Photo courtesy of www.missyb-andfamily.com

  Let’s face it…When we became moms, we made a decision to give up sleep.  Of course that is not what we thought we signed up for.  If you are a mom with a child under the age of five, I would say you are sleep deprived Mommy.   I have been that way for the past three and a half years, and now with the addition of my 11 month old infant I’m not tired.  I’m exhausted.  My daughter was sleeping through the night from the ages of two months till around 6 months.  She began waking up every two or three hours to “eat”.  I put this in quotation marks because she was actually hungry (in my opinion), Breastfed babies tend to wake up or eat more if you are feeding them on demand.  They use this as a level of comfort to help soothe them back to sleep.  At this point, I was getting about three hours of consistent sleep at night.  I needed a break! I couldn’t cope with waking up every hour on the hour, so what did I do? I reached out to other mamas to see what they did or do in this situation.  So Now I am going to share this with you.  Thanks to all of my friends and family on Facebook who guided me through this process, I appreciate every one of you. 

1. Make sure your baby is nice and full. One of my friends recommended this to me and I agree with this.  My daughter is now learning to “self feed” and is always interested in feeding herself during the day.  Try to give your baby a fruit (Gerber) before bed.  I have tried this over a few nights in a row and it seems to work.  She really enjoys apples or pears before bed.

2. Try not to breastfeed/bottle feed at night. This one is really hard for me, because with my daughter I did not put her on a scheduled feeding.  I decided to feed her on demand and as necessary.  With my son (first born) I would keep better track by writing down feeding times so that I could be scheduled with him. With my second child not so much, I found myself too busy and would just feed her when she was hungry or I was full. Which was often in the beginning.  I think she became accustomed to eating on demand and so it’s been difficult weaning her at night, but I’ll keep trying.

3. You’re baby is reaching or meeting new milestones and is excited and eager to play (even at 3AM).  This in fact is true. My daughter just started crawling on all fours! She is on the move and super active and busy during the day. When she wakes up at night she seems tired, but is still very ready to play and talk.  I think that it’s important to establish a schedule with your babies so they can understand the difference between day and night.  I don’t think my daughter quite understands that.

4. Shorten their naps during the day.  This is another good one.  For an 11 month old baby on average they are supposed to take two 2 and half hour naps and sleep about 11-12 hours at night.  Not happening in our house.  There is no way she is sleeping 11 or 12 hours at night, she stopped doing that at six months.  She does nap during the day and it is for about 2 and half hours.  My cousin referred a great site for me to review on baby sleep patterns.  It also talks about what your baby should be eating to ensure they are full before bed. Here is the link for more. https://www.babysleepsite.com/schedules/11-month-old-schedule/. 

4. Make sure they are changed and fed really good, then let them cry it out.  I really LOL’d to this one.  I agree with the process of “self soothing” Except  not at 3 AM.  I also have a toddler in the house who will wake up.  At this hour I need them both to be peacefully sleeping. 

            These were all really great ideas and I have been implementing them in my process to better sleeping habits for both me and my baby.  It’s been an amazing journey being the mother of two precious children.  Every child is different and we learn from them as we go.  Sleep is very important for both mommy and baby.  Without sleep we can become crazy people! I remember people telling me to enjoy my sleep before my kids came along and boy were they right! I am now learning to get both kids to nap at the same time.  Even though I should nap with them, I’d rather be blogging, doing laundry, or washing dishes (yeah right).  I guess I will remain sleep deprived until they turn 18! HA!

            Thanks again for stopping by, I look forward to your feedback and comments.  Make sure to share with other mommies out there, so that together we can continue to strive for mommy success.