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!!

Before you think I am about to reveal some well-kept secret, I’m not!

Don’t really have any secrets right now.

But…

Sweet Pea has come out of the closet!!

The first night she was home I could hardly sleep because of her constant noises through the night. The next night I put her in our vented, walk-in master bedroom closet and that is where she has slept every night since.

She starts out in her bedroom, but then once Dave feeds her at 11:30 he moves her to our closet where she sleeps the remainder of the night.

I had every intention that Sweet Pea was going to be moved to her own bedroom WAY earlier than Little Bug was!

Well, that didn’t happen. Sweet Pea actually didn’t move until a month later than I moved her sister!

It just didn’t feel “right” until we got home from spending a few days at my parents’ house this past week.

So, Tuesday night I told Dave that I had set the monitor up and he could just leave Sweet Pea in her bedroom after he fed her at 11:30.

I didn’t sleep well at all that night, but Sweet Pea certainly did!

It took me forever to go to sleep and then I didn’t sleep deep because I am always afraid I won’t hear them when they are in their bedrooms (even though I know I will).

So, no more closet-sleepers in this house.

Next up will be moving her to her actual crib instead of the inclined sleeper she has been in since birth. It doesn’t feel “right” yet to move her out of it, so I will just wait until I feel it is time.

Here is what is going on:

Sweet Pea had stopped (on her own) waking for a feed around 4am each night. Then, she started waking again. I assumed it was a growth spurt so, of course, I fed her. But then, she continued to wake up.

It became obvious that she was not really waking from hunger because she would not take the feed well. Or, she would eat well but then the next day she had a hard time eating all day long. As in, she would take almost her entire wake time to eat! (Wake time is a little less than a hour.) Even stretching her feeding intervals didn’t help her have more of an appetite to eat. That also was not due to tummy troubles because there was no spit up or discomfort.

This is what happened to make me know she did NOT need that feed. At 4am she woke and took 5 ounces. She has NEVER taken 5 ounces in her life. I am always fearful of giving her larger amounts of formula, afraid that it will hurt her tummy. But, she took the 5 ounces perfectly okay, without spitting up or being uncomfortable at all.

But then, the next day, she took FOREVER to eat most every feed. That told me that I need to help her metabolism realize that she needs to eat during the DAY and not the night.

So, two nights ago I decided I would not feed if she woke up. She woke at almost 6am the first time I decided not to give the 4am feed!! I just gave her the paci and she made it to wake up time.

Then, last night she woke up at 4:15. I gave her the paci. She woke again around 6 and then again at a little after 7. Every time she woke I jumped up and gave her the paci.

I am still at my parents’ house and my mom said she would come get Sweet Pea in the morning for her first feed so I could sleep in.

When I woke up this morning, I came downstairs and the first thing my mom said was that Sweet Pea seemed so tired this morning. She asked me if she had slept well and I said that she had not slept well (deep sleep) since 4am because she kept waking needing the paci.

Let me stop here and say that if I felt Sweet Pea needed that 4am feed, I would absolutely give it to her. The only reason this has become a “problem” is because Sweet Pea is showing signs of not needing that feed anymore, she is certainly in the age range to not need that feed (although that is not a determining factor for dropping it since every baby’s needs are different), and she is showing paci dependency during the 4am to 8am hours.

The fact that she wants to suck on the paci from 4 to 8am and wakes if it falls out does not tell me that is hungry. That tells me her brain is not trained to just sleep through that period of time (4-8am) and she needs help learning to sleep through that time. If she truly was hungry and needing food, I believe she would not be satisfied with that paci and wouldn’t go back to sleep with it, only to wake up again when it falls out.

If you’ve read my blog before, you know I am not opposed to doing CIO. I did that with Little Bug at 3 months old and have had relatively NO sleep issues with her her entire life.

I intend to do CIO with Sweet Pea too BUT several things must be in line for me to be able to do CIO responsibly and confidently.

When I sleep train Sweet Pea I want to be confident that she is no longer experiencing tummy troubles.

For the record, I am confident these restless hours of sleep for Sweet Pea (4-8am) are NOT from tummy troubles.

From my experience with CIO, I believe CIO is most effective when you can be 100% sure there is no other reason baby is crying except for the fact that they just need to learn to put themselves to sleep and stay asleep!

I am probably being ultra conservative on this, but that is the only way I can be 100% confident about doing CIO and expect awesome results.

At the same time, I have got to figure something out for the mean time.

Being awake/half asleep (for both of us) from 4-8am is going to get old fast. I can’t function on that kind of sleep and the fact that my mom noticed Sweet Pea seemed tired means my baby is not getting acceptable sleep. I know the value of uninterrupted sleep and I want to give that gift to Sweet Pea, too, as soon as possible.

I know there are other sleep training methods out there that do not involve crying and that is where you come in!!

What sleep training method could I use with Sweet Pea during the 4-8am hours that does NOT involve her crying??

Monday afternoon Little Bug felt like she was on fire. I took her temp and it was 104.4! So I called the doctor immediately and the nurse told me to give her motrin and call back if her temp continued to spike after being on motrin.

Over the next two days she continued to get a high fever, I’d give her motrin and the fever would come down only to spike again once the motrin wore off.

With Thanksgiving this week and since her temp was still getting to 105 last night (without motrin), I took her in first time this morning.

Everything was clear – except a tiny bit of redness in her throat. She has had no other symptoms except the high fevers.

The checked her for strep and that was negative. Her urine sample (that was fun trying to get) showed she is a little dehydrated.

So, now we are to give the fever 3-5 days and if she is still having high fevers on Friday, I have to take her in for blood work.

Today is day 3 of fevers so hopefully today or tomorrow this fever will break and blood work won’t be necessary.

It’s a good thing we are staying the week at my parents’ house since all the family is here for Thanksgiving or else I probably would have gone insane (I kinda have anyways) without extra help this week.

Sweet Pea isn’t sleeping too well at night. I am still trying to pin point the problem so we can find a solution.

I’ve narrowed it down to two possible problems: not eating enough formula during the day so she is needing a feed during the night and/or a paci dependency that is interfering with continuous sleep.

I’m thinking it is probably more of an issue with needing to eat more during the day so she can go longer at night between feedings. However, the problem here is that because of her stomach issues, she can’t really consume a lot of formula at one feed. She is still eating 3 to 3.5 ounces each feed, so yesterday we decided to try getting her to eat 3.5 ounces every feed. She did well and didn’t spit up at all yesterday!

But then she was still up at 3am, my mom gave her the paci (My mom took her last night to give me a break. Yes, my mom is awesome.) but then she was up again at 4am, so she fed her at 3 and she went back to sleep after that until 7:50. Not bad.

The only reason she hesitated to feed her at 3am is because we aren’t sure if she really needs to eat when she wakes up because she wakes every night but some nights she eats like she is really hungry and then other nights she sips and I have to keep nudging her to continue eating.

So, tonight I am just going to feed her right away first time she wakes up and we will go from there. If she could just get to where she was eating six 4 ounce bottles (24 ounces/day), I think she would finally be able to drop that 4am (ish) feed.

So hopefully in a matter of just a little more time, she will get there. I am soooooo ready to be sleeping through the night again. Those couple of weeks here and there that she has dropped that 4am (ish) feed made such a huge difference in my overall ability to handle both girls during the day.

Sleep is so vital for us – no matter our age – which is why I work so hard at the very beginning to establish good sleeping (and eating) patterns in my children.

I’m very tired this week with both girls getting up in the night, but I am very thankful to have my family’s help and support. And I am very thankful that sleepless nights are not my norm and will eventually be a season of my life that have passed hopefully by the end of this year or the very beginning of next year!

My question for you is about independent at time. My almost 2.5 yr old and almost 1 yr old seem incapable of playing independently. How do you start it? What were your techniques? What rules did you instill? How should I go about doing for a 1 yr old and. 2.5 year old? How should I do it different for each of them?

At just over a year old, Little Bug was incapable of playing independently, too and this was when I knew I needed to help her learn this valuable skill.

I started Independent Playtime with Little Bug at the age of 14 months. I put her in her room with several toys laid out on the floor for her to play with, put the gate up on her bedroom door, set the timer for only 5 minutes and told her, “Have fun playing in your room with your toys!! Mommy will be back when the timer goes off!”

She cried the entire 5 minutes the first time. You just have to stick with it and be consistent.

Here are my top 5 tips for successful Independent Playtime.

1. The timer is KEY! Set the timer and say you will be back when the timer goes off and then come back as soon as that timer beeps! Eventually she will learn that it is not her crying that brings Mama back, it is the timer going off.

2. Each day I would increase the timer by 2 minutes. We slowly but surely worked our way up to 30 minutes. Then, once she did 30 minutes well we extended to 45 minutes and then 60 minutes. (Here is a link for the appropriate IP times by age.)

3. Rotate the toys that the baby/child plays with to keep things interesting. I rotate toys about every other month.

4. Stick with it and be consistent. It is hard work to get your baby/child doing IP when you start implementing it during the toddler years. But, if you stick with it, your children will learn that it is a fun time!

