep adjustment problem. Try feeding your baby first." page 144
  19. "Feed the baby during these growth spurts and adjust your daily routine to allow for a few more feedings during the day." page 144
  20. "By feeding sooner than normal you are not going backward in your routine but are making the healthy and proper adjustments needed to move into the next phase of your baby’s development." page 145
  21. "With a reflux baby consider feeding more often than the general recommended 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Try feeding every 2 hours. This may be easier on your baby…" page 167
  22. "Possibly for a couple of days you might feed every two hours. That’s okay." page 192 (in discussing jaundice)
  23. "If baby is hungry, feed him." page 196
  24. "Probably she is going through a growth spurt. For the next couple of days, add a feeding or two to her routine." page 202
  25. "When your baby goes to the nursery, leave a bottle of water, formula, or breast milk and give the nursery worker freedom to do what he or she thinks is best." page 214
  26. "We are encouraged by the fact that so many parents understand the value of order in their lives and their children’s lives. But sometimes people redefine order to mean rigidity, and that leads to imbalance. Balance includes both structure and flexibility." page 214
  27. "If you are breast-feeding, these [growth] spurts may necessitate some extra feedings for a couple of days…" page 219

And, here are some quotes from the 1995 printing of Babywise.

1995 PRINTING

  1. "Second, our conviction is that a baby should be fed when he or she signals readiness. With PDF, a mother feeds her baby when the baby is hungry…" page 39
  2. "If your baby is hungry, feed him or her." page 132
  3. "If you have a baby who becomes exceptionally and continuously fussy, consider the possibility that that he is hungry." page 134 (in reference to late evening fussy periods)
  4. "If your baby is hungry, feed him" page 181

I’m always the first to say that Babywise isn’t for everyone! There is no one method that is going to work for all families and all babies. But the bad reputation Babywise gets, I believe, comes from people who believe Babywise is strictly hyperscheduling (feeding baby by the clock only).

And, if you take the time to read the book for yourself and really understand the philosophy and theory behind the methods, you will see it is not hyperscheduling at all.

If you are using Babywise with your baby, please understand that no where in the book does the author tell us to keep a hungry baby from eating until the clock says it is time to eat!

Once again, just use common sense.

If your baby is hungry, feed him or her!!!!

The End.

Ok – I guess I really wasn’t done, because I have one more thing to show you.

Do you see this baby?

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This cubby, roly poly, thunder thighs baby?

She is a Babywise baby. From birth, she was fed on a schedule, but, if she is hungry before feeding time, she gets a bottle. What a novel idea!

Ok, ok, she is formula fed. Must be because of the formula that she is so chubby…

Take a look at this baby!

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She is actually only 5 days younger than Sweet Pea but look at that chub!!! She is 20 pounds at 9 months old and she has been a Babywise baby since birth. And she has been exclusively breastfed since birth.

“Failure to thrive” on Babywise?! I think not…because their mamas use common sense!!

I’ll say it one more time and then, I am done.

"When the hunger cue is present, the clock is submissive to the cue, because the hunger cues, not the clock, determine feedings." page 40 {emphasis mine}

The End.

Independent Playtime for Sweet Pea

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I didn’t start Independent Playtime with Little Bug until she was over a year old and I am not going to make that mistake with Sweet Pea!

Being that I was so excited to finally have a baby, when Little Bug was a baby, I would move her from room to room with me as I accomplished the things I needed to do in the day. And while there is nothing wrong with that, as a result, I had a 14 month old that could not and would not play independently!

Looking back, I can see now that since Little Bug already has such a social personality, teaching her that she had to be with me every second of the day (which is what I essentially did!) only made me have a toddler that literally could not entertain herself.

And that was when I started Independent Playtime in her room.

On Becoming Babywise II lists several of the benefits to Independent Playtime on page 73:

  • Mental Focusing Skills
  • Sustained Attention Span
  • Creativity
  • Self-Play Adeptness
  • Orderliness

At almost 3 years old, Little Bug now has an hour of “room time” where she plays independently in her room with select toys.

I knew I wanted to start Independent Playtime with Sweet Pea as a young infant.

