For part two in our series: Sunday Sleep Stories, I’ll highlight what Wyatt’s sleep actually looked like over the past 16 months. (If you missed part 1 of the series: A Sleep Snapshot, you can find it HERE.)
Thinking back to the newborn days, those first few months seem like a fog. I just remember not sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time and somehow living on baby snuggles and coffee. (I even tried not drinking coffee for a while because I had read somewhere that some nursing mom stopped drinking coffee and her baby slept better. Fail. Can we talk about how much googling and random advice I tried in those first few months because I was desperate for ANY long chunk of sleep?!) My memory isn’t 100% (maybe a little PTSD?), but I used the Hatch Baby App on my phone to track Wyatt’s sleep and feedings, so I can piece together what my days and nights (was there a difference?) more or less looked like. If you like (attempting) to see patterns or looking at data, I totally recommend using an app on your phone to track sleep time and nursing time in the beginning. It definitely helped me feel a little bit in control or at least see that Wyatt was sleeping A LITTLE.
Here’s a day and night summary of how Wyatt’s sleep looked every few months. Next week I’ll talk about all of the sleep gear we’ve loved (and didn’t love) over the past 16 months.
Months 1-2
DAY: Not awake for more than 90 minutes during the day, about 3-4 naps per day, ranging anywhere from 20 minutes – 90 minutes. Wyatt would ONLY nap if I was holding or wearing him in the wrap. I tried countless times to put him down for naps and it was just a scream fest. His “witching hour” around 5pm was very real.
NIGHT: “Bedtime” was usually around 8, but in the first few weeks later. Wyatt was awake every 40 minutes – 3 hours and 30 minutes. From my data on Hatch, we didn’t get more than that at any point during the night and usually the one long chunk would be the first stretch of the night when we weren’t even sleeping yet, and we’d essentially be up every hour after that. Wyatt wanted no part of his bassinet, we never thought we’d be co-sleepers, but that’s the only way Wyatt would sleep. So we researched and learned how to do it safely (more on that in another post.) We also bought a DockATot about 2 days into Wyatt’s life and it definitely helped during those first few months.
Months 3-5
DAY: Not awake for more than 90 minutes during the day, about 3 naps per day, ranging anywhere from 20 minutes – 90 minutes. First few attempts at sleep training- we’d try for a few nights every few weeks (more on that in another post), he would cry for an entire 40 minute “nap time” with soothing every 10 minutes, check-ins, no check-ins, everything. No self-soothing skills yet, and when he’d cry he would just get so worked up and wouldn’t be able to calm himself down or just fall asleep because he was so tired. Getting him down for a nap was a workout, bouncing on a birthing ball or swinging him in my arms, he’d have to be completely passed out before we could put him into his crib. Putting him in was also an act of God every time, we had systems for how to strategically put him in moving one muscle at a time so he wouldn’t wake up or feel the warmth of our body change. (During this time I bought a million different swaddle type things that claimed to help babies sleep…all to no avail.) And if he woke up, which he usually did about 3 times while trying to put him down, we’d have to start the process all over again. Ahhh babies!
NIGHT: Bedtime was at 7pm and stays that way to this day. Wyatt would wake up every 1 hour – 5 hours. His “long stretch” stretched out a little bit, 5 hours was the longest we’d get, but sometimes it was still closer to 3. After the long stretch it was up every 2 hours or so. Wyatt would spend the first part of the night in his own crib in the DockaTot, and then would co-sleep with us the rest of the night. Again, never thought we’d be co-sleeping, but if we didn’t, he was up every 45 minutes versus 2 hours. We bought earplugs for the nighttime to deal with Cry It Out (CIO), it was miserable, but it helps to have a partner to get through it with. Something to note: Wyatt’s room for the first 5 months of his life was also in our big walk-in closet, as soon as he got his own room, couldn’t smell mom and dad, and we would spend time in there outside of sleeping, his sleeping seemed to improve drastically. I don’t know if that’s coincidence or not, but it’s worth noting.
Months 6-7
DAY: Naps were still short, usually about 45 minutes each. He’d take two. Once we moved to NYC when Wyatt was 6 months, we attempted CIO and this time it took! I started putting Wyatt down for naps totally awake and he was learning to put himself to sleep. Naps were short, but we were making progress!
NIGHT: We were practicing CIO at night as well, our first stretch started getting much longer, usually around 6 hours. Wyatt was getting enough nutrition during the day at this point, and we got the go-ahead from our pediatrician to night-wean. I’m sure we could have night-weaned earlier, but we were on the road and moving for a few weeks, we didn’t want to change too much for him. Wyatt would still wake up at around 1 or so and act like he’d want to eat, but we’d do a quick check-in and resume CIO until he went back to sleep. (PRO-TIP: I used this time, since I was already awake and used to nursing at this time, to pump to have a good supply in the freezer.) The first few nights of night-weaning Wyatt woke up a few times quickly, but with a check-in would then go back to sleep. VERY QUICKLY for us, this turned into him sleeping completely through the night. (Or at least not waking up from 7 pm – 5:30 am.)
Months 8-9
DAY: Naps started to stretch out a little to 1 hour or 90 minutes, but 45 minutes still wasn’t uncommon, darn sleep cycles! Still on 2 naps. He was becoming a pro at putting himself to sleep with the help of our sleep routine.
NIGHT: Still sleeping through the night, but now our goal was to get him to sleep from 7 pm – 7 am instead of waking up at 5:30 or 6 am. I think around month 9 he started sleeping until 7 am. Before that if he woke up before 6 am we’d have him just stay in his crib and cry if that’s what he was going to do. Eventually his morning sleep seemed to stretch out because we wouldn’t get him out of the crib before 6:30 am. I honestly didn’t do too much differently, it seemed like he was just making the transition on his own. I know some moms are struggling with early wake-ups and the only advice I have is to leave your baby in their crib until it’s time for them to get up, but again what worked for us might not work for you!
Months 10-12
DAY: Naps are longer, but still don’t really exceed 90 minutes. Still two of them.
NIGHT: 7 am- 7 pm is basically every night now! When we travel, that’s another issue (more on that in another post), but when Wyatt’s in his own space, he’s a sleeping champ
Months 13-16
DAY: At around 14 months Wyatt’s first nap really stretched out to 2-3 hours and his second nap went down to 30-40 minutes. Currently he has one super long nap at around 10:30 am, and it’s not unusual for it to be 3 hours (literally as I write this, Wyatt has been napping for 3 hours and 15 mins!) His second nap is usually around 4 pm and is very short if it even happens at all, we usually can skip it if we need to.
NIGHT: I completely weaned a few weeks after Wyatt’s first birthday and as soon as that happened his sleep on the road improved drastically! He now sleeps 7 pm – 7 am at home and when we travel!
Here’s a sample sleep schedule that helped us figure out when and how long our baby should be sleeping for…even if it didn’t actually happen that way.
It seems to crazy to look at how far we’ve come in the sleep game! A 3 hour nap feels magical now, and if you were to tell me a year ago that I’d be “off the clock” at 7pm until I woke up in the morning, I wouldn’t have believed you. Again, I share this so hopefully some other mom can relate and know that her baby isn’t the only one that wakes up every 2 hours all night, or that a “long nap” is 45 minutes. Everything is a phase and your baby WILL get better at sleeping. And if you read this whole thing and were blessed with a baby who loved sleep since day 1, then just know that you are one of the lucky ones. Every baby is so different, this is just one story.
Most of this post was just my own experience, but one piece of advice that I do have is, if you’re pregnant and about to embark on a sleep(less) journey, find your mom tribe. All those sleepless hours nursing in the middle of the night are much better if you have girlfriends to text who are awake and going through the exact same thing, find out how I found mine here!
Next Sunday, for the third post in the sleep series, I’ll highlight all of the sleep gear we’ve loved (and haven’t loved.) Click HERE for the first post in the sleep series: A Sleep Snapshot.
What do you think?