Sleep Training

Ever since Ava was just a couple weeks old, I've been obsessed with her sleep. I wasn't concerned about getting her to sleep through the night. I had no expectations as far as that was concerned since I'd heard that breastfed babies do not sleep through the night (by the way, NOT true in Ava's case). The general consensus is that a stretch of 5-6 hours is considered sleeping through the night. If that's the case, then Ava was already sleeping through the night by 6 weeks.

So why the obsession? I did not know this until later but babies at about two and three weeks old, with an immature nervous system, are in a constant state of nervous arousal - meaning, naps can be nonexistent or sporadic because of the nervous energy. Besides that, the area in their brains that regulate naps is yet undeveloped. When Ava was at that age, I was going crazy trying to get her to nap because I could see that she was fussing from fatigue. I saw the effect that being over-fatigued had on Ava so I went on a mission to get Ava on a nap schedule. I did tons of research and read a book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weissbluth who is a pediatrician (for 30 years) and has done numerous studies on infant sleep. He is considered one of the experts on infant sleep.

By 4 weeks, Ava was doing better with her naps - still irregular and short but better. I learned to recognize her drowsy cues, to anticipate them, and to help her to sleep. The better she napped during the day, the better she slept at night. As Weissbluth said, sleep begets more sleep. It's neat to see babies slowly organize themselves and develop their own schedule. I didn't have to put Ava on a schedule - she did it herself.

Now at 3 months, she takes regular naps and feeds after waking up. Her naps are also becoming longer and consistent in length. She takes about 4 naps that that last on average 45 minutes (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer - as long as 2 hours at times) at about the same time everyday and stays awake only 2 hours at a time. As far as her sleeping at night, she will go about 7 or 8 hours as long as she's had all her naps during the day. She will generally wake up about 4 or 5 am for a feeding and go straight back down until about 7 or 8 am. I emphasize the word generally here. My favorite part of the day is coming to her crib in the morning and receiving a wide, toothless, gummy grin so big that her eyes almost squeeze shut.

Now, my goal is get her to go to sleep on her own, without having one of us to bounce her or rock her. I don't think she's completely dependent on us soothing her to sleep yet. I admit I do love rocking her to sleep but I know eventually it'll be detrimental to her. If she becomes dependent on rocking, how will she learn to soothe herself back to sleep during the night? I don't want her calling out or later on, coming to our bed. She can fall asleep on her own for naps from time to time but other times, she needs help. I have in the past been able to successfully lay her down for a nap and at bedtime without bouncing or rocking and with minimal fussing. Ever since we came back from vacation in June, I have not been successful at all in laying her down for a nap.

So, here's the step by step process that bring us to that goal. I've been working on keeping her on a consistent sleep schedule so her body can predictably expect sleep. Next, we'll start a bedtime routine that will eventually help her to wind down and signal her brain that sleep is coming. Once we've established the routine and practiced it for a week or two (and she automatically gets sleepy after a routine), we'll start training her to fall asleep on her own. This is the part I dread. It might require some fussing and crying which is hard for me to tolerate - not because it gets on my nerves but because I'm too tenderhearted. I know that she is capable and since she is such an easy baby, she'll adapt pretty quick to falling asleep on her own.

I realize this is probably a boring post for most of you but I needed to write this down in order to process my thoughts. Ava's sleep is the biggest thing for me because not only is sleep important to her well-being and health but also mine because if baby doesn't sleep well, baby gets crabby and mommy doesn't have a good day.

Good day, y'all.