I have been blessed with a very easy to handle baby. I know that I'm lucky because he doesn't cry often. When he does he has a reason(wet,hungry,tired). However I strongly believe part of my success has been about developing a routine.
I'm not saying schedule your baby around the clock. That's absurd and completely unrealistic. However some routine will greatly help you and your baby out. The first month I wouldn't suggest even trying. You are their b**** and they know it. The trick is to slowly take some of the control back without them noticing. With my son it was bedtime.
I am nursing and I was exhausted. He would sleep 3-4hrs at a time from midnight-noon. This meant zero time for my husband much less myself.
Bedtime was a little hard establish so young, but I started making our bed time routine start at 7pm. We would bath if it was bath night, change him, lotion him, get him in a sleeper and start feeding him.
I make sure to feed min 15 min if he falls asleep I'll burp him and switch sides trying to get a min 30mim feed in. Once he falls asleep the second time id put him in his crib and stay in the room until he slept.
I have a dimmer light in his room so i wont kill myself when hes waking up or blinding him in the middle of the night. This helped so much! No matter how much he cried or fussed the light never turned up and we never left the room so he learned that when the lights are dark that means its sleep time. It worked for us. It took a while though. I remember one day during the first two weeks he was up until 10pm! Gah I was soooooooo tired but I didn't give in and now every night he has the same bed time.
Trust me I know how hard this can be to maintain but so important. If I'm out visiting I need to leave by 6pm to make sure he's home in time and not sleeping in the car to come home and immediately start bed time. The twice I messed with the routine not getting home and starting bedtime until 8-830 was enough to not do it again. It took DAYS to get him back on schedule. . The second time it took almost a week!
The benefits FAR outweigh the hassles . First off bedtimes give you time for yourself! You can read or just relax or spend some quality time with your partner :). It also gives you more stability with your day. Same bed time leads to approximate same time getting up! I get more sleep, my son gets more sleep and I feel less stresses during the day.
You can plan to do things without being worried of you'll still be sleeping. My son also started sleeping longer. Part of that was age but part of it I feel was because he knew it was bed time. :)
Another benefit I find is I will be going back to work for a bit after my year of maternity is up. Having an early bedtime now means when the time comes I won't have to change his routine because he is already on the one that will need to continue for once we have to get up for daycare and work.
A few of my mommy friends tried it after hearing about how successful it was for us and can't believe they didn't do it sooner.
All babies/parents routines and needs are different so find what works for you but I highly recommend trying a set bedtime. :)
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