I get tons of questions from new moms regarding newborn sleep (or lack thereof). I figured I'd write about my experience to help all of you new moms.
There are a million different takes on sleep training from scheduled, cry it out, never wake a sleeping baby, all the way to do nothing at all and let them sleep when they want. This is just my take and the way I felt it worked best for my family.
When my son was born I knew I wanted to breastfeed him. I thought it would be very simple, he's hungry, I nurse.... It wasn't. The nurses at the hospital make you feel as though you should be nursing non stop. They'd come in every hour and ask "When's the last time he nursed?" and "For how long?". Sometimes I'd make something up because I just couldn't remember how long. I mean, I'd just given birth after 24 hours of labor with no sleep the day before. Going home I tried to continue to pattern of nursing often. To add to this, about a week after he was born we discovered he had jaundice and the Dr recommended I nurse every 3 hours at night and every 2 hours during the day. So this became my routine for the next 3 weeks. It wasn't every 2 hours on the dot, but almost every time we were close, my son would let me know anyway. He'd be screaming and so I'd nurse him. At 4 weeks he'd gained a ton of weight and got rid of the jaundice so I wanted to get some sort of normalcy in our routine. I stopped waking him at night but he woke on his own, apparently he had gotten used to every 3 hours. Some times we wouldn't even make it 2 hours before he woke. By 6 weeks I was exhausted! Mentally and physically and very sleep deprived. He would only nap with me on my chest and it seemed he wanted to nurse non stop, which had me in a zombie like state, a messy house, and always hungry because I couldn't even make time for making meals. I knew something had to change or else I didn't know if I'd ever be able to go anywhere or do anything. And plus, my son wasn't happy. He was crying a lot and very fussy everyday. I wanted something to be better for him.
A friend told me about babywise and I thought to myself, 'well it cant get any worst'. I decided I would try it for 1 week and see the results. I committed to do it exactly the way it was supposed to be done no cheating. Here's what happened:
The first day I set an alarm and I woke him up at 7:30 and nursed him right away. It had been a rough night of lots of waking, but I had committed to doing this. I wasn't happy about 7:30 but I made some coffee and went with it. He was awake about 1 hour when I noticed him rubbing his eyes. Perfect I thought, there my cue! I swaddled him up tight and laid him down to go to sleep in his crib. He hadn't been sleeping in the crib much at this point because he only wanted to sleep with me. He cried about 3 minutes and I went in and put a pacifier in his mouth and walked out. A few minutes later he started crying again, I waited a couple minutes and went in and did the same. This time I got on my knees and reached over the top of the crib and held the pacifier in his mouth, then I rubbed his forehead at the same time. He fell asleep quickly and I walked out. My son never had a problem waking up early. He was a good sleeper almost immediately as I tried to establish this babywise schedule.
When the 3 hour mark came up (on the dot) I woke him up and nursed him immediately. We continued this 3 hour cycle all day until it was evening (the typical screamfest every night). I laid him down to go to sleep and he cried maybe a total of 5 minutes, I put his pacifier in and he went right to sleep around 9:30. He slept uninterrupted until 1 in the morning. This was amazing especially when you are used to 1.5 hours of sleep at a time. I decided from that moment that I was going to commit to the babywise plan. I continued to wake him at the exact same time every morning 7:30 and continued to same 3 hour routine until his normal bedtime.
My son took to the routine wonderfully. It was like he was aching for a schedule. After 1 week I would say he was almost perfect. Awake for 1 hour, sleep for 2 hours all day until bedtime. He was still waking 2 times a night, but at least he was sleeping in this crib and I could actually, cook, clean, and even possibly get away to the store by myself (AHH!!!)
When my daughter came along I knew I would do babywise with her and start immediately to get her eating every 3 hours. This was very easy for my daughter because she wasn't really interested in nursing. She was very calm, didn't cry much, and content with being in my arms (which mommy was fine with too) She didn't leave my side for the first week I think! Her sleeping pattern was way off, but as far as nursing every 3 hours, we started right away. It was hard at first because she wouldn't sleep for long periods of time. 40 minutes sometimes and then be awake. Not hungry, just awake. I had to follow *her* schedule for the first few weeks. She had the hardest time falling asleep. She fought sleep every time and I don't like to let my kids cry so I chose to get her to sleep anyway I could. Some times that was nursing her, most of the time that was holding her and walking around my room. At 5 weeks I had to get back to normal and begin doing bible study and going back to working occasionally so I really needed her to be predictable. I couldn't keep locking myself in my bedroom to walk her to sleep and leave my toddler roaming around the house. I decided I was going to have to let her cry it out to get her to go to sleep. At first I started the same things I did with my son. She did not like the pacifier. I would try rubbing her head, that didn't work either, just made her more mad. I would try getting her to sleep in my arms, then lay her down, she'd wake 5-10 minutes later realizing I wasn't there. All this time, my toddler is where? I realized I had to do something different for the sake of both my kids. I had to walk away. I hated this part. It goes against our mother instincts to leave our crying babies, but that was what I knew was best for me to parent both my kids.
My daughter was much harder to get on a schedule than my son was. He took to it almost immediately. My daughter took probably a good 6 weeks for her to get the schedule down. She had a difficult time sleeping all the way to the 3 hour mark with frequent wakings. She would wake early, and not because she was hungry. I kept on, laying her down when she showed she was tired and she very gradually started to sleep longer than 45 minutes. She is 6 months old now and is perfect on the 3 hour schedule, taking 3 naps a day. It was a much different experience with her than *training* my son.
This is one take on sleep training and the one I personally chose. You are welcome to read, and choose to do something different. I am here to answer any questions you may have. I'm a better mother to my kids, when I sleep and my kids are also happier when they are well rested. It may be easy when you have 1 child to say "we just got lucky he/she's a good baby"... but I firmly believe after having 2 babies with totally different styles and doing babywise with both, that the amount of sleep they get is the amount they require as babies and helps them to be very happy and content.
It is also my opinion that my son learned to trust he would always get food when he woke up. He never cried for hunger - ever. He woke up happy and KNEW he would get fed because it was a routine. It was predictable. This helped me as a mother because anytime my son DID cry, I knew something was wrong.
This is my babywise journey with both my kids. I am a well rested momma and 2 babies sleeping through the night and they both NEVER cry unless something is wrong! Babywise has made my kids happier and has made this momma's life easier as well!
