One of the biggest, if not the biggest accomplishments my baby made was: sleep through the night, we couldn’t believe it the first morning and I spent all night checking if she was still breathing. Sadly, it didn't last. Don't get your hopes up. I'm not going to give you a magical solution here. But I will share what we've done, and what I think about our little sleep training endeavors.
Victoria's first 6 months were a little hectic. I was worried we had ruined her sleeping forever. Her first half year was full of packing, unpacking, moving, airplane rides and not sleeping in the same room for more than 3 months (because we didn't even have a permanent home). This is basically how it played out: Victoria was born in February, we started to sell our furniture in April, we were almost done my end of May. We moved out of our then empty apartment by June (when she wasn't even 4 months old). We traveled to Lima for about two months. In Lima, we spent around a month at my in laws, and a month at my parents house. Then, we went to Mexico for about a week, and then finally, came to our current home in August just when she turned 6 months old. However, our home was empty, so we had to buy furniture and everything to get settled. Then in December we get notified we have to move out of our recently furnished apartment for a month! Basically my child has been living like a nomad for most of her first year.
First things first. I decided it wasn't even worth going through the trouble of “sleep training” her if we were going to be moving from one place to another like crazy. If I've learned anything, is that babies seem to recognize their home and routines very early on. For Victoria, her home was in Ann Arbor and her sleep place was in her bassinet next to my bed. When we went to Peru, she definitely didn't feel at home and it was insane how awful she was sleeping. Waking up every hour, fuzzy, taking the shortest naps in the world. She was still sleeping in a crib next to our bed, but everything about the environment was different. By the time I got to my parents house I opted to co-sleep in my bed #sorrynotsorry, because I was about to lose my mind. I shouldn't even call it real sleeping, because I was so traumatized I was going to suffocate my baby with the blanket or covers that I practically slept with one eye open. Hubs was already in Seattle and it was me vs. baby at night. Obviously, baby won #firstbattlelost (first of many). However, even that didn't guarantee her sleeping all night, well, because it's not what babies do, but it did make my life easier. Having her at reach, nursing her back to sleep super fast. Plane rides, delays and too much vacay time ended up in her getting sick. So by the time we were finally home, I had a baby with a horrible cold (her first) and an empty apartment. We decided that at 6 months we were ready for her to sleep in her own room. Obviously, with a monitor all night. We felt we needed our room back.
Luckily, grandmothers were on call for this whole move. They traveled with me (yes, both of them) and the baby and helped us settle in. Their help: invaluable, I couldn't have done it without them. But for every awesome perk, there is also a logic consequence. Because I had some amazing help, I really didn't feel the urge to fully do the sleep training at all. At the end of the day, Victoria and I could have a terrible night, and then I could hand over the baby and go back to sleep for a couple of hours during the day. By the time all the parade of family members and friends came and left, it was already November. That was when it hit me, like a bulldozer on an ice-rink full speed towards me. Me, myself and I had to deal with the “awful” sleeping patterns, because hubby of mine, woke up in the morning and off he went to the grownup refugee I call "werk". Werkman, had to work, so I had to let him sleep, right? Is that what all wonderful stay-at-home-moms do? Anyway, different discussion there. First night: terrible, as usual. First day after first night alone: I felt like the living dead. Second night: appalling, as usual. Second day: unbearable. Right then and there came the moment when it really hit me: We (I) have to do something about this.
Side-note: not to say I didn't already have a few things going on in my favor. You should know, I am a complete nerd and freak-of-nature planner. When I was pregnant I not only read "On Becoming Baby Wise", but I highlighted, summarized and created a personalized weekly schedules for my baby until she was 1 year old. That was me thinking that by planning it all out on a paper, printing it and hanging on a cute clip board on the wall, everything was going to be A -Okay, and my baby was going to be the perfect sleeper, because I was all prepared. Errrr! Didn't quite work out that way as you already know from my experience above. It’s just not how it works, I was blinded by my over-planning enthusiasm. However, I had become really good at the Eat-Play-Feed-Sleep pattern and I made sure my baby was falling asleep without nursing or directly after bottle feeding her...Until, I wasn't so great at that anymore, somehow I managed to really "screw all that up" through out the course of her life #greatjobparenting. Nevertheless, we did have one thing that has stuck with us until now though: our bedtime routine.
