How I got my baby to sleep through the night

If you’re reading this, then I can totally understand how you must be feeling: desperate, utterly exhausted, hopeless, emotional. I have been there. And not too long ago either. I can vividly remember being up every hour, crying from exhaustion and furiously googling everything I could on how to help my baby to sleep better (I was happy to settle with just sleeping better – getting my baby to sleep through the night seemed a far off dream).

For over 10 months, I never slept longer than 2, maybe 3 hour stretches on a good night, sometimes nursing Maya 8 or 9 times a night, other times rocking her for over an hour. I cried almost every day and felt like a complete failure as a mom. If you are where I was, my heart breaks for you. It is so  hard. I hope my story can help you

Let’s journey back.

Maya was a tricky sleeper from day one. Thinking back, I can attribute this to a couple of possible reasons.

One, she was a baby who spit up A LOT. I mean bucket loads. To help with this, after every feed, I had to keep her somewhat upright for 30 minutes or so to try and keep as much of the milk down as possible. What this meant was that she fell asleep in my arms every single time. I had read about the whole concept of putting your baby down awake and I totally understood it. In fact, I remember having this conversation with my husband before Maya was born – “we cannot let her fall asleep in our arms. She must learn to fall asleep on her own.” However, this was not an option for us. We had to adapt to the circumstances we were in.

Secondly, we had grandparents with us from pretty much the minute we got home. Of course any grandparent wants to get as much cuddling in as possible, which once again resulted in Maya constantly being held while she slept.

But even with these 2 reasons, Maya was simply the kind of baby that liked to be close when she slept. Right from day 1, in the hospital, Maya would not sleep for longer than 15 minutes on her own. The only time Derek or I got any sleep was when one of us was holding her so the other could sleep a bit. That was just who she was.

To be in the bed or not to be in the bed

We tried everything to get her to sleep in her bassinet:

• angling the mattress
• wrapping the mattress in a t-shirt I’d been wearing
• warming the bassinet with heated bean bags
• with a swaddle
• without a swaddle

Nothing worked. In response to this, we decided to just let her sleep in the bed with us. It definitely helped. She was still waking up every couple hours, but at least it was’t every 15 minutes like when she was in her bassinet. Yes, we were nervous about the struggle of potentially having a 3 year old still in our bed, but it was a risk we were willing to take at this point.

Fast forward a few months

While other moms were reporting how their baby was sleeping through the night, Maya continued to be a regular night-waker for many months.

The big sleep disaster happened when she decided she would rather sleep on her stomach. Once again, it has taken the wisdom of retrospect to realise that this is what was going on.

Around 5 months, Maya wanted to roll over in her sleep and settle on her tummy. The problem was that she did not know how to roll over yet. And so, every 40 minutes or so, she would try, fail and wake up crying and frustrated. I did not understand what was going on or why she was waking up so often, so I did what felt natural to me: I nursed her.

This formed the habit of every time she moved through her sleep cycle, literally every 40-60 minutes, she would stir and need a boob to go back to sleep.

Derek works overnights and I vividly remember moving from one side of the bed to the other all night long, switching boobs, trying to soothe my baby back to sleep over and over again. This was easily every hour. On a good night, she would sleep for maybe 2.5 hours at a time. And it continued like this for months.

The big “let her cry” debate

I have never believed in letting my baby cry it out. No judgement to any parent who has chosen this route to get their baby to sleep through the night – we all do what we must to get through – but it just never sat well with me.

When you are a parent to a baby who doesn’t sleep, you do a ton of reading on the subject. I sourced every piece of info I could – books, articles, blog posts, podcasts, tips from other parents. You name it, I’ve done it.

My point is, with all my reading on the subject of crying it out, my heart felt most at peace with the belief that a baby that small is not capable of complex emotional reasoning. No matter how intelligent I know Maya to be, at such a young age her brain is simply not developed enough to self-soothe. If she is crying, it is because she needs me and, if my baby needs me, I am going to be there for her. As she gets older, I never want her to ever feel that if she calls for me I would not come. On top of that, I do not feel that my parenting duties stop just because the sun has gone down.

So crying it out was not an option.

The no-cry method

Around 9 months, I began to fully commit myself to the no-cry sleep method. If you haven’t read about this, it is a detail-oriented method of associating certain things with sleep, while gently breaking old attachments and habits. It takes far longer than a cry-it-out method would, but it is designed to be completely peaceful with zero anxiety whatsoever.

I did everything I was told to do. Bedtime routines became by the book, naps were prioritised during the day and never compromised, and I worked to carefully break the nursing-to-sleep association.

I saw a small, very gradual improvement. I managed to move Maya into her own crib, in her own room. Huge step! And the sleep stretches went from 1 to 2-3 hours.

But, by this point (Maya was around 9 or 10 months old), I was broken. My lack of sleep was making me a bad parent during the day – I had absolutely zero energy to give her and I didn’t like this about myself. I wanted to be better for her.

