I am long out of the new born baby woods, nearly six years out now to be precise, yet people still ask me for tips on how to get their baby to sleep through the night. I am aware that this can be a really contentious issue, especially if you are breast feeding, this is just my experience and what I found to work for me.
I feel quite passionate about babies sleeping through the night and not becoming toddlers, that still wake in the early hours. Honestly, I do cringe with despair when I hear poor, sleep deprived women, saying that their three and four-year olds, are still waking up at 4am and actually starting their day then too! There really is no need to put up with this, with a healthy child.
It’s really quite simple. If you allow it, it will continue to happen. If you enable it, it will continue to happen. If you make excuses for it, it will continue to happen. If you make an effort, and it does require a huge amount of effort, then you can steer it in another direction. My first child slept through, for 11-12 hours, at nine weeks old, my second, at eight weeks old and my third, at six weeks! It was no accident. I wasn’t ‘lucky’. I worked at it. The third time, I had become so skilled at what to do, I achieved this in record time!
So, what did I do?
I read. I read a lot. I read about all the different schools of thought and methods used. I then used what worked for me, for each individual child at the time, always drawing on the same key elements. The first thing that you need to realise is that babies do not know when night and day is. They only know that they are hungry, tired, wet, need a cuddle etc. So, you have to realise that ‘when’ night time is, is something that you need to teach them. This is actually really simple to do, but requires hard work and consistency.
Start off by forming a routine. I always started off on about day two or three, introducing the bath, bottle/breast feed, story or singing, winding, then bed. The difference here being, that once I deemed it to be bedtime (around 6 or 7pm), the baby was put to sleep in a darkened room. Establish night time for them.
Inevitably, the baby would still wake for their regular three to four hourly feed, (approx.), but instead of putting the lights on, snuggling, singing etc, I would use a dimmer switch (very handy tool) and put on just enough light to make the necessary checks, and to get settled for the feed. I would not talk or greet them with a big excited ‘Hello!’, although this was always very tempting in those early days. I would cuddle them, and even kiss their cheek, but then I would feed them, change their nappy (if necessary), wind them and settle them back to sleep, with little fuss or interaction.
I would do this all night until they awoke again at 6-7am, this was an approximate time. On waking at this time, the time that I felt was going to be their morning, certainly NOT 4am, I would go in bright and cheery and very enthusiastic! The blinds would be opened, they would be greeted with a very smiley, singing happy Mummy, and the day would very clearly start! This was really important.
Throughout the day I would make sure that they fed regularly, for me, this was key. Any milk that they did not take during the day, they would definitely be looking for later during the night, and the idea here was to get them to feed mainly throughout the day, so that their night time requirements would eventually drop off. No matter how tempting it was to let them sleep for five hours during the day, and they sometimes would try, I did not allow them to. I would always gently wake them and keep their feeds as regular as I could. This really does pay off.
This is how you start to establish day and night, it really is very simple and effective, but understandably, when you are exhausted and they are dangling the sleeping carrot, it is really easy to just let them day sleep. This is where the hard work comes in. Sticking to a regular daytime timetable, of feeds, and interaction and games, even though you are exhausted.
Eventually, you will arrive at that magical feed which becomes their bedtime feed, somewhere around 6 – 7pm. Again, you start the bedtime routine and slowly you begin to fall into a very clear day and night with your baby. Literally, within weeks, you will see that night time sleep stretch out in front of you. I would never wake them during the night for a feed, but allow their body clocks to adjust to what I wanted to be their night time, by leaving them to sleep as long as they could manage. Equally, when they did wake up, and were clearly hungry, they would be thoroughly fed, until full.
During the day, I would often let my babies fall asleep downstairs, or in their car seats etc. Sometimes they would sleep in their cots or Moses, away from the family, other times not, so that they learned the difference between their daytime sleeps and their night time sleeps. During the day they would regularly hear voices, hoovers, TVs, dogs barking etc. Sometimes their sleep would even become disturbed by these sounds. This all helps to establish that critical day and night.
Another thing that I found that helped my children to learn to independently sleep, happily, was to resist the urge to cuddle for long periods of time once they were asleep. Often, they would nod off on me, or sometimes on well-wishing relatives, who wanted to hold them, which at times would become awkward, however, I would try to remove them and get them settled on their own as soon as possible. The problem is that once they learn to fall asleep in a warm embrace, as soon as you do put them down, and eventually you will need to, and they then feel that cool air return around them, boom…they are awake and have ‘learned’ to need cuddling to sleep. Sure, cuddle them, I did a lot, but once they have been asleep on you for a few minutes, slowly transfer them to where you want them to sleep. In my experience, the sooner the better. This will help you no end, once they are eight months old and very heavy to rock for any length of time!
Each baby is different, but for me, loosely sticking to this routine, was a life saver, in having my much-needed sleep returned to me, as quickly as possible!
My children are now five, nine and ten, and are all still really good sleepers!