When she was able to start playing under her floor mat, I started letting her have independent play on there. She was probably 3ish months old when we started this.

I would lay her on the floor mat for about 15-20 minutes and she played until I came back to get her. I placed her in a spot where I could see her but she couldn’t see me because I wanted her to learn that she can play and be happy without Mommy’s constant entertainment!

Sweet Pea is naturally better at entertaining herself than her sister was at this age. I think part of it is because of her easy-going personality and part is because she is the 2nd child. And perhaps part of it is because I have been teaching her essentially since birth to play on her own at certain times.

Babywise has suggested time lengths for independent play:

  • 5-10 minutes once or twice a day as a young newborn
  • 10-20 minutes twice a day for first few months
  • 15-30 minutes twice a day for the independent sitter
  • 30-45 minutes at least once a day for the crawler
  • Up to 60 minutes for the 15-20 month old in playpen or room

My plan was to keep Sweet Pea on the floor mat for Independent Playtime until she was sitting independently. I don’t do this twice a day, like suggested. One 20 minute block of IP time seems to be appropriate for Sweet Pea at this time.

After she was all better from her first cold, I started putting her in the pack n play for Independent Playtime. She does IP after her morning bottle from around 8:30-8:50ish, while I am getting Little Bug dressed and fed.

I do set the timer because I wanted her to learn from the very beginning that it is the timer that makes me return and not her fussing to get out. And, of course, with Sweet Pea, she has not fussed while in IP! One day she did fall over from her sitting position and her talking turned to a fuss and I knew she had probably fallen over. I went in and sat her back up and she continued to play happily until the timer went off.

There is a time for everything: a time to play with Mommy and a time to play independently. Independent Playtime (or room time) helps balance all this out, teaches my girls some useful skills and it gives me a block of time in the morning get some things done.

Phase 4: Extended Routine (25-52 weeks)

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This is the last phase of the four phases of Babywise.

By the end of phase 3 (Extended Day) the Babywise baby has 4-6 liquid feeds per day and 11-12 continuous hours of nighttime sleep.

As I say every time I write one of these posts, every baby is different and every baby will reach these Babywise milestones in their own time as long as you just keep plugging along with baby at their own pace and encourage them to move towards these goals.

At the time that I am writing this Sweet Pea is 31 weeks old! At 31 weeks, Sweet Pea has accomplished this:

  • She extended her day by going 3.5 – 4 hours between feeds, instead of just 3 hours.
  • She is sleeping from 8:00pm until 8:00am after some sleep training because she was waking around 4am for the paci.
  • She dropped the dreamfeed at 6.5 months old!
  • She extended her wake times from 1 hour to 1.5 to 2 hours leaving a morning and afternoon nap with a short 30-minute catnap in the evening.

Not much changes during the Extended Routine phase (25 – 52 weeks):

  • Feeding times continue to be 3 to 4 hours apart. Most babies have reached the glorious 4-hour schedule by this time.
  • Sometime between 6-8 months old the average Babywise baby drops the 3rd nap and then has two naps ranging in length from 1.5 to 2.5 hours long.

Next up for Sweet Pea will be:

  • Moving to a 4-hour schedule. (As much as I want her to be on the awesome 4-hour schedule, I won’t rush her. She will get there, in her own time.)
  • Dropping the 3rd nap. (Hopefully within the next month.)

And there you have it: the four phases of Babywise! 

I can’t say enough good about Babywise. I hate that there are so many myths out there about Babywise. To me, Babywise is a lifesaver to the sanity and order of my home and my family.

God himself created the world with order and systems and Babywise is the perfect system for me to be able to manage and meet every single need my daughters have and my family has.

If I had to summarize three reasons why I love Babywise it would be: 1) My baby’s needs are literally met before they ever have to ask for anything. My baby is never hungry or sleepy, because before they reach a state of ‘being hungry or tired’ they are fed or put to bed for a nap, 2) Because of what I just wrote, my babies rarely cry. I was always told that Little Bug was the “happiest baby I’ve ever seen”. And I could almost say Sweet Pea never cries, but she cries when she gets scared, and 3) My babies are well rested and sleep when it is time to sleep. As a result, I am well-rested too, which is important in life to be able to function to your maximum capabilities.

