I figured it was time I give my report on scheduling after reading and living by (for the most part) the book entitled The Baby Sleep Solution. To put it simply, I’m recommending the book to friends and family running into the baby sleeping conundrum.
A little over one month into this “program,” David is eating every morning at 10am just as we had wanted. He gets hungry a little earlier before his 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm feedings occasionally, and sometimes I give in. Other times, it’s a short feeding (or I start the entire feeding earlier altogether) or I work with the pacifier. I did try to follow the program to a tee at first, but there were problems with that, notably enforcing a rigid 4-hour feeding schedule which was really awful with a crying baby who wanted assistance earlier. Also, as much as you have to try really hard to keep the baby up between the third and fourth feeding, it isn’t always possible. I mentioned this program to his pediatrician who said I really should give into his needs, and I did. It didn’t put a dent in his schedule, thankfully.
That said, yes, he’s sleeping through the night, and he was doing so since day one of the program! We put him to bed between 10:30 and 11:30 (sometimes we need to give him an extra two ounces or so after his last feeding to make him calm down), and he’s usually asleep until 8:00. Granted, the idea is to have the baby “sleeping” 12 hour nights, but most babies just don’t do that. As it is, as a premature/preterm baby, he was sleeping so much while he was younger and now he’s up a lot more, a fact that I’m actually thankful for (just as long as he lets his mommy get some work done). 🙂 But I do think that enforcing a real schedule set a precedent and even though I traveled 3 times in the last month for holidays (baby’s first flight to Florida interrupted the schedule with 2 6am flights, in fact; we also went to New Jersey and Pennsylvania), he’s back on track. It barely did much even when we were out of town (except in Florida where he liked waking up at 1am to let us know he was still there).
I think the entire “program” was a success. If I take him out of bed before his 10am feeding, even an hour or two earlier, he’s calm until around 10am, which is perfect. And while I’m pretty flexible on the rest of it and not as strict as following it to a tee, I think having some rigidity at first was necessary to get to this point. Now I have a kid who does sleep through the night, and what kind of parent doesn’t want that?
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On a totally different note, this past weekend, David learned how to shriek. His high-pitched shrieks are the cutest thing ever, and he likes to shriek while babbling. Thankfully, he’s using it for cuteness and not for bad. 🙂