First, let’s pause to knock on wood. *knock knock* I have a rock star sleeper. I kept it secret for the first few months; I didn’t want to make any enemies and I certainly didn’t want to jinx our good fortune. Before Baby Stroller was born, sleep, or lack thereof, was my biggest new-mom concern. I was downright afraid I’d never sleep well again. But a funny thing happened after Baby Stroller arrived: he slept, and we did too. Don’t get me wrong, I was exhausted for a few weeks even though I took the advice of thousands (millions??) and napped when he napped.

We followed the advice of two friends with awesome sleepers, the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD, and the experts at Moms on Call. Then at 3 weeks something amazing happened — Baby Stroller slept 7 hours straight. Then he slept 9. And he never went back.

Every baby is different and there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all way to help a baby become a good sleeper, but this is what worked for us (this time around at least!)

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Eat

Babies need a certain number of ounces of breast milk or formula in a given 24-hour period. Baby Stroller is an exclusively breastfed baby, so when he was wee and after my milk had come in, he needed 19-30 ounces of breast milk in a 24 hour period. I preferred if he took that milk in during the day, so during the first couple months, during the day I nursed him every 2 – 3 hours. I nursed every time he was fussy and didn’t ever let him go longer than 3 hours (measured from the start of a nursing session), even if it meant waking him from a nap. I followed a wake-change-nurse-play (very short play usually)-sleep schedule.

Don’t be all concerned that your baby isn’t getting enough milk because you don’t know the precise number of ounces consumed when your baby nurses. Your body was made to feed your baby, and if you’re nursing frequently, in all likelihood they’re getting enough.

Nearly all babies have a “witching hour,” which in our case was witching hourS, every night. Baby Stroller’s witching hours were from 11pm-1am in the beginning. There is really nothing you can do about witching hours. Just prepare for it, hunker down with a good movie or your iPhone and let the baby nurse, nurse, nurse. Baby S slowly moved his witching hour earlier and earlier as the weeks went on. By the time he was about 8 weeks old, there wasn’t much witching anymore.

In addition to nursing frequently during the day, we gave Baby S a top-me-off bottle every evening at bed time. This meant that I had to pump once a day so as to have milk to give him in the evening. Each morning I pumped one side while he nursed on the other (it’s when my breasts were the fullest) and saved the milk for the evening. After nursing after our bedtime routine, Mr. S would give Baby S a small bottle of expressed milk – starting at 10-30ml via a syringe during the first few weeks and eventually working up to two ounces via bottle. I’d scurry off to bed as soon as I finished nursing and Mr. S would put the baby to bed after he finished the bottle and he’d rocked/jiggled per the Happiest Baby on the Block.

Environment

We wanted Baby Stroller to learn night from day so despite having black-out shades, we left the curtains open during his daytime naps. At night we pulled them shut so it was pitch dark in his room. During all his sleeps, naps and night time, we use a white noise machine. It runs continuously (no timer) and is nice and loud. In the beginning it sounded like the womb; now it drowns out other noises in the house.

Routine

Every single night since Baby S was two weeks old we’ve done the same bedtime routine. Bath à tight, tight swaddle, a milk bottle, and bed with LOUD white noise. We dropped the swaddle at 5.5 months and the bottle around 8 months when he was more interested in grabbing and throwing it on the floor, but everything else remains the same.

I nursed on demand when Baby Stroller was new; when he was 2 weeks old we started to see a routine emerge. By 4 weeks things were definitely more predictable. The Moms on Call were super helpful in helping us establish a schedule. I highly recommend them – especially for moms of twins – they’re twin experts!

According to the notepad on my phone, around 2-3 weeks a day would look like this:

7:00 am – wake & nurse
8:00 am – sleep
10:00 am – nurse
11:00 am – sleep
12:30 pm – nurse
1:30 pm – sleep
3:30 pm – nurse
4:30 pm – sleep
6:30 pm – nurse
7:00 pm – short nap in swing
8:30 pm – bath time begins
9:00 pm – swaddle very tightly (arms only, make sure hips are free to move)
9:00 pm – nurse
9:45 pm – top-me-off bottle
10:00 pm – bed with a loud white noise machine
When we put him down for bed sometimes we’d have to let him fuss for a few minutes ‘til he fell asleep – never more than one or two minutes and never all-out crying.
~2:00 am – nurse – we always waited for Baby S to fully wake up before getting him. Sometimes he’d just make noises in his sleep, but not wake up. When I nursed him it was always in the dark using just a little flashlight to see what I was doing. I kept him swaddled (although some babies can’t nurse very well when swaddled because they use their arms to navigate the breast) and only changed his diaper if it was dirty, not wet.

Baby Stroller dropped the middle of the night nursing at 3.5 weeks, but the rest of the day essentially stayed the same. When I went back to work at 12 weeks, Baby Stroller was taking two naps a day and a short cat nap in the evening. He would get fussier and fussier as the evening went on and by 14 weeks he’d dropped the evening catnap and we started to push his bath time earlier and earlier. At 12 weeks he was taking a bath at 7:30pm. At 6 months it was 6:30pm, at 7months 6pm and by 8 months bath started at 5:30. Now at one year bath is no later than 5:30 and he’s sound asleep by 6pm.

Attitude

Above all else, I think having an attitude of acceptance is the most important. When I accepted that my baby would be fussy for several hours every evening during his witching hours, it stopped causing me stress. I hunkered down with my phone and google reader and nursed. At four months when he hit the four month sleep regression and started taking 20 minute naps, I let go of what I couldn’t control and just waited things out. I rocked him to sleep and just held him and enjoyed those few quiet minutes. I also got really good at putting him down and eating breakfast, throwing laundry in, showering and getting dressed in 20 minutes!

At 4am when Baby S was brand new, a girlfriend told me that nothing lasts forever and it really resonated with me. Those middle of the night feedings will not last forever, the 20 minute micro-nap stage won’t last forever, and 14 hour long night sleeps won’t last forever either.

How did you raise a good sleeper?