As much as I love Babywise, I absolutely do recognize that Babywise is not for every family. You must figure out a system that works for you and your family (even if that system is the “fly by the seat of your pants” system!!). But I do encourage anyone who feels like their life is out of control and there is no order and stability to the day to check out Babywise.

It just might be your saving grace, too!

(Sweet Pea’s Tigger picture for 7 months is up! Click here.)

the night in which I forgot to turn the monitor on

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Sweet Pea’s room is around the corner and down the hall from our bedroom. We sleep with a fan running so I have it in my mind that I have to have the monitor on with Sweet Pea because I am afraid I won’t hear her otherwise.

With Little Bug, I stopped using the monitor pretty soon after she moved into her bedroom because I was waking at every little sound she would make through the night and it just wasn’t necessary for me to hear that! I turned the monitor off, left her door cracked and if she ever cried in the night (which was rare), I could hear her, no problem.

Saturday night I was very tired because Sweet Pea had woken at 5am and been up for about an hour fussing and talking. So, when I went to bed (early for me) I totally forgot to turn the monitor on!

At 7:30am my eyes popped open and I couldn’t believe it was daylight outside. For weeks now, I’ve been awakened (by Sweet Pea) anywhere from 3-6am and it is still dark outside. I checked the time on my phone and then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Oh no!!! I forgot to turn the monitor on last night!!!

I jumped out of bed to double check the monitor and sure enough, it was off. So I bolted down the hallway towards Sweet Pea’s bedroom. I didn’t go in but I just stood there listening and much to my complete surprise, all was perfectly quiet…at 7:30am!!

I went back to bed with a quick stop to turn the monitor on. About 10 minutes later, I started to hear sweet little babble noises coming from the monitor.

I am pretty confident Sweet Pea slept from 8pm to 7:40ish!! When I went in to get her, I could tell she looked completely rested, she was all smiles and very alert. She didn’t look like she has looked several mornings this past week when she would wake and stay awake for about 1 to 1.5 hours before falling back to sleep for less than an hour before I would get her up at 8am to start the day.

The next night, I turned the monitor on but kept the volume very low. This solution is working so that I will be able to hear cries if I am needed but I won’t hear if she just wakes and talks for half an hour before going back to sleep.

CIO: What happened

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I decided to go ahead and publish the notes I took on what happened as I let Sweet Pea cry it out mainly because of the bad reputation CIO gets. I want anyone who reads this (and might be totally against CIO) to see that it can be done responsibly.

Night 1 (February 10th):

Sweet Pea was in bed at 8pm, with one arm not swaddled so that she could find her thumb/fingers during the night if she wanted to use those to self-soothe. I gave her the paci and as I expected, because her arm was out of the swaddle, she was able to knock her paci out and she started fussing. (This is the main reason she is still swaddled at 6 months old!) I went back in and adjusted things a little bit and she went right to sleep, paci in mouth.

Sweet Pea woke at 5:45am. I heard her on the monitor and was walking to her room because, instead of giving her the paci, I was going to walk in and make sure she had access to her thumb/fingers and tell her it was okay and she needed to go back to sleep.

Just as I got to her bedroom door I had second thoughts about going in right away. I decided to not go in right away and wait for her to be really crying before I went in.

By 6:15am (30 minutes after she woke up) she was still minimally fussing, off and on. By 6:45ish she had started to let out some “hard” cries, but there was no intense crying that persisted for any length of time. I still had not entered her room because she never got really worked up.

Then, around 7am, the monitor was quiet. I have a video monitor, but it wasn’t pointed at Sweet Pea so I could not see what she was doing at all. I didn’t want to go in there until she was really worked up, so I was never able to point it at her to see her. But after 7am, I never heard her again, so I assume she did fall back to sleep, although I can’t be 100% certain.

I went in her bedroom at 8am to get her up and she was laying there, eyes open, both arms out of her swaddle. (Guess that is what she was working on from 5:45 to 7am!) And she was happy as a lark and greeted me with her usual big Sweet Pea smile.