5. Pick a time of day to do IP that you know you will be home. This was it can be a consistent part of your baby/child’s routine. We do IP right after breakfast for one hour.

Your 2.5 year old can do IP in his/her bedroom. Your one year old, depending on maturity level, might would benefit doing IP in the playpen (pac n play) for a few months until he/she is older. If you feel he/she is ready for IP in the bedroom, then start there. I think Babywise recommends using the playpen for IP until somewhere between 18-24 months when you transition them to Independent Playtime in their bedroom.

I honestly don’t know what I would do without IP, especially since Sweet Pea’s birth! IP allows our mornings to just run smoother in every way possible. While Little Bug is doing IP, I have one hour to: get dressed, spend time with the Lord, get Sweet Pea to sleep for a nap and, on certain days, I use half that time to do some household chores around the house (although since Sweet Pea’s birth I haven’t actually been able to get back to doing chores during IP). IP just helps us start our mornings right! It is amazing what I can get done in just one hour’s time when my little one is doing her Independent Playtime.

Babywise Mom wrote about the developmental benefits of having your baby/child do Independent Playtime here.

To see an index of all her “Independent Playtime” blog posts, click here.

When following Babywise, what do you do if the baby wakes up before the normal 2.5 to 3 hour feeding time in the middle of the night. When my little guy was a newborn, and all the way up to about 16 weeks, he would wake up every 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. I finally just let him cry and that worked but I was wondering what BW would say? Go in? Rock? Feed?

Babywise would suggest sleep training for a situation like this once you are 100% sure that baby is not waking from hunger, dirty diaper, cold, hot, pain, etc. If you are 100% confident that baby is waking out of habit and just needs to learn to put himself to sleep and stay asleep, sleep training is the answer! (Again, not for everyone. You have to be comfortable with letting baby cry.)

I reached this point with Little Bug. She was 15 weeks old and she would wake after 40ish minutes of napping. She needed to learn to fall asleep and stay asleep. A baby’s transitions from deep to light sleep every 30-45ish minutes and many babies will wake at this point of sleep instead of transitioning themselves to deep sleep. Because of everything I read about how important uninterrupted sleep is to a baby, I desired to give my child that gift.

One day, at 3 months old, I laid Little Bug down for a nap and sure enough, like clockwork she was awake (but not ready to be awake) at the 45 minute mark. I let her cry it out. For an hour. The longest hour of my parenting career! But, you know what? Each nap from then on out the crying decreased dramatically. Within a week (yes, just one week), she was taking uninterrupted naps of 1.5 to 2 hours in length. That week of crying was so worth my daughter learning the skill of putting herself to sleep and staying asleep. I have created healthy sleeping habits in my daughter that she will carry with her as she continues to grow and develop.

And think about it this way. Do you feel your best when you go to bed only to be woken up by the dog puking 3 hours after you have fallen asleep and then the baby needing to eat about 2 hours after you’ve cleaned up the puke? (Yes, that night recently happened for me. I was a tad groggy the next morning and dysfunctional.) Clearly, I am in a phase of life right now where I am getting very interrupted sleep and I don’t feel like I felt before Sweet Pea’s birth when sleep was uninterrupted! We all need sleep and when we are well rested we tend to cope with what life brings much better. This is simply my opinion, but I feel many parents underestimate the importance of sleep for their baby/children.

To you, I say “way to go” in giving your son the gift of sleep when he just needed his Mommy to teach him the skill of uninterrupted sleep!

Well, last night was much better (once Sweet Pea’s bad spell passed and she finally settled).

You want to know where she slept??

In our closet!

Yep, in our closet.

With me basically not sleeping at all with her in our bedroom and not feeling comfortable yet to move her to her own bedroom because of her tummy issues, the closet seemed the most logical solution.

So, last night we gave it a shot.

After Sweet Pea settled last night, Dave brought her into the bedroom and put her in our closet (in her inclined seat), which is vented and big enough to put a full-sized crib in there if we wanted.

You have to go through our bathroom to get to our closet, so Sweet Pea was just inside the walk-in closet with the door from the bathroom to the closet kept wide open. We pulled the door from the bedroom to the bathroom to instead of closing it because I wanted to be sure and hear her.

When I heard her for the first time last night I looked at the clock and it was 5:30am!

I jumped out of bed, made a bottle and brought her to our bed to feed her. She ate 3 ounces. I held her upright for quite some time and then was able to lay her back down in the closet. I then had to wake her at 8:30am for her first morning feed!

I have no idea if she grunted all night or not! It doesn’t matter. I heard what I needed to hear and we ALL got a good night’s sleep!

