"How's He Sleeping?": Why You Should Stop Asking That Question & Our Gentle Sleep Experience

There are a lot of "stereotypical" questions that get asked when you become a parent. It's like there's an unwritten list of things to ask new parents upon seeing their little one, and at the top of that list is usually "How do they sleep?"

This is frustrating for a few reasons. Firstly, a lot of new parents don't expect their newborns or young babes to sleep through the night or to sleep well at all for that matter. So when we begin bombarding them with questions about sleep habits, routines and the overall soundness of their sleep it can really make them doubt something that shouldn't be doubted in the first place. Secondly, these questions are frustrating to new parents because they're usually followed by advice or comparisons to babies that sleep "better" without taking into consideration that A. All babies are different and B. Situations in the home are different. 

When Thatcher was first born I woke him up every two hours on the dot to eat. This was very early in our breastfeeding relationship and I wasn't feeding on demand during the nights yet. I wanted my milk established, even if it meant giving up a few night time hours. After we stopped doing this a month or two in he would give us good five hour stretches--it was great! Then we hit four months. He was cluster feeding more and more and ended up in bed with us a lot of nights. We were exhausted. From that point out he woke every couple of hours to feed barring a couple nights here and there where he'd give us a good stretch. It made me very self conscious when people would ask how he was sleeping because I didn't feel like we had a problem. Weren't babies supposed to feed a lot at night? Wasn't this pretty normal? 

It's pretty obvious that we are anti CIO (Cry It Out method of sleep training made popular by Dr. Ferber). To me personally there is nothing that a newborn or baby under 12 months really learns from being left alone at night to "self soothe" and work things out on his own. I've always firmly believed that I was a parent 24 hours a day and not just during the daytime. I also believe that all babies and kids are different (they're people, I think we sometimes forget this!) and that they hit milestones at different times. Sleep is a milestone. It's something that baby will do when they're developmentally ready. Just like I wouldn't force Thatcher to crawl or try solids before he was ready I wouldn't expect him to sleep through the night any sooner than he was ready either. So, we continued our routine of nursing to sleep, night waking to nurse often and having no tears nights. (Again, this is us personally..no judgement if you've done CIO, every baby is different!)

When Thatcher turned one I began to notice that he was telling me he was ready for better sleep and a different routine. Jeff and I were exhausted too, and wanted our bed back for more than a few hours a night. Thatcher was becoming increasingly grumpy during the days and at night when we'd usually nurse until he drifted off to sleep he began to eat then push me away before falling asleep in my arms. What I took away from these cues is that he wasn't getting enough rest at night and that he didn't really care to be nursed to sleep anymore. It seemed like when he woke at night he really wanted to get back to sleep on his own, but grudgingly took the breast for a few minutes when he couldn't do it on his own. 

We had to do something. I felt awful that I let him go so long getting poor sleep and felt determined to do a better job for him. 

Like any 21st century mom I scoured the internet for ways to help him get to sleep and stay asleep better. 

I was overwhelmed with the amount of CIO posts and Ferber posts that I couldn't even finish my search. I knew there had to be a gentler way to approach sleep that still helped him transition. I also started to realize that there are two types of babies; those who benefit from crying for a minute or two and fall asleep, and those who got more worked up from crying and became more awake. Guess which one Thatcher was! 

This was our plan: 

1. No night nursing unless he's gone 5-6 hours before waking up. At 12 months I noticed that the majority of the time he nursed at night it wasn't hunger nursing. He could comfortably go this amount of time without nursing, especially since he nursed on demand all day. I hoped this would help him learn that he needed to sleep a little longer before getting milk. 
2. Alternate comforting. I realized to my horror that I had never ever given Thatcher the chance to be soothed in ANY other way besides nursing. Of course that's what he needed at night. He'd never gotten used to being rocked to sleep, or sang to sleep, or anything besides nursing. It's just so much faster and easier! Until it becomes a habit five times a night. I decided to begin by nursing him until he was drowsy. As soon as his eyes would shut I would unlatch him and rock him in my arms. After a moment or two of rocking (usually however long it took for him to stop crying because he'd been unlatched) I would lay him in his crib. This is when the HUGE freakout would start. He'd never been laid down awake, ever. I would lean over and shush him while i put a hand on his back or belly or rubbed his leg. If he really kept freaking out then I would pick him up and start over at the rocking.

The first few nights were rough. Really, really rough. But after a week, he didn't fight it anymore. I also introduced a flat pillow, which I think helped a lot. Soon, he would nurse until he was drowsy and I didn't have to rock him in my arms. I could just lay him in bed, shush him for a minute or two and he'd curl up to his pillow and drift off. For the first time in his life I saw him stare at the ceiling and slowly close his eyes to sleep, and it was precious!
In two week's time we went from taking an hour and a half to two hours to put him to sleep then sneaking tip-toed out of the room to twenty minutes on a bad night. We went from waking every couple of hours to waking every 5-8. And even when he did have a bad night and wake before our 5-6 hour timeframe I'd pick him up, put him back in bed and shush him back to sleep in a matter of minutes instead of spending an hour a couple times a night in his room! It was heaven!

It's now been almost 3 months of doing this method. He has his rough nights when he's sick, teething or travelling but he's for the most part consistently giving us six to eight hour stretches of sleep with only one wake up at the most. Lately he's been teething which means sleeping six hours, waking up to nurse then sleeping another two and sometimes needing to nurse again in the morning, but we're all so much happier with the change that's taken place. We even had him night weaned before we left on a vacation that didn't allow us to keep that routine, but now we know it's possible.

I think my biggest advice to those of you seeking a better night's sleep is this; don't force it. Follow your child's cues and they will let you know when they're ready to hit that milestone, but it will happen. Keep heart and remember these moments are fleeting, before we know it they won't need us at night and we'll miss them.

Good luck and happy sleeping!

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