Because it was a Saturday, the plan was Dave would get up with the girls and I would go back to bed. I told him to keep her stimulation to a very minimum and to watch closely for signs of being tired.

She stayed up till her normal naptime of 9:30am and then took her normal 2-hour nap. I was so afraid of her being overtired from being up so long before this nap, but because she was able to sleep well for this nap, it makes me think even further that she was able to go back to sleep on her own around 7am. (For nap she was completely swaddled and given the paci. My motto is “don’t fix something that isn’t broken” and, so far, there have been no nap issues with the paci, so I left things as they are for naps.)

Compared to Little Bug’s first CIO session, Sweet Pea’s was a breeze. But, that is my daughters for you: Little Bug=drama and Sweet Pea=no drama. Smile

Night 2 (February 11th):

As perfect timing would have it, I think Sweet Pea’s 6 month growth spurt is here or at least on the horizon because she woke from her 2nd nap early and crying, which has always been her sign that she is having a growth spurt. So, I got her and fed her and she was definitely hungry.

Then, I was thinking…Great! I can’t let her CIO if she is going through a growth spurt because if there is ever any doubt in my mind that my babies could be crying because of anything other than just needing to go to sleep and stay asleep, I don’t let them CIO.

I was stumped as to what to do because I also know consistency is KEY in doing CIO effectively.

And then I remembered that we could always do a dreamfeed! So, we gave her a dreamfeed at 11:30pm so that if she woke in the night I would still be able to let her CIO. However, I knew because of the growth spurt issue, I wouldn’t be able to let the crying go on for a long time because it could have been possible for her to need another feed before waketime because of the growth spurt. Not ideal circumstances for CIO, but because I had started, I wasn’t turning back and losing the progress she had already made.

Well, as it turns out, Sweet Pea didn’t make a peep until 7:30am! She woke up happy and talking.

11 hours of sleep. Night 2. Awesome.

Night 3 (February 12th):

Another uneventful night! She went to bed at 8pm. She woke up at 7am. It seems Sweet Pea might be an 11-hour sleeper, instead of 12.

We did give her another dreamfeed last night because it is apparent she is in a growth spurt.

Night 4 (February 13th):

Went to bed at 8:30pm and woke at 6:50am. Still gave the dreamfeed.

Night 5 (February 14th):

Went to bed at 8pm and woke at 7:15am, with an 11:30pm dreamfeed.

***

It is seriously amazing to me how CIO fixes things, just like that. And with Sweet Pea, I can hardly call what she did on that first night crying-it-out. It was more like fussing-it-out, but, it worked and my child did not get damaged in the process!!

All she got was sleep. Uninterrupted sleep, which is a priceless gift that I had the ability to give to my baby.

***

It’s the morning of February 17th and Sweet Pea woke at 5am. I let her CIO and she fussed-it-out and is asleep now. (And I am still awake, of course.) It’s not usual for babies to do this, apparently. They kinda spiral back and forth for a little bit after sleep training.

Also, Sweet Pea is needing some adjustments made to her daytime schedule, I think. I’m working to figure that out to hopefully help her sleep better through the night. Hopefully, by her 7 month update, we will have things worked out.

The time has come for…

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…sleep training. Boo.

I hate sleep training!! Hate, hate, hate. And hate is a strong word, I know.

But, it is necessary and I know the benefits far outweigh the time it takes to sleep train, for both baby and mommy.

I sleep trained Little Bug at 3 months. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep train Sweet Pea until she was over her tummy troubles because when I sleep train my babies I do it completely 100% confident that there are no other issues going on except…they just need to learn to put themselves to sleep and stay asleep.

The time is approaching fast. I knew I would just feel when it was time.

And it is time. Almost.

Sweet Pea is a good sleeper. She really is. She still sleeps completely swaddled in her rock and play sleeper with her paci plastered to her face by a receiving blanket that holds it in or within reach should she need it. This system has worked fabulous for months now, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I really disliked that I let her need the paci to fall asleep, but that is just the way it was with Sweet Pea because of all her tummy troubles at the beginning. The paci brought her comfort and I was willing to do whatever it took to bring her comfort, even though I knew getting hooked on the paci would make for some sleep problems later.

