@thimbleberry I totally agree you gotta do what works best for you and your baby and only you will know what that is. I just can’t wrap my head around how they are able to get their babies to comply. Maybe they have very laid back babes?
I don’t get it
- Thread starter 15gb2
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thimbleberry
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@thimbleberry Good point!
dwhite081705
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@15gb2 I’m on baby 3 and I have never understood either. I really can’t make them sleep so I just wait until they are tired. I can pay attention to wake windows and know when to offer a nap.
But the whole “I’m gonna move the nap up an hour and see if that fixes this sleep problem” has always baffled me. You can do that? Your baby lets you do that?
But the whole “I’m gonna move the nap up an hour and see if that fixes this sleep problem” has always baffled me. You can do that? Your baby lets you do that?
@dwhite081705 Thank god I’m not the only one confused! 
maybe some babies are happy to sleep but mine hates sleeping so I also just have to wait until she’s tired.
maybe some babies are happy to sleep but mine hates sleeping so I also just have to wait until she’s tired.earthenvessel1964
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@15gb2 When mine was a newborn I had no idea about it either, but as time went by I noticed that even if she's a bit tired, she won't sleep unless she hears some calming song. So putting on music would make she sleep about 1-2h before she would normally sleep without it.
Then I began controlling more her sleep schedule. Also waking her up earlier will make she tired earlier so that's another way.
I guess each baby has something that triggers a "now it's time to sleep" routine.
Then I began controlling more her sleep schedule. Also waking her up earlier will make she tired earlier so that's another way.
I guess each baby has something that triggers a "now it's time to sleep" routine.
@earthenvessel1964 We use rain sounds at our house, it definitely helps!
@15gb2 Mine was born tiny—not preemie, and no NICU, just miniature—and in five years she’s never become much of a natural eater. Introduced cucumbers at about four months and she’d be perfectly happy eating nothing but. I also had a lower-end milk supply and gigantic tits that she really just wanted to nuzzle rather than latch to, so before I lost my mind we turned to combo feeding at about eight weeks.
Moms take a goofy amount of shit for small babies, and I was always worried, so I tracked her intake inasmuch as I was able to.
My husband also put his foot down when she was at about five months and insisted on (gentle) sleep training, because she’d reached a decent enough weight to sleep through and we were going maaaaaad. Babies have zero instinct for sleep and mine was born with FOMO. Dropped all naps by eighteen months.
If it were up to my kid she absolutely would never sleep or eat enough. Don’t get me wrong—most of this was winging it. But we did need to impose some minimal structure almost from the start.
Moms take a goofy amount of shit for small babies, and I was always worried, so I tracked her intake inasmuch as I was able to.
My husband also put his foot down when she was at about five months and insisted on (gentle) sleep training, because she’d reached a decent enough weight to sleep through and we were going maaaaaad. Babies have zero instinct for sleep and mine was born with FOMO. Dropped all naps by eighteen months.
If it were up to my kid she absolutely would never sleep or eat enough. Don’t get me wrong—most of this was winging it. But we did need to impose some minimal structure almost from the start.
@15gb2 Haha I love it! Ours used to get sooooo mad when we went to put her down (still does sometimes!), and she learned to scowl very early on; that face always told us that she KNEW that once we'd conned her into falling asleep the best party in the world was going to start.
The sleep training was a tangle. My husband wanted to, and so did I, in theory, but confronted with the reality I just noped out every time. Our paediatrician---very no-nonsense, no pleasantries, loved our daughter but was vaguely annoyed by us---told me that rocking or nursing her to sleep was a little like playing a trick on her, because she fell asleep in one place with me, and woke in another place, alone. He said that her learning that her bed (well, crib) is a safe, restful place while she was awake would give her lifelong self-soothing tools. God only knows if that's true or not, but it was enough to get me to try.
So I started with baby steps. I started dream-feeding her instead of nursing or giving that last bottle while she was still awake, and then I got her to sleep in the rocking chair but didn't rock it, and on and on until I was putting her in her crib awake and rubbing her belly until she fell asleep, and then sitting in the rocking chair, nearby but not touching or engaging (other than 'it's OK, sleepy girl' every now and then), and ultimately she had a bedtime and was fine with going down after her story, and just staring out the window or playing with her hands until she dropped off.
