So many people give "advice" on how to raise a kid that is not theirs, including how to schedule them. I mean seriously. People try to train babies to get on a schedule? How stressful and ridiculous. When my baby cries in the middle of the night, it is because he is hungry and as a good mother, I will get up, change his diaper and feed him half asleep. Many people see that night waking moment as the perfect opportunity to pop a pacifier in their mouths to be able to "train" the baby to sleep longer and for the parents to get more sleep. Good for them if it works, but that strategy is not for me.
In a way, I did "train" Dax, but not using the method listed above. The kid won't take a pacifier so that option would not be there anyways! In the beginning, with all the weight he lost and the issues with feeding, our pediatrician recommended that we wake him up every 2 hours around the clock to feed (many newborns will sleep through their feedings if you don't). The 2 hours started counting at the start of the feed so if he ate for 30 minutes, then was rocked for 20 minutes, there was only an hour and 20 minutes left until his next feed. Needless to say, we were both exhausted and probably a little nutty. Once he started gaining weight consistently, we were able to stop waking him at night and allow him to wake up when he was hungry...this still ended up being every 2 hours throughout the night and day for awhile though.
We started a routine pretty early. At night when it was bedtime and time to eat, we turned on a dim lamp in his room and we put on his jammies. When he woke up for night feedings, lights stayed off, voices stayed off, and we did only what needed to be done...diaper and feeding. In the morning, lights came on, jammies came off. Now in the beginning it did not make a difference and he did not know day from night, but we still kept the routine going and eventually he started to sleep a little longer at night, maybe 3 hours instead of 2. But his sleep was so restless!! He grunted and squealed all night long keeping us awake.
It was only when I put Dax down for a nap at 8:00 one night (he napped on his belly), and he did not wake up until 1:00 a.m. that we realized we needed to switch him over from his back to belly at night, regardless of the risks. Belly sleeping saved our sanity. Keeping with the routine above, Dax started settling into a 8-9 bedtime, sleeping 4-5 hr stretches, sometimes as long as 7 hours. When he does wake in the middle of the night to eat, he falls right back to sleep.
Here is what a "typical" day looks like with Dax:
7:30-8:30 a.m - wake up/diaper, play, eat
9:00 - nap
9:30 - 10:45 - diaper, play, eat
11:00 - nap
11:30 - 12:45 - diaper, play, eat
1:00 - nap
1:30-2:45 - diaper, play, eat
3:00 - nap
3:30-4:45 - diaper, play, eat
5:00 - nap
5:30-6:45 - diaper, play, eat
7:00 - nap
7:30 until bedtime - diaper, play, eat
9:00 p.m. - 4:30 a.m. - sleep
4:30 a.m. - diaper, eat
5:00 a.m. - 7:30 - sleep
Now some days, he is like clockwork and goes down for a nap right at the 2 hr mark every time, other days it is a little shorter or longer. Same with sleep time, sometimes it is as short as a 15 minute cat nap, sometimes it will last an hr. In between sleep is not really scheduled, yes we diaper, play, eat, but it is not always in that order. I feed him based on whether or not he is hungry, so sometimes it is as soon as he wakes up, other times it is right before he goes down for a nap.
He is starting to love exploring the world around him so he will play on his play mat some mornings for a good 40 minutes while I get things done around the house. Of course, I stop over and play a bit...how could I not?!
Love my little bug, so proud of the little guy he is turning into and the life we are creating together. It's a bug's life! (and not the movie!) =)
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