I knew when, by trial and error, I was able to confidently say that her interrupted sleep is due to needing the paci replaced in her mouth mid-sleep, that would be the sign that I needed to sleep train her – once tummy troubles were a thing of the past, of course.

Good news!! Tummy troubles are basically a thing of the past. Woo-hoo!! But now it is time to sleep train. Boo.

This is what is happening: Typically naps are fine and only short or interrupted when she is needing to extend her wake time or overtired (which I try to avoid at all costs). Easy fix there. Just extend wake time by 15ish minutes and make sure she doesn’t stay up too long and get overstimulated.

The problem has shown itself in the wee hours of the morning. Sweet Pea goes to sleep (with paci), it falls out eventually and she is okay with that. She even takes the dreamfeed and then goes right back to bed, with no paci in her mouth.

Then anywhere from around 5-6:30 (ish) in the morning, she wakes. Now, you might be thinking…Well, she is just ready to get up!! Babies just wake up early like that! Nope. Sorry. That isn’t it! Because as soon as I hear her in the monitor I jump out of bed and go give her the paci and she promptly falls back to sleep for about another hour. If she wakes again before 8am, I give her the paci again. The past week, like clockwork, she has woken at 6:30am for the paci and 7:30am and then gone back to sleep. (Sometimes at 7:30am I don’t think she ever really goes fully back to sleep. She just lays there, with the paci in her mouth, until I get her at 8am.)

Right now, I am in the middle of “Operation Figure Out Why Sweet Pea is Waking Early”. Which means I am, by trial and error, seeing if tweaking things will change anything in her sleep pattern to help her not wake early and sleep completely through the night 8pm to 8am.

So far, I have tried this:

  • An earlier bedtime. Contrary to popular belief, a baby that goes to bed too late will wake up too early. Put baby to bed early and they will end up sleeping later. I know. It doesn’t make sense. But these little human beings come out of the womb not making sense, right?! And it is our job as parents to help them “make sense” of their world. Which is why I love Babywise. It helps parents learn how to teach their baby to “make sense” of their world, starting with sleeping and eating. Because, you know, that is all babies basically do straight from the womb! But all that is besides the point I am making here!So, I moved her bedtime up half an hour from 8:30pm to 8pm. That didn’t do the trick. She was still waking early.
  • I shortened her 3rd nap from 1.5 hours to 1 hour 15 minutes, then to just 1 hour. That didn’t do the trick. She was still waking early.
  • We dropped the dreamfeed. Yes, we did!!! (Yay!!!) I know in her 6 month post I said that she wasn’t showing signs of being ready to drop this, but literally days later Dave said she wasn’t eating a full feed and it seemed like he was bothering her when he would get her to feed her. As if she just wanted to sleep and not eat! Also, she wasn’t eager for her daytime feeds, so we thought that maybe she just doesn’t need 30 oz. of formula in a day!We dropped the dreamfeed cold turkey on February 7th. I thought maybe this feed was interrupting her sleep pattern, but she continued to wake early after the dreamfeed was dropped.

These are the only other tricks I have up my sleeve:

  • Incase she is waking early because of hunger because she no longer is eating at 11:30pm, I added an ounce to two of her daytime feeds to give her extra calories during the day. February 9th was the first day she got two 7oz bottles and two 6oz bottles. I am pretty confident that she is not waking out of hunger, but before I can sleep train I have to rule out hunger as the issue.
  • The only other thing I have left to tweak is bedtime. Perhaps she needs to be awake a longer stretch between her 3rd nap and bedtime?? So I will try a 8:15pm and then an 8:30pm bedtime once I have ruled out hunger. I know that not all babies are 12 hour sleepers. Little Bug wasn’t as an infant and is not as a 2 year old. She is an 11 – 11.5 hour sleeper. Perhaps Sweet Pea is, too. I would actually prefer a later bedtime (8:30ish) because it is hard to get home for bedtime routine with 8pm bedtimes!
  • Change morning waketime to 7:30am. That’s called compromise! I’d like an 8am waketime, but she may just not be able to make it to 8am, and that is fine.

