I mentioned a few days ago that I've been having trouble with Carolyn and her sleep schedule, so yesterday I did grown-up version of reading the cliffsnotes of some baby sleep books; otherwise known as reading the amazon reviews. This works especially well with parenting books because the reviewers inevitably mention the key techniques discussed in the books. It's not perfect, but for a busy mom, it's about as close to perfect as you get.
As I was reading the reviews of one particular book that emphasized schedules, it felt like deja vu.
Peter was a tough baby, and my first baby, so I learned a whoooole buncha stuff with him, and scheduling was a big game changer for us. I fed him on a strict schedule, and adhered to sleep schedules as religiously as I could. I watched the clock closely, monitored his "wakeful periods", always put him down at the right times, yada yada.
Then all of the sudden I had two babies (Peter was only 15 months when Carolyn was born, so yes, two babies), and Carolyn was so easy, and napped constantly, and didn't like to party in the middle of the night, so I went with it and now I'm standing here wondering how I got to this place where the 7.5 month old is running the show.
I had tried to get Carolyn on a feeding schedule a couple of times when she was two or three months old, and because she's always been a light eater, it seemed impossible to get her to eat the full feed she would need in order to stretch her through a nice schedule (I like a three hour feeding schedule). With the two littles, it's not like I leave the house a ton, so it wasn't very inconvenient to just feed her on demand (her demands had seemed so reasonable! ...that's how they get you).
Anyway, long story short, today was day one of feed schedule! Well, the second half of today was.
The tricky part about a feed schedule is that if you fed the baby an hour ago, and now it's nap time, you can't cheat and nurse the baby to sleep (otherwise known as what I have been doing).
Enter: The Nap Maker (Hint: This is actually called an Ergo.)
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| Phase 1 |
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| Phase 2 |
Phase 3: Not shown, but baby gets put into the crib asleep.
I used to use the Ergo with Peter for almost all of his naps until he was sleep trained well enough to set him down in his crib awake, and I've neglected to use it much with Carolyn because sitting in a rocking chair nursing is much easier than walking around with 20 lbs strapped on the front of you for 20 minutes.
But, walking around with the Ergo is much easier than waking up four times a night for months. So we're using the Ergo again.
I also whipped up a schedule in Excel during nap time today, because it's harder for me to pay attention to the timing of everything with a toddler running around too.
My hope is that one, I can use this when my mom-brain is on the fritz; and two, that it will help me get a better visual of her napping patterns during the day. Right now I have a general idea, but I'm using the term 'general' loosely.
Last night I also started to cut off her night feeds a little short each time. She's gotten to the point where she's getting more of her calories at night than during the day, so the goal is to lessen the night calories bit by bit, and hope that helps her to feed better during the day. I'm also going to be more diligent about working in some solids. Right now the technique has been, "hm, I wonder if she wants a bite of this", whenever I think of it. Introducing solids has been more mess than it's worth up to this stage of the game.
So that's where we at. Essentially I'm re-instituting everything that I did with Peter, but about 4 months later because this baby is so dang easy that I thought maybe she would just teach herself how to do everything. Turns out that I was still teaching her all along and now she thinks that she needs to nurse 15 times a day. Whoops.
Labels: Motherhood
