My husband gave me a huge compliment the other day. Now that we are trying to get a bit more serious about naps, we were talking about how good our babies are at sleeping during the night. I mentioned that how lucky we were to have babies that just automatically slept really well. He looked at me and said that I was the reason why our babies slept so well, I was sleep training them from the beginning.
Hmmm, never really thought about that. I just knew from the beginning, that I needed to establish routines that I could manage alone, since I knew the would come a time, where all my wonderful helpers would leave. So, I was probably a bit annoying in the beginning...bitchy some might say...but I have to admit that these "rules" were established out of fear. I was terrified to be alone with my babies. I was that person, who did not want to leave the hospital... Anyway, these were the "rules":
- babies will not fall asleep on people (so hard to do, but how could I possibly have two babies sleeping on me)
- babies will sleep in their crib, and only in swings or bouncers if necessary
- babies will go to bed while awake and learn to fall asleep on their own, but we'll be there to comfort them as needed
- babies sleep - eat - play, so they don't rely on food to get them to sleep
- we do our bedtime bath routine regardless of how tired we might be
- we ignore babies when they are stirring at night. Check on them, are they okay? But some of the gruntings are fine to ignore.
- babies will be fed every 3 hours or as close to it, to encourage stomach emptying and ensure a good feed.
Man, do I sound like a horrible mother or what???
Looking back on this, I guess I did sleep train without a conscious effort. And many of these rules were broken time and time again. Hey, survival is what it is all about in the beginning. But I also believe that I have the best babies in the world. They now sleep from 7-7:30pm until 6-7am and only wake to feed once a night (a quick 10 min feed). My babies are amazing!!
