Sleeping though the night?????

My kid is sleeping through the night??? Get outta town!

So from the start I read so many books and websites on how to get your kid to sleep through the night. I heard so many things and tried them all. I was determined to have "that kid." The one that all mommies hate because THEIR kid is waking up every 2 hours screaming. I was on a mission.

The first few weeks that you bring home baby are called "survival mode," and boy is that true. You just do what you have to do to get through the day/night. You are so sleep deprived that you have no idea what day or time it is, ever. You just keep going like a robot. Making bottles, rocking baby, changing diapers, obsessing over every sound, staring blankly at the tv and repeat 500 times. But once you hit about week three a pattern begins to develop. Baby starts to show signs of developing a schedule and you begin to follow their lead. Sleep during the night starts out with them waking every 2 hours. Then there is a fluke night where baby sleeps for 3 hours straight! You wake up startled and wonder if the baby is dead (OMG SIDS!) and see a peaceful little babe sleeping happily in their crib. There is hope!!!!

Okay so one of the ways that they say to get a baby to sleep through the night is to swaddle. I have to say "to heck with you" to swaddling. We did it for the first two weeks and I personally found it really obnoxious and annoying to do. Plus, how the heck could people see her cute outfits when she is wrapped up in a blanket? Swaddling was not for me, and I decided it was not for Kirsten either. She did show signs of disliking it anyway. She constantly found her way out of my tight swaddle, and wanted her little hands up by her face when she slept. So I gave in, very easily. Swaddling was done.

Around 4 weeks Kirsten started to only wake 1 or 2 times in the middle of the night. Usually around 2am and 4am. She would go to sleep around 10pm, wake two times, then be awake for the day around 7am. This was a great pattern and I got used to it. Also around this time she would stop needing the 2am feeding and went straight to 4am. There was hope! I see that light at the end of the tunnel! By the end of week 5 she was only waking at 4am, and again I fell into the pattern that she established.

But then came the day... the best day of my life. The day that Kirsten slept through the night! It happened during week 6 and she went from 11pm - 5am! I was so excited! I figured it a was a fluke and waited anxiously for the next evening. She went back to her old pattern of waking one time, but the third night she slept through the night again!

We are currently on week 7 and she is consistently sleeping from at least 11pm to 6am! Success!

I've had people ask how we did this, and I just keep saying "follow the baby's lead." It is so funny to say, but it is so true. A baby will naturally fall into a pattern, and as the parent it is our duty to simply follow the schedule they are working on establishing. I read on so many message boards about sleep training, and I think it is all a load of crap. I find it cruel to force a schedule upon a child who really doesn't know any better. They want to do what they want to do. Eat when they want, sleep when they want, poop when they want (and where they want). It is our job to simply read their signals and go with the flow. I think parents just get to anxious and worked up about doing the "right thing" that they forget that the baby is THEIRS! No one will know your baby quite as well as you do. It's called an instinct for a reason!

So now I have a happy baby who sleeps through the night... by week 7. I will now go drink a cup of coffee (only a cup, now that I am rested I can cut down from 5 cups to one) and pat myself on the back.