Prior to Isla's birth, I was worried I wouldn't have any "motherly instincts". It did take a while for me to feel more confident in myself, but I'm happy to report that I caused no serious harm to Isla in those few days when I had no clue what I was doing :) Now that I have some things figured out, I thought I'd share some things that are working for us.
Being a teacher, I completely understand the power/importance of consistency. Whatever Andy and I were going to do, we both needed to follow through and remain consistent. This was agreed upon before Isla was even born, and it was first put to the test with Isla's sleeping habits.
I think back to how frustrated I was when Isla was tiny. She would cry in her crib all of the time. As much as I wanted to bring her into bed with us, I didn't. I'm happy Andy and I remained firm and consistent with her sleeping in her crib. It really sucked, I'm not going to lie. She would cry, I'd go in there, rock her, put her down, she'd cry again....blah blah blah. Not fun. I thought I was losing my mind. Now, we put her in her crib when she is still awake, and she is able to fall asleep on her own...without even crying! Sometimes we see her on the monitor sitting up and playing with her favorite stuffed monkey. Eventually she will lay down and fall asleep. It amazes me that she is able to do that.
As much as I would LOVE to snuggle my adorable, kissable child I just don't want to start any bad habits. I've read several articles about parents who aren't getting enough "good" sleep because they are constantly waking up at night. I also read the habit can be very hard to break. I've read plenty of great articles about having kids in bed too (ugh!) but with a (very loud) snoring dog already sharing the bed with us, we couldn't add a baby. (I'm not a total sleep Nazi....Isla has taken a few naps in bed with us!)
I credit Isla's good sleeping schedule with a great routine. From birth to 2 months the only routine we really had was to do all night feedings in her room (heck we paid a small fortune on our glider...we needed to use it!). As she got a bit older we started incorporating more into our routine. She gets a bath every night, then we rock her in the glider with her night time bottle, put the Dream Screen on, and put her into bed. We haven't always put her in her crib awake though...we started by singing and rocking her to sleep.
Oddly enough, the one time we've ever brought Isla into our bed to sleep with us she nearly choked to death (well not to death...but I was scared to death that is for sure!). She was laying there, then suddenly she started violently flailing her legs in an attempt to roll over. She started making some gasping noises and we realized she had spit up squash all over the place and she was gagging on it. It had also shot out of her nose and she was having a hard time breathing. I took that as a sign from God that Isla belongs in her bed! I think if she would have been in her crib, not on our soft mattress, she would have been able to roll over and not have to go through that panic. It was really horrible for all of us.
Anyway, this is what works for us. Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I'm not taking advantage of all of the snuggle time, but I'm hoping in the long run it pays off.
7 years ago
2 comments:
I am so proud of you! It will totally pay off! We did the exact same thing with Colton - he has only slept in our bed about 4 times in his life and it was becuase he was quite sick. We also never took him out of his room when he woke up at night, we fed him in there (in the expensive rocker we recv'd and figured we should use) and then put him back to bed. Now he goes to bed in his own room without any fussing at all. We lay him down after reading a book and then we walk out. Some nights he will lay in there for a quite a while telling stories to himself but never does he cry or get back out of bed! I think it is awesome that you stuck to the routine, believe me it will all pay off in the end. And get your snuggle time during the day then you won't feel bad about not cuddling her all night long!
Awesome, Betsy! Corey and I did the same thing. It's so nice being able to put him in bed (after reading a million books) and walk out of the room. He may not sleep all the way through the night yet, but it's pretty easy to get him to go back to sleep.
Hopefully I can see Isla soon...I haven't seen her since she started to crawl and stand up!
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