Sleeping Like a Baby?! From birth to 5 months.

Eli started off sleeping in our room in the bassinet portion of our pack-n-play, and I would breastfeed him in an office chair that we had moved into the bedroom. After a few weeks of this though it was clear that babies are loud sleepers and mommies are super-reactive to every little thing their babies do. Translated -- Eli was keeping Mom up all night long and she was going crazy. So, at about 4 or 5 weeks old Elijah was introduced into his own habitat – his room and his crib. He seemed to do pretty well, though he liked being snuggled between the side and a rolled up receiving blanket.

Shortly after the move, however, it appeared that Elijah had mild reflux. Mild enough that the doctors didn’t want to give any medicine, but severe enough that after feeding him he would fall asleep and then wake up about 30 minutes later screaming. You could hear things coming up, then him re-swallowing whatever it was, and then he would start crying. So the nights weren’t going so well. During the day he did fine as he usually slept on my chest as I dozed on the couch, all propped up and surrounded by pillows so there was no danger of him falling. After about 2 weeks of the screaming at night routine, we put Eli to sleep for the first time on his tummy – absolutely scared stiff because of SIDs. Now though, when the junk came up Eli would just let it run out of his mouth and not re-swallow much of it and he stopped screaming (except when he was hungry!). We debated and prayed a lot and decided to just let him continue to sleep on his tummy. He didn’t need any blankets or anything so we weren’t as concerned about SIDs. Now, every night before I put him to bed I just pause before laying him down and pray that God protect him through the night and watch over Elijah for me.

Starting around 8 weeks or so we started putting Eli down in his crib for naps “drowsy but awake” as the books called it. It took about two weeks for him to get the hang of it but then he did. When it’s naptime and bedtime now you can bring him up to his crib and read books or cuddle for just a few minutes and then when you put him down he just sucks his thumb and falls asleep on his own. The drowsy-but-awake routine really helped with that, in my opinion. We read a book (well, okay, I read LOTS of books) that really made sense to us, especially since we didn’t want to do the whole cry-it-out bit when Elijah was older. It was called “Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep, Stay Asleep and Wake Up Happy.” I would highly recommend it, as well as “Happy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.”

At this point, though napping well on his own, Elijah was still waking up 2 or 3 times a night to eat (he would eat at 9 or 10 pm, then usually would skip the 1 am feeding but sometimes not, and would be up at 3 am and then 5:30 or so and then 7:30 am to start the day), which is normal for breast-fed babies, but rather exhausting for breastfeeding mommies. Pretty soon after we started Elijah on formula he started sleeping longer at night though, and dropped the 1 am and 3 am feedings. Within two weeks he wasn’t waking at all, until about 7 am. Happy happy mommy and daddy!

Now he is quite the prodigious sleeper. He goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps until 7. Lucky mom and dad! It helps that he found his thumb and likes to suck that to put himself back to sleep. The only time he’s changed his sleeping-the-night routine was when he was sick and congested (would wake up because he couldn’t breathe and suck his thumb at the same time) and the times he has fallen asleep for the night somewhere else and then we try and put him down in his crib for the night (doesn’t work, he keeps waking up over and over again all night long!). Most mornings we hear him waking up, get up and get dressed, etc. and by the time we’re done with that he’s in his crib jabbering away to himself. Such a content little boy!