So how did we get to this point? Honestly most of what we've learnt has been by accident. Allow me to share with you a little of our journey:
Step 1: Learning the difference between night and day
This seemed like a good place to start - a pretty foundational lesson. So daytime feeds involve talking and daylight and being surrounded by people. After 6pm feeds are done in the dark, talking is done in a whisper and he only has a nappy change if we hear him poo or he has a wet patch from a leaky nappy. He gets put straight to bed after eating without the usual daytime play first. He seems to have got the hang of it pretty quickly and is more active in the day and mellow at night.
Step 2:Self soothing
In the early days all he did was eat and sleep so I used to feed him to sleep, sit really still for a bit until he reached deep sleep and then put him in his crib asleep. As he got older, more alert and more playful this stopped working. When I put him in bed he would wake, I'd refeed him, wait for him to sleep again, put him down, he would wake again etc etc. To hear how we broke that cycle check out my Previous post.
Once he had the hang of settling himself back to sleep after waking it was time to try putting him in bed still awake. He quickly got the hang of it and now our nights have been transformed. Instead of hours spent awake trying to settle him I just put him in bed straight after feeding and he fidgets, snorts and gurgles until he falls asleep about 10 mins later. Amazing!!
Step 3: Setting a routine
When we went on the church weekend away to Newquay the other week Josiah was an angel child - slept really well at night, had good naps in the day, was a joy to be around when awake and cried very little. When we got home again he was a nightmare for the first few days! So we sat down and tried to work out what we did right on holiday that we were doing so wrong since getting home. The short answer was routine - on holiday the day had structure as there were activities planned all day but when we got home that structure was gone again.
On holiday we'd feed him at 7am, change him and settle him in his buggy for a nap and then we'd head down to breakfast. After breakfast we'd feed him again, play with him a bit and then settle him for another nap in the buggy and drop him off at creche while we went to the morning talk. During the coffee break he'd wake for a feed and then we took him in the pool before settling him for another nap while we had lunch. After lunch I'd give him another feed before taking him out in the baby carrier while we went to the beach during which time he fell asleep. Without realising it we were following Tracey Hogg's E.A.S.Y method.
After the beach everyone was heading to the pool and we wanted to take Josiah in too. But he was hungry cos he'd just woken up so I did what I considered to be 'cheating' and fed him just enough to quiet him down. After a swim I gave him a full feed and then we put him down to bed. He then slept through the whole of dinner and the evening entertainment. The other day I was reading Gina Ford's recommendations for bedtime routine and realised my 'cheating' and feeding Josiah either side of his time in the pool actually matched her suggested bedtime routine. She advocates feeding at 5pm followed by bathtime and social time, another feed at 6.15pm and then settled to sleep at 7pm. We tried it for the first time last night and it worked wonders - no 2/3hour fight to get him to sleep!
Another thing I did while on holiday was when Josiah slept all evening and it got near to the time I wanted sleep I started thinking 'he's not gonna sleep much longer - if I go to bed now he's likely to wake me in half hour or so. Maybe I'll just wake him and feed him now.' So that's what I did - I woke him at 10pm to get his feed out of the way before I went to bed instead of being woken at 11/11.30pm. Again I felt that by doing this I was somehow cheating. Then last night I read about dream feeding - basically giving a top up feed around 10/11pm while baby is still asleep. We tried it last night and it was quite amusing trying to shove a boob in his mouth in the dark while his mouth is clamped shut. We did manage it in the end though and the result was he only woke at 2am and 6am so not bad going.
Well it's nearly 5pm so time to go get little man for his feed and bathtime - he's stirring from his nap right on cue. Here's hoping tonight goes as well as last night!
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