Don't Hate Me Because I Am Beautiful

Today I am talking about having a kid that sleeps through the night.  I know, right?  You totally hate me right now and I get that. The thing is, I feel like I had so little to do with this success that if you should hate anyone, it should be Superman, but don't hate Superman because then I would have to kick your butt.

There is one main thing that I think my husband and I do have control over (that seems to make a difference).  His bedtime.  I read in one of the many, many books in my new mommy collection that finding the right bedtime can be the key to better sleep.  Too early and they either won't fall asleep or wake up a couple hours later like it was a nap.  Too late and they might struggle to fall asleep because they are over tired.  And in both situations?  They will almost always wake up TOO EARLY.  So sleep begets sleep...I am sure you have heard of this too, right?

For a long time 8pm was Superman's bed time (Note: His bed time is really the time that I begin nursing him. He tends to fall asleep while nursing and only briefly wakes up when I transfer him to his bed.).  It worked fabulously, he went down easily and woke up around 8am.  Then one day he started waking up earlier and earlier and earlier .  With the above information in hand, we began to move his bedtime earlier and earlier until he was nursing at 7pm and he began sleeping till 7:30am again (frankly anything after 7am is just fine, but 7:30 is great!).

Then recently he started waking up early again AND with the upcoming time change, I knew we couldn't realistically move his bedtime any earlier, so we tried moving it later.  Sure enough we seemed to hit a sweet spot at 7:30, but decided to try 7:45 just to see what would happen.  Wouldn't you know he woke up early again!  So back to 7:30 we went and it is working beautifully!  In fact, the last two days we have had to wake him up at 7:45 for fear that if we let him sleep much longer his nap schedule would get thrown off.

There were hiccups along the way, don't get me wrong.  There was the whole change thing that was miserable and other times, but usually that meant there was some other factor causing the problem.  In fact, despite feeling like those moments would never end when I was living them, they have taken up a very small portion of his total nights since he was born.  I guess I needed to be out of those moments to really understand how small and insignificant they were.

So if you are in the midst of dealing with sleep issues, know that it won't actually last forever.  You will get through this, they will sleep through the night at some point, and you will one day feel rested again.  I wish I could send you endless amounts of wine hugs until you get there.

TTFN,

Mommy C