What happened to her “good night sleeps”?

It was bound to happen eventually. Ashleigh had been such a good sleeper since we brought her home from the hospital. At her 6 month well check, I proudly told the doctor that she was sleeping from 9pm-5am, then she would eat, and she’d sleep until around 8am. It was great! Then it happened. Her “good night sleeps” just disappeared. She began waking up at all hours of the night. NOT.COOL. After a few nights of frequently interrupted sleep, we knew we had to do something. So I began doing some research about “sleep training.” 

So I read …

Then I read…

After hearing a couple glowing recommendations, I read …

FINALLY a book that made sense to me. Now up until this point, I had just let Ashleigh “let me know” when she was hungry or when she was tired. I hadn’t even tried to put her on any type of schedule because a) I had read that breastfed babies should be fed when they were hungry, and b) I have been lucky to stay home with her, so I’m always here and didn’t NEED to put her on a schedule. Well, I figured I’d give it a try. I started out by focusing on when she was hungry. After a few days, I started spacing out her feedings until she was eating every 4 hours.  She took to this schedule so easily. It has made life SOOO much easier for the both of us.  Then came the naps. Ashleigh has not really ever been a great napper, but I thought that was okay since she was sleeping so well at night. So we started trying to work on a nap schedule. Nothing worked. Ugh. She was so inconsistent, and she was never tired when I put her down.  So after a week of minimal naps and not sleeping at night, I was exhausted. And so was Ashleigh. She was the classic “overtired child.” So then I read…

I’m not a huge fan of how this book is written (to me, it doesn’t seem organized very well), but boy did the info make sense! Instead of trying to make Ashleigh go to bed at 9pm, the author said the child will sleep longer if she goes to bed earlier. So we upped Ashleigh’s bedtime to 7:30pm. Amazingly, it worked! The author then suggested that the child take 3 naps instead of 2. Once again, amazingly, it worked! So now I’m pleased to say that Ashleigh is once again on the right track. She is sleeping from around 7:30pm-4am, eats, then sleeps from 4am-7am. We’ll eventually get rid of that middle of the night feeding, but for now, I’m just glad she’s sleeping better! During the day, she takes a nap around 9:30, another longer nap around 2pm, and her third nap is around 4:30. Tada! A happy baby! (And a happy baby makes a happy momma and a happy daddy!)