I've talked about being a scheduler before on the blog, but now that we are two months shy of a year of this routine I thought I'd share what I've liked, disliked, and what I've done from the past several months.
Especially since I've spent so much time googling and browsing other blogs to see how other mamas felt about things and what they did.
To start, we loosely followed Baby Wise. I say loosely because I never truely did Cry It Out, we skipped purees, and I broke a few other BW rules.
What I did get out of it was the schedule. It gave me an easy guide for how often the baby should be eating, a minimum mind you (feed that baby if it's hungry), and an idea of how much he should be sleeping.
I know a lot of people hate BW but it really did help me get a feel for how many naps he would need at each age, when to drop feeds, how to drop feeds, and how to set our daily schedule. I didn't have the option to feed on demand since I had to go back to work and creating a schedule (and drinking a ton of water) forced my body to produce the amount of milk I needed at each feed or pump time.
I seriously still get excited when I get 8 ounces at 2:30am.
I've said it before, but we followed the BW schedules verbatim until the 4th month and then stalled at that schedule until 6 months when we began Baby Led Weaning. (Which is really just introducing table food, allowing the baby to self feed, and not giving purees.)
So basically I followed BW for schedules and their advice for sleep to an extent.
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Harrison had his days and nights mixed up early on so for the first few days I kept him by a window during the day and in a dark room at night.
After that we did the 5 S's - swaddle, side position, shush, sway, suck.
He also slept in the Rock n' Play for the first few months. I liked it, but any bassinet by the bed would be my ideal until they are done nursing several times a night sleeping more. He stayed in our room in the RNP or the Pack n' Play until he had gotten down to one feed during the night. (We have a 2 story house and there was no way I was running up and down stairs all night.)
We did break the rules with sleep position and I let him sleep on his stomach once he could push himself up and roll over good. I really think it made him a better sleeper though.
Around month 4-5 he had to really learn how to put himself back to sleep when he woke up and wasn't hungry. It started with fussing, we'd let him fuss for a few minutes before going up there. Eventually it turned into him talking and cooing, so we wouldn't go at all. Finally he has gotten to where he doesn't cry at night unless he actually needs someone and it's only during growth spurts and he wants to nurse.
There's a lot out there about how they should be "sleeping through the night" and how they should be able to go all night without eating. I don't buy into it very much for two reasons - 1) I don't sleep through the night and never have, and 2) sometimes I wake up hungry.
So if once in a blue moon he wants to nurse at night then I'm not arguing with him. It isn't an every night occurrence.
The only issue with him not waking to feed, that happened between 4-5 months old, is that to maintain my milk supply for pumping I had to continue to wake up and pump at the time he was waking during the night. So in two months when we start weaning down to only morning and night feeds I'll get to sleep through the night too!
I also know this is an extremely good sleeper, and I don't believe for one minute that every baby is this way. However, the scheduling really helped to set his metabolism so expect to eat and sleep at certain times. Now if you're nursing and exhausted from middle of the night feeds...I read that your milk during the night contains more serotonin to help the baby sleep. (We actually sleep later in the morning if he wakes up during the night to feed.)