And here is what happened last night (which makes me believe even further that this is a bad habit that just needs to be broken): She woke at 5am two nights ago and last night it was 3am! It did occur to me that she might be hungry (although I really didn’t think so). I went in her bedroom, she was searching for her paci with her mouth (eyes closed) and as soon as I put it in, she settled back to sleep. I figured if she was hungry that paci wouldn’t suffice for long, but she slept until 7:30. That looks like a habit to me.

If none of these things are the answer, I am left with: Sweet Pea is waking in the wee hours of the morning out of habit, needing her paci. She has clearly shown me she still wants to sleep. And that will bring us to…sleep training.

I knew the time would come. I know the younger baby is, the easier it is for baby to sleep train. And I know that many times with parenting the hard option really is the best overall for everyone. I know sleep is so important for proper growth and development for babies. I know Sweet Pea’s sleep “problem” really isn’t that bad!! It could be much, much worse and I want to nip this in the bud before it escalates to become a huge problem of constant wake ups throughout naps and/or nighttime sleep due to needing the paci to stay asleep.

And, as a doctor friend of mine recently told me when I flat out asked her if letting a baby cry it out damages their brain and the attachment they feel to their parents, she said and I quote, Yeah, babies will choose the hard way (waking up a lot) unless we inform them that it behooves them to learn a different way…then they’re grateful! I’ve never seen any evidence of trauma to your brain. And it generally works so QUICKLY…and my theory is, if he [reference to her son] wakes up smiling and happy to see me the next morning, clearly he still loves me and is doing ok!

But, ugh!

I (still) hate sleep training!

But I did it once and I can do it again (probably soon, now that I have just about eliminated other reasons why she could be waking).

The Great CIO Debate

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I am certainly not opening this post up for a debate, however, I did want to post a link from a blog that I read because to anyone who may read my blog and may find themselves in the place of sleep deprivation due to a baby (or babies!) who do not sleep through the night, I hope what this person wrote will bring you encouragement!

Meet Holly!

After a fertility treatment she found out she was expecting TRIPLET girls!

They just celebrated their first birthday on December 23rd.

The girls are doing FABULOUS, except that they were NOT sleeping through the night. Holly was getting up sometimes FIFTEEN times a night to go in and give bottles to the girls!

Talk about exhausting.

She was against CIO, at first. She had read the research about how CIO can “damage the parent/child relationship”.

But then she talked to a trusted friend who explained that giving your child the gift of sleep DOES NOT harm them!

Holly realized her girls were playing her. They didn’t need those bottles. It was habit. A bad habit that was making babies and mommy not get the sleep they needed every night!

Holly realized sometimes as moms we’ve got to do something that isn’t “pleasant”.

I LOVE her post about her experience with letting her girls CIO to learn to sleep through the night.

She explicitly explains her thought process:what she tried to get the girls to sleep that didn’t work, the issues in her own mind that were holding her back from teaching her girls to sleep, what motivated her to let her girls CIO, how she did it (she explains step by step) and the final results, which are astounding!!

These were her final words on her post:

I must say, I was completely and utterly in disbelief, totally against doing anything that might, by research accounts, "harm my baby" but let me tell you, I HAVE MY LIFE BACK and my children are NOT harmed the least bit! This is the most wonderful gift I have been given! I can’t tell you how lucky I feel and how IT PROVES that I was the one HOLDING THEM BACK. I swore I would never do that and I was the one making this happen, not them. I feel bad for that. They wanted to sleep through the night, and I wasn’t giving them the tools to be able to do so.

Here is the link to Holly’s CIO post.

As far as my blog, feel free to leave your positive experiences with CIO. Negativity on the CIO Debate is not welcome here. There are many other places for you to go and say your two cents on the matter. This is just not the place!

This post is simply meant to encourage anyone who may be on the fence about doing CIO. CIO is certainly not for every family. You have to do what is best for yours.

I hope Holly’s post will help you see that you will not “damage your child for life” if CIO is done simply to teach your baby/toddler to fall asleep and stay asleep.

CIO can be done responsibly and Holly’s story is a wonderful example!!