Sleeeeeeep

Let's talk about sleep, shall we?  Let me start off by saying that I struck the jack pot and my little dude has always been a good sleeper (knock on wood).  When we were trying to breast feed, I had to wake him up to feed him.  He started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. 

Well, last night, we finally attempted to let him sleep in his own crib in his room and it was a success!!  I put him down at like 8:30 and he slept until a little after 6.  And I think that was only b/c he heard me yelling at B about the toilet overflowing.  Or perhaps because it was almost 10 hours and that little nugget was starving.  I'll go with the former in hopes of longer stretches (this momma likes her sleep!).

So, I thought I'd pass along some tips of what worked for us and what I'm crediting one night's success to.  Yes, after only one 11 week old child and 1 night of good sleep, I am an expert. 

We started him off in the Rock N Play sleeper.  This thing is ah-mazing.  It's inclined and all snug, so the little nugget felt very secure in there.  We also used a wearable swaddle blanket.  We initially started out with a swaddle pod, but he always ended up getting his crazy arms out of it by the morning, so we figured he didn't like to be swaddled.  We actually went several weeks without anything and he did ok.  But, once we did the swaddle blanket, we were really in business.  At about 7 weeks, we decided to start transitioning him to his pack n play to begin the transition to his crib in his room.  This would allow him to get used to an open space while still being in our room.  Since he was sleeping through the night pretty good, we figured it was a good time.  We kind of stalled out at this point.  He got the chicken pox so we put him back in the rock n play so he'd be snuggly and comforted.  Then, he had some nights when we were figuring out the formula thing where he'd spit up in the middle of the night and make these god awful choking noises and scare us to death.  So, we put him back in the rock n play since it's at an incline.  He also would play this super fun game where starting at about 3 or 4 am, he'd spit out his paci and fuss and cry until I put it back in.  I was hoping he'd quit this before we put him upstairs.  The only reason for this is because his room is upstairs and ours is down and I'm far too lazy to walk up and down the stairs every 20 minutes to put the dang paci back in his mouth.

I am in a local mom's group on Facebook and a mom had asked for tips on how to transition her baby who is about the same age as H.  One tip I read was to start doing the bedtime routine in their room so they'd be used to it.  This made total sense.  He's rarely in his room.  In fact, the only time he ever was was when I was lotioning him up after his bath.  And, he hates that part.  So, the only association he had with that room was a negative one!  So, for a few nights, I'd do the routine in his room.  I'd put his jammies on in there, give him his bottle, read him a book, and rock him till he was sleepy but not asleep. Then we'd go downstairs to our room and put him in his pack n play.  I'd dim the lights (well, only turn on the lamp) and play some soft music (the Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star Pandora station.  Look into it.  Last night I heard a lullaby version of Hey Ya.  Amazing).  He seemed to really respond to this routine.



Clearly he liked it.  He was falling asleep and grinning like crazy


Then, this past weekend, I had a realization.  When we put him to bed in our room at like 8 or so, he'd sleep so soundly.  It was when we came in to sleep that he started to stir and play his super fun game.  So, I thought why not try to see how he'd do in a room by himself.  Maybe it was us that was making him sleep less soundly.  I also realized that while he'd been in his room he'd never even napped in his crib.  So, I started letting him nap in there so he'd get used to it.  Once I felt confident in this, I decided to give it a try last night.  Bam - SUCCESS!


Ignore the apprehensive face - he liked it!

I went into it hoping it'd work, but prepared for it to not. Hopefully he will keep it up! 

Some notes - I feel the swaddle thing is clutch here.  It keeps his super crazy arms contained.  And the giraffe crotch you notice behind him belongs to the gentle sounds giraffe which has an awesome white noise setting that he responds to really well.