I always knew I wanted to be a mom more than anything. I also knew that more than anything I wanted to go back to my normal (great) sleeping habits after the first 3 months of having a baby. I did no research about sleep training prior to being pregnant, but once I started talking with a friend she directed me here and it is the single most important thing I’ve ever done. Finley is almost 2 years old and my husband and I still talk about this being the best decision we ever made. I had no idea how hard it would actually be, but this article is super helpful and encouraging so I was able to make it through! Finley has slept through the night (11 hours) since we started at about 4 months. Prior to that he woke up every 2-3 hours to feed and eventually stretched until every 5 hours but not much more than that. I just wanted to give a few of my tips, because I get asked very often how I “did it” with Finley and I do think it is SO IMPORTANT for the health of you, your marriage and even your child.
What I didn’t know
I didn’t know when I started all this how much I was actually helping Finley. One of my besties is a sleep training consultant (who’s amazing and can do phone consultations) actually told me “Rebekah you are helping him learn how good it feels to sleep. Helping him learn to love sleep and love his bed.” She was so right. Once Finley began to talk and even now he literally will tell us “night night” when he’s ready for bed, and even this week told my MIL that when she was watching him.
What I didn’t do
I didn’t stress about naps. I wanted to focus on night time sleeping, because that was hard enough. Finley napped horribly for the first 6 months-every 2 hours for only 30 minutes at a time. He eventually grew out of that and they lengthened themselves and then once we were golden on sleeping through the night, I think that also helped the naps.
A few of my tips
- read and be educated. know what you’re going to do and have a plan. This article was LIFE for me. I followed it to the tee.
- if you have a partner you will need their help and you will need to be on the same page. If you aren’t it will be way harder, and trust me it’s already hard enough to sleep train.
- some people tell me they didn’t have to sleep train their kids, that they just slept on their own. CONGRATS. HATE YOU. JK, but really, I feel in my own opinion it has to be worked on to some extent or it can come about later, when they are older and that will be WAY WORSE.
- have wine ready and have a group of friends that will talk you off the ledge when you’re crying, you’re baby is crying and you just want to give up.
- start early, the longer you wait the worse the crying will be. I think pediatricians recommend 3 months or 14 pounds so check with them.
- when you read this article read the comments too, they are super encouraging!
How it all worked out
I started doing this schedule when Finley was 3.5 months. It wasn’t too bad, my husband and I switched off sleeping and it took about two weeks. THEN at 5 months it got ROUGH. I mean ROUGH. You don’t start over you just keep going with the schedule and it took 30 DAYS. THAT’S RIGHT, A WHOLE MONTH. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Then at 6 months we moved so that was an adjustment too. I gave in a little to him waking up and actually started nursing him again (mistake) but then went right back to the schedule and that wasn’t bad. Then, again sleep regression at 8 months brought us back. You don’t start over, you just keep going, don’t give in. So since 8 months we’ve been in the clear! Even when he is sick he generally sleeps all night. Good luck, IT IS SO WORTH IT. I PROMISE!
**I am not a doctor, pediatrician or sleep consultant. This is my advice and opinion based on what a lot of people have asked me and I would just like to pass on the article that helped us as a family so much**