It wasn't a linear process, and we did have to listen to a few bouts of crying (I could never handle it and counted up to one minute before going to pick her up, and my husband would yell 'Nooooooo! We were SO CLOSE!'), but my husband was fully present for all of it and also kept cracking the whip when I wanted to wimp out (I never felt closer to her, early on, than when she was drifting off on my chest, getting heavier and heavier, and apart from anything else I didn't want to give that up!). The whole thing took about a month from start to finish.
She did have a serious regression when she was two after she'd had a cold and lying down was just tormenting her, and for a while I was rocking her back to sleep. When she (I) was ready, I did an abbreviated version of the initial training (frankly it is a LOT harder when they start to be able to reason with you, AND they can just get out of bed). These days, about once a month we'll wake up in the morning to find her nestled between us (how she monkeys up, climbs over us, and shimmies under the covers without waking us up I will NEVER know), but apart from a little pissing and moaning when I tell her it's bedtime, it's clear sailing.
I'm sure this is a LOT more than you were asking for! Really the worst part of the training was just deciding to do it and then starting---the thought of it made me miserable more than actually getting on with it. Every kid is different, and sleep training can go any kind of way, for sure. But you know your kid! There's a big difference between 'This is new and weird, and I don't like it cos it's new and weird' and 'This is NOT WORKING for me, Ma; cut it out'. Listen to your gut! Beyond needing our love and care, there are zero absolutes with babies.
The sleep training was a tangle. My husband wanted to, and so did I, in theory, but confronted with the reality I just noped out every time. Our paediatrician---very no-nonsense, no pleasantries, loved our daughter but was vaguely annoyed by us---told me that rocking or nursing her to sleep was a little like playing a trick on her, because she fell asleep in one place with me, and woke in another place, alone. He said that her learning that her bed (well, crib) is a safe, restful place while she was awake would give her lifelong self-soothing tools. God only knows if that's true or not, but it was enough to get me to try.
So I started with baby steps. I started dream-feeding her instead of nursing or giving that last bottle while she was still awake, and then I got her to sleep in the rocking chair but didn't rock it, and on and on until I was putting her in her crib awake and rubbing her belly until she fell asleep, and then sitting in the rocking chair, nearby but not touching or engaging (other than 'it's OK, sleepy girl' every now and then), and ultimately she had a bedtime and was fine with going down after her story, and just staring out the window or playing with her hands until she dropped off.
It wasn't a linear process, and we did have to listen to a few bouts of crying (I could never handle it and counted up to one minute before going to pick her up, and my husband would yell 'Nooooooo! We were SO CLOSE!'), but my husband was fully present for all of it and also kept cracking the whip when I wanted to wimp out (I never felt closer to her, early on, than when she was drifting off on my chest, getting heavier and heavier, and apart from anything else I didn't want to give that up!). The whole thing took about a month from start to finish.
She did have a serious regression when she was two after she'd had a cold and lying down was just tormenting her, and for a while I was rocking her back to sleep. When she (I) was ready, I did an abbreviated version of the initial training (frankly it is a LOT harder when they start to be able to reason with you, AND they can just get out of bed). These days, about once a month we'll wake up in the morning to find her nestled between us (how she monkeys up, climbs over us, and shimmies under the covers without waking us up I will NEVER know), but apart from a little pissing and moaning when I tell her it's bedtime, it's clear sailing.
I'm sure this is a LOT more than you were asking for! Really the worst part of the training was just deciding to do it and then starting---the thought of it made me miserable more than actually getting on with it. Every kid is different, and sleep training can go any kind of way, for sure. But you know your kid! There's a big difference between 'This is new and weird, and I don't like it cos it's new and weird' and 'This is NOT WORKING for me, Ma; cut it out'. Listen to your gut! Beyond needing our love and care, there are zero absolutes with babies.
@15gb2 It's my theory that these type of schedules help moms with post-partum depression or anxiety to stay distracted. But it's otherwise not very helpful or probably healthy for that matter to treat your baby like a video game. They're also people with different wants and needs. The standard isn't the normal.
if there’s no real scheduling need it definitely could be a coping mechanismgraceandgranola
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@graceandgranola i had to do it because there was two of them and if i wasn't in charge of when eating and sleeping happened there would never be a time when i could eat or sleep
@15gb2 at first i woke them up every 3 hours changed and fed them and put them back to bed and then as they got older i woke them up every 3 hours during the day only and fed them changed them played with them and put them back to bed and then i changed the schedule ever so slightly to line up with the suggested one from huckleberry!