Good Luck!

Julee x

So, finally the snow actually came! After days of hearing about this exciting ‘Beast from the East’, it had arrived! Along with it’s arrival, came a car load full of food, a tank full of Diesel (just in case) and ideals of wonderful times at home, with warmth, food and nowhere to be, apart from in the SNOW!

It started off well for us – school was officially shut! This was very exciting – especially when it meant that we were off – really – for no particularly good reason, other than to PLAY in the snow! Woop! Immediately I thought, well this is all well and good, but I don’t actually want to do all the lugging in the snow with three children alone. No. That will be no good. Need Husband.

So, next, I had the little issue of talking DH into realising that it most certainly would not be safe to travel, nor would it be wise to risk his vehicle etc etc. After a few phone calls, he was in!!!

WAHHHHHEEYYY!!!!! Off we go!

It was so much fun, getting out early, being the first to rough up the perfectly settled ground, a dream landscape, messed up into an OCD nightmare within seconds! The dogs – once they had come to terms with what was going on beneath them – were full of life and loving the new, albeit cold, sensations beneath them. Lovely.

Then it got cold. Really bloody cold!!!! My feet quickly turned sore, then painful, within thirty minutes of this fun experience. One by one the kids slowly went back in, until I was the last one standing, with a rather cold, polite neighbour, whom I had met along the way! Hmmmm. Boys??

As last one in, I then found random gloves, hats, socks, socks in socks, distributed along the hallway, up the stairs, in the kitchen, and so on. It was like a clothing explosion in the hallway, with damp wet puddles, lumps of ice and footprints chucked in for good measure. I had two sopping wet Yorkshire terriers, with ice balls hanging off them, awaiting in the kitchen, (thanks), and a whole load of mess to clear up. We were outside for half an hour. Half an hour! This wasn’t what I had imagined!

We warmed up and had an early lunch, in anticipation of what was to come, exploring wider and some real sledging on snowy hills. It was about to get really fun. Off we trundled through the deep, crunchy snow, the sun shone down and it was everything I thought it would be. Until my welly boots really started to ache. Like really ache. To be honest, I think they were a bit tight, so what with that and the extra effort required for snow walking, I was feeling it again, especially as my toes were beginning to follow suit from earlier and tingle with cold.

We arrived at the hills, and it was full on fun, laughter, excited chatter, kids, competitive parents and plenty of snow. We had a really great time, DH went down on the sledge, the boys went down, they even took the poor dogs on it with them. It was great. Again, for all of half an hour!

Then DS1 had painful toes. After completely submerging himself in deep snow, face down, he was surprised to realise that he was not only cold, but freezing now. A fuss ensued.

Eventually, once everyone else had reached the point of we need to return, we left. We had a lovely afternoon and it really was a special day. At one point I felt like I was in a foreign county, as the snow crunched under my (tight) welly boots, the warming sunshine brightened the day and all around was music and laughing on the slope.

We were soon back home and once again, I found gloves, hats, socks, socks in socks, littering the hallway, kitchen and stairs……The boys were soon back playing Minecraft, but with an extra appreciation for the warm, dry, snug home they were in.

It wasn’t quite the day I had imagined, it is always so cold, so very quickly, especially with little ones, but it was a lovely change to the routine. I’m now freezing all the food I bought, charging the ipads and looking forward to the thaw……

You?

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton