Sleep Update! (And Bitta Kidda Review)- August 10, 2014
Hi. I’m Amy and I slept 7 hours last night.
I slept 7 the night before too. It’s a miracle, ya’ll. My squirmy little 9 month old has found his circadian rhythm. It’s about time, son! We were incredibly spoiled with our daughter. Our first born slept through the night when she was just a few weeks old. Seriously. It’s this trait that runs in my husband’s family. All the babies do that.
We quickly realized Henry did not inherit this trait. After talking with a pediatric sleep consultant, I learned a couple things:
- We can’t do the same thing with both babies. They are different people. Happiest Baby On The Block, the 5 S’s and all that shushing was great for Baby #1. That helped her establish early sleep patterns as a young infant and we never had to use any other sleep methods. In addition, I was working so she naturally fell into a great sleep routine with daycare. I lazily did the same for Baby #2. Mistake! As a newborn, the 5 S’s were great, but then he needed ME to help him get into a sleep routine as he grew into an older infant. With me staying home, I was the one who needed to establish that, not daycare. Duh! I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure that one out. Live and learn. Granted, he is a lighter sleeper and more voracious eater than his sister, so he may have still had trouble until 9 months, who knows?
- “Cry It Out” is not the child abuse I thought it was. I wondered how anyone could ever be so cruel as to let their baby scream. Here’s the thing, I was still in the “newborn mindset.” Of course you don’t let a newborn cry it out. They need milk and swaddling and comfort. They can’t be taught anything. They are in the “4th Trimester.” Thank you Dr. Karp. (Karp wrote Happiest Baby On The Block.) But an older infant? My older infant needed a sleep routine and I knew he could sleep through the night. The first night was rough as you may have noted from my Twitter stream as I live tweeted the affair using hashtag #HenryCIO14. But, the next night was better. The next night was even better and by the fourth night he was asleep by 8:30 pm and waking up at 6:00 am. Cue angels singing!
One other thing really helped Henry too as he transitioned out of the swaddle. Remember last week when I had a review and giveaway for Summer SwaddleMe products? I mentioned Henry is now in the fourth stage of their swaddles, the Wearable Blanket. While, he does wear it at night occasionally, he mostly wears that for naps. What is he wearing at night? Glad you asked!
When he was really little I mentioned to Beth Anne, “Henry wants to hold any tag on any fabric all the time. It’s crazy!” She said, “Oh! He’s a tag baby.” Huh? Oh, yeah that’s a thing. That’s why they have baby products devoted to kids who love tags.
Right as I was trying to ditch the swaddle because he was squeezed in it like a little sausage, I discoverd Bitta Kidda. I was all like, “ZOMG! What is that?!” They sent me a Bitta Blankie. They call it a “wearable lovie.” Genius! It’s a sleeper with soft tags right on them to promote self soothing. It is truly perfect for a tag baby or a kid who loves lovies, but you don’t want them to have toys in the crib. In some of the pictures below, he is holding the tag as he sleeps.
All this good sleeping at night as put him on a better nap schedule and we are all generally happier in our house. Now that our tag baby is a self-soothing night sleeper, the husband and I are all like…
Spread it around:
I’m wondering if you rocked him to sleep before you put him in bed or just put him in there? I need to transition my 9 month old out of his rock n’ play. Godsend for newborn days, Devil now!!
I rock him to sleep each night and put him in his rock n play and he sleeps all night. But he will not lay in his bed without waking after about 10 mins. Going to make a transition this weekend and wondering how you did the CIO. Thanks for any input!
Hey! I have been nursing him in the rocking chair until he gets drowsy. Then I rock him for just a minute or so, see if he needs to burp, give him a paci and put him in his crib. He usually goes down then. When we had to CIO, was in the middle of the night when he wakes up. The first night he had half-hour spells. I just closed his door. He settled down eventually. It was rough, but SO WORTH IT!!!
Woohoo! So happy for you. Yes, CIO sounds horrible, but really can help. I held off until D was 8 months in part because of breastfeeding and my own healing from surgery when he was 6mo (after 2 nights in the hospital away from him, I couldn’t handle not coming to his every cry when I returned). That tag sleeper is genius! We ended up with a lovey (ie, soft burpcloth) and his Soothie pacifier to help with the transition. He still has the loveys today although more out of habit than need. I figure he’ll quit those on his own well before high school. 😉 LOL
Ha! I took my childhood stuffed animal to college. No shame. Yeah, the Bidda Kidda is awesome.
Hi, I’m Heather. And I sleep for 2-3 hours at a time. Night after night after night after night. Rachel is a few days from being 6 months but I’m not ready to let her CIO yet. But if this nonsense is still happening at 8 or 9 months, I may have to toughen up and let her cry.