Our bedtime routine
Starts with dinner around 5:30 pm. She eats, and sometimes it takes forever, because she doesn't like the food, or because she decides to throw everything on the floor, or spit, or gag, or play the hunger games. Who knows, but at around 6:00 pm Alexa gently reminds us, twice: "This is your reminder: Victoria's bath time". And boy, if Alexa says it, well it's what we have to do. She takes a bath. I wash her hair everyday, because she has plenty and she sweats a lot during the day. Then I dry her, put lotion on her like crazy (eczema prone baby) and this doubles up like a little spa-massage session. Diapers, pjs, snuggles, if she has time, she can play with daddy until 6:50ish or 7:00pm (if daddy is home). We say goodnight and then we go to her room. We put toys away quickly and together we turn off all the lights and turn on her reading lamp. At 7:00 the Hatch baby lamp automatically turns on the night time sleep white noise I have programmed everyday (this thing is a lifesaver, I'll do a video on it). So the white noise is on, while we sit on the rocking chair together to read a book. We have a little basket next to the rocking chair with our goodnight books. Previously I would nurse her, and then read the books. However that wasn’t really working out for me, because she got sleepy and then she woke up super excited about the books. So now, we read and then have milk. If I read a book in Spanish, we’ll also read one in English. Depends on how sleepy she is, we’ll read 2 or 3. Then, she drinks her las milk of the day. Again, something has changed recently. Before she would have milk from a bottle (formula) and then nurse. However, now she will NOT by any means accept the formula. I think because she eats much more during the day, she doesn’t have that much room for all that milk so she’ll only nurse. I don't know. This will probably backfire when we stop the nursing, eventually. But this is what I can handle right now. She gets sleepy, but I try not to let her fall completely asleep. After she finishes, I try to wipe her teeth with a piece of cloth. Be very aware of the word try, I try and repeatedly fail. Oh well. I sing her 2 songs while holding her and rocking her, then lay her on her crib, and hand her her pacifier. She takes the pacifier, puts it in her mouth and turns over on her belly. I’ll say: goodnight, I love you and walk out. Sometimes I'll skip the talk and thank God she's sleeping and quietly, extremely quietly in what I call cautious panther movement, head out and make sure I don't trip or make any sound, .
Until three days ago, this was enough. She would sometimes cry for 1 minute or 2 but then self sooth and fall asleep and not wake up until 6:00 - 7:00 am. Well not anymore, I blame her teeth, the crawling and sitting up and well, her growing and developing brain. When I started writing this post two days (4 days) ago she had gone bananas and is waking up in the middle of the night and doesn’t want to go back to sleep. Yesterday, it took me almost 2 hours to put her back to sleep, even tried nursing her back to sleep. Nothing worked. Terrible! Now I am nursing her to sleep every night and every nap, because she is having such a hard time sleeping lately. If this works, so be it. She probably needs more mommy time and the nursing soothes her more than anything else. Again, not even feeling guilty about this anymore. I have outgrown guilt-trip for comforting my baby.
Our "sleep training" technique and my thoughts
Now to explain how we did the actual “sleep training” a couple of months ago, that worked like a charm (for a short while). We did our routine, and then when she woke up at around 12 and started crying. I would go to her room, open the door and say: Victoria, baby you have to go back to sleep, I love you very much, you can do this”. That’s it? Yes, but no. This caused her to flip out and scream like crazy! But I would wait, next to the kitchen clock, 5 minutes. Then go back in, do the same thing and leave. Then the crazy screams would get even worst. I was crying too, and wanted to go back in and hold her. I didn’t. I waited 10 minutes now. Repeat. Horrible screams. 15 minutes. Crying again, she would whine and then regain strength to bring the walls down! Go back in, wait 20 minutes. More crying. Go back in. Leave, wait 30 min. By this time it’s been and hour and a half of this. But I decide I’ve gone far too far to give up. I wait and she eventually falls asleep at 1:45. She woke up again around 4. I did the same thing but this time I only had to go in 2 times. Next night. Woke up at midnight again and I repeated the process. This time by 12:35 she was already asleep. Didn’t wake up again until 6:30. Third night: didn’t wake up, slept through. Woke up at 6:30. I'm glad it was this fast, because I couldn't have survived this longer.
I remember asking my my pediatrician in our 6 month appointment about Victoria finally sleeping in her own room and what should I do to improve her sleep patterns. She said, very confidently, I can let my baby "cry-it-out" for up to an hour, she would be fine. Sounded like way, way, way, way too much for me to hear her cry and do nothing about it. The only reason I could cope with that 30 min stretch was because I turned off the sound of the baby monitor and closed my door, put a pillow over my ears and cried myself. It was that horrible.
Ok. So in retrospective: it did work. Sort of, but only for a while. Am I willing to do this whole procedure again and again? To be honest... I don't think so. I figure, there is a reason my baby is crying even though I can clearly see she can sleep by herself, but she doesn't really want to. She wants to be held, she wants to be soothed. She won't want to be with me for a lot of time as she grows older. We decided she was going to sleep in her own room at 6 months and I think that was already a big step. Self-soothing is something I want her to learn eventually, but I think I'm willing to wait it out longer to see how it plays out. Of course, this is me speaking from the perspective that my sister-in-law has been with us for the past month and a half, so she's been great help and I can squeeze a quick snooze her and there. She's leaving tomorrow, so I don't know if two days from now the sleep deprived me is going to go back on survival mode and say: welcome back sleep training. I don't know. But just thinking about the torturous procedure gives me the chills.
I’ve been reading about sleep training dilemma, since I feel I'm going to have to make a decision again, soon. Some people say a baby will eventually learn how to sleep on their own (of course, but when? ) and people that sleep train their baby will have to go through the process several times, making this process so terrifying. I was reading an article in Psychology Today that was pretty harsh but straight forward. Basically, it states you should never sleep train your baby, because they are not designed that way, that crying it out scars them for life, and that if you have to wake up 20 times you should; and if you don't want to do that then maybe you should've thought twice about having a child, ouch! I recall it saying something like, human families are designed to have a support system from their extended family, such as grandparents and that that is how one can cope with all the demands of a baby.
While all of this is very interesting and I agree that the best way to raise your child is with attention, love and and responsiveness. I do find it very difficult to do this at night when you are far away from your support system and you have to do the day raising all by yourself. If I can't function because I'm sleep-deprived, how am I supposed to be a good parent? It takes a village, but here I am flying solo. Of course, we want the best for our child, and I would walk through hell and back for her, but currently this is not a reality for many, if not most of, the people here in this world. Where quitting your job, packing your things and moving back with your parents is not an option. Yet alone, what this means for families that have two working parents. I feel so grateful and lucky that basically throughout most Victoria's first year I have been alone only for one month and a half. It took me a very short time to adopt a posture of: I need some sleep training here! So, I don't judge parents who do this at all, I was there. Right now, It doesn't feel like the right approach for me, or what I want for my daughter. I can speak now from a much calmer perspective and I've been able to really dig in and read much more about this issue. Again, this was our way of sleep training, there are so many other alternatives out there. But if it involves re-doing everything every month or so, and having you baby cry I don't think I can handle it.
Now, apparently there is research that backs up both sides. However, the research is not the best, because you can't experiment on real babies, of course. Most of the "evidence" is not truly reliable and in many studies on Sleep-Training, have research flaws which affect the reliability, validity and integrity of such studies. I think a lot of people might have jumped to conclusions that this method was a great way to solve your problems. Far from the truth. From a personal stand point, seeing how I have been through a "sleep training" situation I can only recommend/point out the following:
My conclusions
1. Raising a baby is HARD, and night time is TOUGH for parents, especially for moms. So, if you can find help from family members or even friends to look after your baby while you sleep, please take it. Don't feel guilty, you need it, you deserve it.
2. Babies will change, a cold, new teeth, gas, growing, learning new things or constant brain development can affect how she/he sleeps. Just because your baby slept all through the night once or even for a month, doesn't mean it's going to last forever. There will be good days and bad days. Your baby won't need you forever though, remember that.
3. The best thing you can probably do is set up a nice routine, make it predictable so your baby can follow the cues about what's going to happen next. If your life is chaos, your baby's day will probably be chaotic too and that will impact the night.
4. Baby's need to nap during the day. If that involves you nursing, rocking, or holding your baby, it's something that needs to be done. Teach your baby to nap, however works out best for you, but don't skip naps thinking they're going to be more tired at night.
5. Keep yourself healthy. A baby needs a healthy mother/father with enough energy to provide love, attention, food, and meet all of baby's demands. Do what works for you, but don't think there is a magical solution to night time sleeping. Sorry, there isn't. If people swear by their sleep training method, I think they're probably lying. Don't be fooled, no baby was sleep trained once and then never woke up again in the middle of the night.
6. You probably shouldn't even consider sleep training any baby before 6 months of age. There are so many developmental windows that could be affected by high cortisol levels, that get released when babies are in distress. Basically wait for as much as you humanly can in order to 'train' your baby. If you must, don't choose a method that involves too much crying. If you find one, let me know!
Found those Psychology Today articles I mentioned:
If you have any other additional information or questions about any part of our routine, let me know. Happy to help 🙂
Thanks for reading!
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