How Molly Anne Started Sleeping

I know everyone is extremely opinionated on this topic but I want to record this so I remember for round two! 

No hard feelings if you agree or disagree but this is what worked for us.  Maybe what you did worked, more power to you!  I'm a huge believer in doing what is best for your family, period. 

Yes Molly Anne is a good baby (or so I'm told by others that have children).  Obviously I have nothing to compare her to.  I just knew that sleep was important to ALL of us!  So I did what anyone does these days - I talked to my friends who are in my same season in life and read Google!  I decided to do Moms on Call.  Well, kind of.  I downloaded the $10 book from their website and read some of it. I also read parts of a Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I have two friends of mine who have children that SLEEP and they used these.  Our pediatrician helped me too.  

And then I made it what works for us.  I mainly followed moms on call but I didn't do any of the day time schedule.  I used the general idea of how to help your baby sleep.  I just couldn't figure out how to make a newborn nap at a certain time.  And honestly to his day, she doesn't ALWAYS take a nap at 10am or any real schedule. I kinda think some of that is nuts because you have to have a life.  But she does take a morning and afternoon nap, the times just vary.  Sometimes she naps 4 times a day.  And Molly Anne has never taken long naps, ever....as in she usually only sleeps 45 minutes.  But the doc said it didn't matter because she is sleeping at night. 

Here are some specific things we did....

First, she slept in her crib from day one.  I just didn't see the point of the rock n play or any of that in our room. I felt like that was more out of convenience for me and less for her.  If she had been colicky, that would have been different.  But why add another transition to complicate things more?  

Second, we did the same routine EVERY night since July 6 when we got home.  Bath, bottle, bed.  In that order. Never missed a night. And still haven't.  She knows what to expect.  We read books now but at the beginning we didn't.  So now it's bath, book, bottle, bed.  

The biggest thing that our pediatrician told me that would affect her sleep was eating.  It all about getting enough calories during the day so she isn't starving at night.   Right now at 3.5 months, she gets 30 ounces every day.   I make sure of it!

I have never used white nose and she has slept with and without a nightlight.  I wanted her to be flexible. 

I remember some of those nights early on, I'll be honest - I let her cry.  After two weeks, if she was fed, burped, had a clean diaper, she didn't NEED me.  She felt loved and never abandoned. She knew if she bloody murder screamed that I'd be in there in an instant.  But I learned her cry. She was fine. Just fussy. But by me leaving her in there, she learned how to put herself to sleep.  The doc told me it was perfectly fine and she encouraged me to let her cry.  She didn't cry for hours - I think the longest she was ever fussy was 15-20 minutes and that was her just being wild and flailing her legs and arms around.  She didn't need anything.  Then in the middle of the night, I'd go feed her when she cried that it was time.  Those initially were around 12a and 5a then went to only one time around 3a (I'd say this was around 7 weeks).  Then amazingly on her two month birthday in Maryland (at 9 weeks), she slept through from 8-5:30!  

She only had a swaddle on during her first nine weeks of life. She hated that thing. It restricted her.  I never zipped her arms in except for the first few weeks. She kept breaking out of the zip swaddle.  And her legs - she would pick them up in the air and scoot down her crib like a mermaid.  Child still does this without the swaddle!  I put her in the crib at the left side because she moves so much she is at the other end of the crib by morning. Ha!  

She still is up in the middle of the night moving around about once a night but always goes right back to sleep.  I never go in there unless I can tell something is really wrong.  Usually she's in bed by 7:45 and sleeps until 7am. I'll take it.  I'm soooo lucky we have a good little sleeper.  I think it's half of what we did above and half that she likes to sleep.  

I'm not going to lie, there were many nights that Kevin had to keep telling me to not go in there. It hurts your mama heart to hear them cry.  But he was right that it's good for her to sleep.  And it would have put us back to square one too.

Oh!  And zero co sleeping.  Our bed is for us, not her. But yes, she does come cuddle a couple mornings a week! ;) 

Ok let's pretend this post isn't out there because I don't want to jinx it all by talking about it too much!!!   Here's to everyone's baby sleeping!!!