BabyWise

The scariest thing for me in having a newborn baby was definitely my fear of lack of sleep.  I love sleep.  I need sleep.  I love sleep.  I don't like early mornings... I don't like staying up late... and naps are frequent too.  So, when I remembered two college friends telling on Facebook there 6-9 week old babies were sleeping 8+ hours thru the night using a method called BabyWise, I had always kept that knowledge in the back of my mind when I had a baby.

I had been planning to look into getting the book once baby was born, but luckily, another positive of his induction not taking was the day after Britt and I went to a thrift store in Hutch and I saw the book on a shelf for 50 cents.  It was THE BEST 50 cents we have spent so far.  And it is important to start right away though for the first 2 weeks they schedule is not as important as full feedings as I'll mention more later.  I have also loved this blog Babywisemom.com

BabyWise is viewed as very controversial by some people and I can see why some people don't like it if they take it to the extreme and are so rigid to a schedule when they need not be.  I can see why it may not work for all mom's and all baby's too, but it has been awesome for us.  The premise of the sleep "training" is creating a eat, play/awake time, and then sleep (in that order) cycle schedule.  Eat, wake, sleep.  Eat wake, sleep.    This allows for the baby to be rested when they eat so they take a full feeding, then they are awake for awhile and when they start getting tired, lay them down for their nap where they learn to fall asleep on their own without being fed to sleep.  ( My sign in my kitchen is almost perfect... It says:   LIFE IS SIMPLE: Eat, Sleep, Play, Repeat... just a little out of order so not quite BabyWise approved  ;) )

I have known a friend who stopped nursing because her baby was always nursing... well at least nursing until they fell asleep and then baby would lay down and nap for less than 30 minutes, wake up hungry still and start all over... I would've been very tired myself.  The book stresses full feedings/both sides if it means waking them up 2-3 times with diaper changes, damp wash clothes and exercises.  

The trick and part I have driven home to myself about the BabyWise method is have a schedule but be flexible in it.  He eats anywhere from a 2-4 hour cycle... clusters closer together with first two morning feeds and last two night feedings and then is usually right on 3 hour hunger schedule.  But days of growth spurts or days of sleepiness, I just go with the flow.   When Declan was younger, awake time did not always happen or did not happen for long no matter how much I tried to keep him awake, but now he is just awake and happy after eating and is used to it.

Basically since a week old he only got up once a night between 1-2:30 for a feeding and then always slept til 5-6.  I thought that was awesome and didn't really care if that is what he continued to do and was thankful for BabyWise for just that.  At 6 weeks on the dot, for his own personal 29th birthday gift to me, he slept until 3:45... and the next night til 4, and the next night til 4:10 and the next night til 4:30... The first few nights I was waking up 2-3 times before he did wondering why he wasn't up yet...I am hoping this trend continues and we go from 9-9:30 until 5-5:30 when school is back in session.  I don't really think I can or plan to do the three nights in a row "cry-it-out" BabyWise suggests to break that last feeding because if he is hungry, I will feed him and getting up at 4:30 is not hard after 5-6 straight hours of sleep for me.

Anyhow, I recommend any new mom consider and try this method if you want a baby who likes sleep, that can self soothe well so you can keep enjoying your sleep.  And maybe any method or no method would have worked just fine with Declan because of the content baby he is, but for now, I'm giving props to BabyWise.


Here are a few pics of my boy sleeping anywhere:   :)