For some reason–probably because I am so tired yet have trouble sleeping lately!–I’ve been thinking a lot about baby sleep and sleep training. Different opinions are all over Instagram, other social media and in real life chats.
My First Experience with Baby Sleep
My experience with “sleep training” little E did not really happen. At around ten weeks old, he started shrieking as I rocked him to sleep. First it was a few seconds, then a couple minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. It went on for two weeks straight until one afternoon, I couldn’t deal with it calmly anymore.
I put him in his crib for a moment to step outside the room and take a breath. When I came back not two minutes later? He was fast asleep. He had been trying to tell me that he didn’t want to be rocked to sleep anymore!
He put himself to sleep for a few weeks before his four-month sleep regression. Then it was back to rocking him to sleep at night and wearing him in the baby carrier for naps. But after the regression finished, he went back to wanting to put himself to sleep. The only other time he’s wanted rocking is when he got his first (and only, so far) cold around six months old.
He makes it obvious when he wants to drop a nap, too. He simply wouldn’t fall asleep for any of his naps for a week or two until I switched his schedule. He’s always been ahead on dropping naps. I think he’ll stop napping before two (similar to his mama 😛 Sorry, Mom!).
But beyond the sleep regression, being sick and needing to drop a nap, he has put himself to sleep from only two and a half months old. I don’t think it’s common, but I never “had” to sleep train. (Not that I’d want to–I would love to cuddle him to sleep in our bed, but he’d hate it. He needs his own space, white noise, and blackout curtains to sleep. I think trying to co-sleep would be very upsetting to him.)
Now he reliably goes to bed between 8 and 8:30pm, sleeps until 7am, and takes one two-hour nap in the middle of the day.
Plans for Baby #2 and Sleep Training
I don’t think we’ll have the same experience again. And what are the plans if this baby is more normal in terms of sleep?
I don’t love the idea of “crying it out”. I think little E is an independent toddler–never scared to wander off and investigate things outside or at class–because he knows that we’re always there for him when he needs comforting. Allowing a baby to be age-appropriately dependent fosters independence. If anything I wish he were a little more dependent and cuddly, but it is just not his personality.
Co-sleeping makes me nervous because we were so easily able to follow safe sleep guidelines with little E. But I think I would prefer safe co-sleeping–i.e. on the floor, keeping covers low, without Eric who sleeps like an absolute log–to letting baby cry it out, especially to foster a good nursing routine and relationship. Or perhaps having a co-sleeper beside the bed.
I nursed little E for a few months, but his sleeping long stretches early on made it impossible for me to keep up a good supply without waking up to pump, which I hated. This time my reach goal is making it to a year!
Overall…
I also know that my thoughts on sleep training, co-sleeping, nursing etc. can completely change at any time after the baby is here 🙂 It really depends on the situation and I don’t judge anyone who thinks differently than me (although I do think a baby should be 4-5 months to officially sleep train, like most experts say).
If you are pregnant or have a baby, what are your thoughts on baby sleep and sleep training?