Sleeping Around Here

Sleeping is a big deal in our house.  Mark and I love sleep, and we knew this was an area that would be significantly impacted once we had a baby.  Since we’ve been married, we have been pretty good about getting to bed at a reasonable hour to get enough sleep.  Thankfully, Cora is also aligned with this idea.  I certainly would still like more sleep, but she’s definitely gone easy on us as a newborn.

When she was born, she would go down around 10 at night, sleep for 4 hours, get up to breastfeed once, and go down for 3-4 more hours.  After that second stretch, we would usually be up for the day.  I used to worry that she wasn’t eating enough, but she’s been gaining weight just as she should.  Since then, that first 4-hour stretch has been getting longer and  longer and now she sleeps at least 8 hours, if not more.  We have moved her bedtime slowly up as her sleep has gotten longer, and now Mark starts her bedtime routine at 7 pm.

Cora used to wake up some time in the 4:00 hour to eat again and go back down until 7 in the morning.  However, I recently started dream feeding before I go to bed, usually around 10 at night, and now she’s sleeping consistently past 6 am.  I can see on her sleep tracker (we have an Owlet) that she often wakes up once or twice around her old 4:00 hour, but she always goes back to sleep by herself without crying.  If she could just stretch it out until 7 am, I think we’d have a dream scenario!

So how does she do it?  Well, I think she’s just a good sleeper and we are very lucky.  But we did think about this before she arrived and implemented some things to help her sleep well.  The same things won’t work for all babies, but this is what works for us.

1.  We have a bedtime routine.  We’ve evolved it since she’s grown, but we try to stay consistent with it so she knows we are winding down and it is time for sleep.
2. She sleeps in her own room, by herself, and has ever since she came home from the hospital. I am an extremely light sleeper, so I knew having her in our room wasn’t going to work for us.  But I also think this has helped her be confident in her own bed.
3. She does sleep in her crib, but we also use a Dock-a-tot.  If you don’t know what this is, think of an insert that fits inside her crib to make it smaller and cozier for her.  It was originally developed for safer co-sleeping but we use it differently.  Little babies can get overwhelmed, if not scared, in big cribs by themselves.  Sleeping in the Dock-a-tot helps her feel more secure.
4. She sleeps in a swaddle.  I had started out using the same blankets that she slept in at the clinic after she was born.  Eventually she would work her arms out, though, and they would flail around waking her up.  So we switched to a Halo Sleep Sack swaddle, which has been magical.  I wish I would have switched earlier.  I do take her out of it to feed in the middle of the night because she always needs her diaper changed and I don’t want to get it dirty.  But taking her out and going back in doesn’t seem to bother her.
5. She sleeps with white noise. We have a small white noise machine in her room and have been using it since she came home.
6. The white noise machine also has a night light on it, which is the only light I use to see when I go in to feed her at night.  I never turn the lights on at night – thus the risk of getting her sleep sack dirty during the diaper change if I don’t take her out.
7. I use a video monitor.  This has been really great for us because I can easily check on her and see if she’s awake without disturbing her.  She often doesn’t cry when she wakes up so this is better than a sound-only monitor for us.
8. We use an Owlet, which is a little sock that she wears that monitors her sleeping, heart rate, and oxygen level.  I don’t think this really helps her sleep at all, but it sure helps me.  It will alarm us if she ever stops breathing, but I also like it because it tracks her sleep.  I can see exactly when she wakes up at night and how much time she spends in light sleep and deep sleep.

It sounds like we have it all figured out, so of course everything is going to change soon.  The 4-month sleep regression is around the corner.  She’ll start rolling over so we will have to stop swaddling. She’ll outgrow her Dock-a-tot.  And we also have a pretty heavy travel schedule kicking off in April.  I hope we’ve set up good habits that will grow with her but only time will tell!