My one stand out memory was on my birthday last year. We had a particularly bad night, where I probably nursed her 8 times. Derek was working so I got up around 7am to struggle through my day. I was a shadow – holding back tears and feeling like such a failure as a mom. I knew I needed Maya to nap so I strapped her in the Ergo and, exhausted as I was, committed to walk as long as I needed to to keep her asleep. It took her an hour to fall asleep and, after 30 minutes, she was awake again. I sobbed. I didn’t know what to do. Nearly 10 months of never sleeping longer than 2, maybe 3 hours at a time. I was a wreck.

So, how did I get my baby to sleep through the night? 

I heard about the 5-10-15 sleep strategy from another mom, who I met over Thanksgiving. At this point Maya was 10 months old and I was desperate. Although it does involve a small amount of crying, we decided to give it a try. We had to.

After about 5 days of implementing this method, I remember sitting on the couch with Derek, watching Maya on the nursery camera. I had put her down for a nap and she had been happily playing with her stuffed animals in her crib. And then a miracle happened… one second she was sitting up playing, the next she plopped herself down on her tummy and went to sleep. Literal, albeit silent, shrieks of joy erupted! This was a miracle. From countless nurses and endless rocking, to this.

We still have the video saved on our phones.

Get to the point, Tara!

First off, I have to highlight that this method does involve a small amount of crying, but it is controlled and limited. You never leave your baby feeling uncared for.

Step 1:

Do your usual pre-bedtime routine, even if it involves nursing or rocking. Put your baby down drowsy, but eyes-open awake in the crib. Leave the room straight away, saying some happy, soothing words/sounds.

Step 2:

Let your baby cry for a period of time. This can be 5 minutes, but if that feels too long, go for 1 or 2 minutes. Keep an eye on your watch. It will feel like an eternity at first, but take comfort in knowing that it will end and you will go in and soothe your angel soon.

Step 3:

Go in and soothe your baby, but without picking him/her up. Just pat, sing, shush, whatever you like. Try and limit your time in the room – 2 or 3 minutes tops – and then leave the room again, repeating soothing words/sounds with a smile on your face.

Step 4:

Let your baby cry for a longer period of time. Again, I did 5-10-15, but you can totally do 1-2-3. As long as the periods get longer each time.

Step 5:

Repeat step 3.

Step 6:

Let your baby cry again for a slightly longer period of time. This period of time will be the max. So, if you opt for 5-10-15, then 15 minutes will be longest period of time your baby will be left crying.

Step 7:

Repeat step 3.

Continue with the 15 minute intervals as long as you need to.

Use the same steps for nap times.

My results:

Maya only ever cried for 15 minutes once. In the first few days, she would always fall asleep after the 10 minute soothe.

After less than a week, she was falling asleep without a single peep or complaint every night and every nap.

In about 3 weeks, Maya was only waking up to nurse 2 or 3 times a night.

And after around 6 weeks, when she was 11.5 months old, she slept through the night for the VERY FIRST TIME!

After this, she continued to only wake up once a night until she reached about 13 months. Now, at 14 months, she sleeps 12 hours without a peep, naps twice a day for over an hour each time, and puts herself to sleep happily every time

If she goes through a rocky patch where sleep regresses, we will come back to the same sleep method to get us through. So far we haven’t really needed to, but its there if/when we need it.

Some important points to note

I am not a sleep expert, but just a mom who tried everything and finally found something that worked for us. I started out my parenting journey believing that I needed to give everything I had to my children. That has evolved a bit. I now believe that we as parents need to find a balance between meeting the needs of our children and meeting our own needs. I was really suffering and needed to adapt in order to survive.

1. Please note that these are our results and I of course cannot guarantee that your experience will be the same. As we all know, every child is different. This just hopefully gives you a new strategy to try. Adapt it to work for you and your little one.
2. I strongly believe that a pre-bedtime routine is crucial, So, if you don’t have one, consider working one out. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but just some healthy repetition to build some snuggly, happy sleep associations. Our bedtime routine goes like this:
3. • dinner around 5:30pm
   • bath around 6:15pm – I still bath Maya every night, mainly because of the routine. I don’t necessarily soap her up every night, but the warm water play still happens. I think we’re at the point now where I can drop the bath from time to time, but we enjoy it, so why not?
   • pjs, lotion, baby powder etc
   • Derek will then typically read Maya a book in a dim lit room
   • then I come in and we say goodnight to all the stuffed animals and pictures in her room, before putting the lights off
   • a last little suckle
   • in bed before 7pm
   • she will usually play/roll around happily for a bit in her crib and then be asleep by 7:30
   • we use a night light and a sound machine. The sound machine is mainly because we have insanely squeaky floors and it just helps to muffle the noises

I truly hope this helps you. I know too well how hard it is to be in the cycle of no sleep. Looking back, I still cannot believe how far we have come. Things were so dark for a really long time. It still feels like a miracle that I get to sleep uninterrupted for so long.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate xxx

Now, with baby number 2 arriving in less than 3 months, I better enjoy the sleep while I can, right?!

Tara 

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