I never pictured our closet as a good sleeping place for a baby, but…whatever works!

This picture wasn’t taken in the closet, but this is the inclined seat that Sweet Pea sleeps in! A friend of mine is letting me borrow it! This seat really does help a baby with tummy troubles. Thanks, Holly!!

Last night was interesting.

Dave does the 11pm feed, gets Sweet Pea settled (which means holding her upright until her tummy is calm and she can be laid down) and then they both come to our bedroom where I have already gone to bed.

Last night, I heard Sweet Pea at 2:30am. She let out a “I’m hungry, feed me NOW” cry and then, like a switch, she was completely quiet.

But then, of course, I am left WIDE AWAKE anticipating her to wake up for real at any moment.

I doze off and hear another “I’m hungry, feed me NOW” cry. I look at the time. It is 3:30. And, just like an hour before, the frantic 2-second plea for food is turned off like a switch…again.

And again there I am awake with a sleeping baby.

See, my problem is that I don’t just go back to sleep easily. I lay there in anticipation of her cry and before I know it another HOUR has gone by!

This time I decided I was feeding her whether she kept crying or not.

It was close to 5am. She hadn’t eaten since 11:30ish. I figured she would be starving.

Oh no.

I get up and make a bottle while she is frantically crying in the bedroom. I give her the bottle expecting her to suck like there is no tomorrow, but she just sips here and there and falls asleep.

Seriously?!

I passed the paton to Daddy because by this time, I was tired and frustrated.

Not a good combination!

Dave got her to eat about 3 ounces but he basically had to force her to eat.

I kept Little Bug in our bedroom for way longer than was necessary before moving her to her own bedroom in her crib.

She was 4 months old!

Once she was out of our bedroom, we ALL slept better!

Sweet Pea is five WEEKS old and I am ready to give her the boot. She is such a noisy sleeper and every.single.sound. she makes while sleeping wakes me up.

But the problem is that I feel she is still too little to be in her bedroom by herself, especially with her tummy troubles. If she spits up through her nose in the night, I need to be able to hear her.

On the other hand, a repeat of last night is not going to cut it. I need more than three hours of sleep a night to function properly!

Tomorrow is Day 1 of SAHMto2. I’m starting off easy, though.

Tuesdays we usually go to my parents around lunchtime so we will go there tomorrow. So if I can manage to get both girls fed, dressed and myself fed and dressed and out the door, it will be an accomplished day.

Wednesday will be interesting as it will be just me and the girls all day long!

I have several slings on hand that people have given/lent to me. I have a feeling Wednesday a sling will become a permanent part of my wardrobe from now until Sweet Pea’s tummy problems are resolved.

If you don’t hear from me after Wednesday, call in the troops.

Before you think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth…

I haven’t. It’s just been a very busy week!

Figured out the nap problem. Monday, when I laid Little Bug down at 1:30 and she slept until 4:00pm, I knew the issue here was an issue of needing to lay down earlier and not later as I had first thought.

So, naptime is now back to 1:30pm, until there is a need for another change.

It’s interesting how I have seen a pattern of Little Bug needing more sleep during certain times and then needing a little less sleep. It’s never a huge difference but I do know that Little Bug requires 13-14 hours of sleep to function properly. Right now, she is needing 13ish hours…11 hours of nighttime sleep and a 2 hour nap is ideal, but I have seen this past week if she sleeps 11.5 hours at night, her nap will only be 1.5 hours.

It is interesting how sleep for baby/toddler is really a science and when you mix just the right ingredients of optimal wake time and consistency you have a recipe for an awesome sleeper. Getting the ingredients “just right” is more important for young babies, but as I learned with Little Bug this week, it still plays a big roll for a toddler as well.

Little Bug had a big surprise today! When she woke up from her nap her Uh-Note (Uncle Wesley) opened her bedroom door! She was still laying down but when she saw him she got this big smile on her face, stood up and started doing her little “happy dance” in the crib! Then she decided to play shy (which she is not!) and wanted Mommy. After she pretended she wanted Mommy she stood up and ran to Uh-Note who picked her up out of the crib! She gave him a big hug and had so much fun playing with him tonight.

Wesley flew in today and will be here a whole week! He’s already enjoying the nice weather here. He left some melting snow on the ground this morning!

Little Bug and her Uh-Note Wesley

Another week has begun… Am I the only one wondering how it can already be March?!

By the way, this is going to be a random post with lots of stuff included.

Nap: Saturday we tried putting Little Bug down for nap early. At 1:30 she was in bed, but didn’t go to sleep until 1:45ish BUT then we had to wake her at 4:30pm! So, I was thinking that must be it…she is needing to lay down earlier now for some reason. So, Sunday we did the same thing. Laid her down at 1:30 and she still took a while to go to sleep. She was asleep a little after 2pm and woke up at 3:30. So an hour and a half nap.

So…I’m still clueless about what is going on! I am going to lay her down at 1:30 this week and see what happens and go from there.

Congestion: She is still so congested, especially when she wakes up. I am trying to not take her outside as much as possible, but you know Little Bug. She could live outside if I’d let her.

Trip: We are going to Texas next month to see Mimi and Papaw and all the family that lives there! I am so excited about this. My parents and Grandmother are going too. Dave will be not be able to go due to work. I hope Little Bug likes to fly as much as her Mommy does!

Little Bug loves to look at airplanes in the sky. We always say, “Can you reach it?” and Little Bug says, “Too far away!” When we are boarding the plane I can’t wait to ask Little Bug if she can reach the airplane and then see the excitement in her eyes when she can actually reach out and touch the airplane!

I’m sure the journey from here to there on an airplane will be quite interesting with a (very active) 22 month old! But I will have back up in my parents along the way, so that will be of great help I can only imagine. Last time I flew with Little Bug she was an immobile infant that sat in my lap and slept for half the flight!

I am hoping lots of snacks, books and small interesting toys will keep her entertained. But knowing Little Bug, she will be fascinated by all the people in such close proximity to her on the airplane and will be trying to talk to everyone within five rows of her. I bet she will exit the airplane with at least a dozen new friends.

Oh and another thing about sleep…it’s almost summer. Which means trips, which means sleep naturally gets a little off anyway. So, I suppose this is as good a time as any for a “bump” along the way. We have Texas next month, then the annual mountain trip probably in May and then another trip to a reunion in July. But this is just another benefit to having your kid on a schedule. When you get “off” for one reason or another, when it is time to resume “normal life”, your kid falls back into their routine/schedule. And hopefully by that time, this weird nap phase will have passed.

At least I can hope so!!

Something I really appreciate about Babywise is that it busts many of the common parenting myths.

One such myth is that “babies will sleep when they are tired” when in reality an overtired baby won’t sleep well at all.

But that isn’t the point of this post.

Babies need sleep – and they need more than we probably think. Not only do they need sleep, but they need uninterrupted sleep.

A baby who is getting up during the middle of night out of habit, instead of need, is not getting the rest he/she needs.

Uninterrupted sleep is a beautiful gift parents can, and in my opinion, should give their child. And hey, let’s face it, uninterrupted sleep is a beautiful gift for the Mamas and Daddys too!

There are many aspects of baby getting adequate uninterrupted sleep. This post will hit on one of those aspects: respecting baby’s naptime.

As I stated in this post, I was a bit of a naptime drill sergeant when I first started Babywise with Little Bug. If it was naptime, I was home and Little Bug was in her crib sleeping.

There is nothing wrong with a nap on the go. In fact, sometimes, it’s a necessity, but if every nap for baby is on the go – they probably aren’t getting the length of nap needed for good, restful sleep.

From the start, we have always made plans around Little Bug’s nap/bedtime schedule. Obviously, there have been times where Little Bug has had to sacrifice a nap or go to bed a little late. But overall, if it is naptime or bedtime, we are home and Little Bug is in her crib sleeping. Have we had to make sacrifices along the way  (such as leaving an event early to get Little Bug home and in bed)? Yes, but the way we look at it is this: This is a small phase of life. Before we know it, we will have teenagers, but for now, we have a baby who needs to go to bed before 9pm. And so we leave early. Only for a season. 

Think about it. What if we as adults had to continuously sacrifice the sleep we needed to be able to function properly? Many adults, in fact, do do that. They are not operating with optimal alertness because they are sleep deprived. It is the same for babies. Without adequate sleep, they are not operating with optimal alertness, which means they are also not at their point of optimal learning either.

I have no idea how to figure this one out, but I am sure, the more kids you add to your family, the harder it is to respect the naptimes of those who are still in need of one! The more schedules you throw into the mix, the harder this has to be!

I think it all boils down to this, however, I obviously have no experience in juggling more than one child’s daily schedule: It’s a balance. I can’t expect my older children to always sacrifice to be at home when it is baby’s naptime. And I can’t expect my future baby (who, by the way, is NOT on the way! ) to not be able to take a snooze in the stroller while big sis is at dance class. Big kids won’t always be on the go and babies won’t always be at home.

But as their mother, it is my responsibility to make sure everyone is getting adequate sleep.