Sleep Baby Sleep

If someone told me in those first couple weeks after Cooper was born that he'd someday sleep through the night I'd have told them they were crazy... & then asked if they could babysit for a hour while I caught a snooze after being up all night.

We learned during those first days home from the hospital that baby wakes up & goes from zero to wailing in less than two minutes. Which led to difficult/painful latching & had us staying up for hours at a time with a newborn that couldn't settle down.  

So we decided to beat Coops to the punch, & I began setting my phone alarm to go off just before he was due to feed.

When we started this we didn't realize we were doing the "wake to sleep" method, it just seemed like the best option to get a calm baby & better feeding.

How it works is this, Coops would wake up every couple hours on the dot. I'd set my alarm for about 15 minutes before that time & gently wake him with rubs on his back until he was ready to eat. Then we would follow feeding with the usual changing, swaddling & back into THIS rocker (which in itself is a lifesaver).

The idea is to interupt baby's sleep pattern by waking him just before he's ready to be awake. Doing this should help baby no longer wake at the specific time, which worked in our case. I gradually added to the alarm times, 15 minutes here or a half hour there, until we reached our first full night of sleep around 7 weeks.

Those first two nights of sleep I fell out of bed & landed on my face around 4am, thinking something had gone horribly wrong. That I hadn't heard the cries that had surely happened. But there was baby sleeping soundly & leaving me in awe & oh so very grateful for the extra shut eye.

Even better than the full night of sleep was that when we didn't make it all night the awake time gradually went down to a solid 25 minutes. Baby & I became very in tune with each other- 10 minutes on each breast, quick changing & a couple minutes of rocking before back into the (now) crib.

Now the rocking is more for me than Cooper.  We're fortunate in having a baby that will settle well in his crib during the night & who doesn't need craddling like he used to.  I know that with him growing so fast these occasional night feedings won't last forever & I've started treasuring the nocturnal moments we have left together.

I'd love to hear from you! What was your go to ritual for bedtime with a newborn? And are siblings similar when it comes to nighttime habits?