Right?! That’s how we were! Henry just wanted to be comforted. He just loves to nurse and wants to be with his Mama. I knew he was big enough. He didn’t need the nourishment a newborn does. I knew he would be fine. I just felt like 9 mos was the right time. So ready! But, if I was working full-time, I probably would’ve done it sooner.
Yep – she wants to nurse for a while then she usually goes back to sleep. Occasionally she will do some lazy fussing and will go back to sleep on her own if I leave her alone. But usually it’s a full volume meltdown and the only way to comfort her is to let her nurse. I would probably be fired by now if it weren’t for iced coffee!
This sounds EXACTLY like what happened with me and John. I call it the “sophomore syndrome.” You think because you’ve had a baby before that you’re tough shit and know everything about babies. Kind of like you get through one year of high school and come back sophomore year thinking you know everything. Dr. Sears and Attachment Parenting was my first baby guru. It was pretty easy for me to say that I’d co-sleep when my kid just magically started sleeping in his crib at 3 months. When my second wouldn’t suck on anything, except me, to soothe himself, it became clear that one size does NOT fit all. I took him to the pediatrician after one night of more waking than usual. I thought he had an ear infection. The pediatrician said his ears were fine, leaned back on the table and said, “So tell me about his sleep.” When I told him, he said, “There’s no medical reason for him to wake during the night. You’re not doing anything wrong, but this has got to stop some time, right?” Cry-it-out is what worked for John. And to be honest, I think Kat learned to sleep all night and self-soothe early because there were lots of times when I was taking care of her brothers and just let her cry. She had to wait for the next available agent. And one time that took twenty minutes. She went quiet; I just knew she was dead; I ran to her, and she was fast asleep with her thumb in her mouth. It was a week or so later that slept through the night. I’m glad you’re getting more sleep. It’s important!
Thanks! Totally! I told Greyson it was the “second child” syndrome. We were like, “We got this! We’re experts.” Womp! Womp! That’s funny that you say the 3rd child did it so early because she was waiting to be waited on! Ha! Poor third kid.
I’m so glad CIO worked for you and you’re getting more sleep! I know to do full on CIO without checks requires serious committment, and I’m just not there yet. My 6 month old still nurses 2x a night (which I know is more than he needs).We just worked down to 2 night feedings from 3 AND just transitioned to the crib AND are working on weaning from the swaddle, so it’s a lot to change at once. He’s started waking more and more often at night this past month. Some times the paci works, other times he wakes every 10 minutes over and over until I nurse him. If it’s not his time to nurse then I let him cry. So far we’ve gotten to over 2 hours of straight crying before it was time to eat and if he was hungry, I know he wasn’t going to suddenly fall asleep. What I’m wondering is would you mind doing a more detailed write up of what your routine and nights looked like before CIO and what it was like during? I read your twitter feed but from what I read, it really didn’t seem bad (I know, I know, I wasn’t there to hear him cry, I know it wasn’t easy for you). But I guess after 2 hours of crying with no end in sight for me, 45 minutes and then actually stopping and falling asleep would be awesome! I’m thinking I need to night wean before really doing CIO in the middle of the night. He usually falls asleep fine…sometimes we do CIO with checks but he falls asleep eventually and always on his own. Middle of the night, though, ugh, that’s the worst!
Oh wow! Bless your heart! Sounds like you have it way worse than me! Have you talked to the pediatrician? The pediatric sleep consultant really helped give us some insight into the choices we had to make. Before CIO I was waking with Henry 2 or 3 times. He would nurse for about 10 min and then fall back asleep. He woke around midnight, 2 or 3am and then 4:30am. Have you researched the Ferber method? Does any of this help? Let me know! Good luck!
Thanks for responding! I have researched Ferber, that’s essentially what we’re doing. For a while, just going in and giving the paci/checking/reassuring to calm him down would do the trick and he’d go back to sleep for at least another hour or two until it was actually his “time” to nurse. He moved from 4 to 3 to 2 night feedings on his own, I didn’t really need to do anything. Now he’s resisting that. Now he acts like he’s falling back asleep when we give him his paci or just soothe him really quick (15-30 seconds tops! and we never pick him up!) but 10 minutes later he’s back up crying. So I’ve resorted to letting him cry without checking, thinking he’ll eventually settle himself but that has yet to happen. He even scratched his face a couple times (I had just cut his nails too!), and one time it scratched it deep enough to bleed! Needless to say, I was a total wreck the whole next day thinking I completely scarred my kid. We have his 6 month check up in a couple weeks, I plan on mentioning this to his ped. I guess my little man is super strong willed and stubborn! Where did you find a pediatric sleep consultant? I’ve seen several online, I’ve considered paying for one.
Glad to know CIO worked for you. I tried using soothing pacifiers for my kids when they were young infants, and thankfully it helped in their sleep. Thanks for sharing your experience.