Like Emily, I hesitate writing about this topic because I don’t want to upset the sleep fairies/gods/boogeyman. Just when you think things are going well in the sleep department, kids have a way of changing it up on you and making you think it will never go back to normal.

In the hospital, Liam did not like sleeping when it was dark. I remember my mom saying what a calm baby he was when she would visit during the day, but she wasn’t there at 2am when he was screaming his head off and nursing nonstop for hours. Once we brought him home, this continued – he would sleep peacefully in his bassinet for naps during the day, but at night, I often let him sleep on my chest because he would not let me put him down. Soon, I learned how to nurse laying down and we gave in to the idea of cosleeping, even though it was a habit we really didn’t want to start. We were tired and the only way anyone got sleep was if Liam was in bed with us, so that’s what we did.

Liam’s first nap in the crib – if I remember correctly, it was a short one.

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When he was around 3 months old, I knew it was time to make some changes because I feared if we didn’t, we would never get him out of our bed. Some people love cosleeping, but when Liam is next to me, he will want to nurse all night long and I knew I couldn’t continue that way. Plus, I was always paranoid that either my husband or I would roll over on him, so I slept very lightly when he was in bed with us.

We started a bedtime routine where we would bathe him, put him in a diaper with an extra hemp insert, snuggly pajamas, swaddle, read a story, turn off the lights, turn on the white noise, nurse him, and put him down in his crib at around 7pm. He would wake up around 10pm and then we’d bring him to bed for the rest of the night. Once he started rolling over at around 4 months, we switched to a sleep sack and continued the same routine. Then, something magical happened: the night before I went back to work, when he was 4.5 months old, he slept through the night, from 7pm until 6am. He continued night after night for several weeks and we were amazed. If he woke, we wouldn’t rush in to get him right away, but we would let him fuss for a few minutes until he either put himself back to sleep or really started to cry. If I could tell he was very upset and really crying, I would go in to rock and/or nurse him. He was never really interested in the pacifier, so that wasn’t an option for getting him back to sleep.

Showing off his new trick: pulling up to stand at around 8.5 months old.

We have had moments — usually when he is mastering a new physical milestone like sitting up or pulling up to stand or when he is getting a new tooth — when we have brought him to bed with us for a few nights because he won’t go back down in his crib. Every single time this happens, I worry that his sleep is ruined forever and that he’ll never STTN in his crib again. But, after a few days, he does and we are back to normal.

Napping together last weekend when Liam had a bad fever.

I don’t know if we have just been blessed with a good sleeper, or if we did something right to make him that way. His daytime sleep is far less reliable, but we have also not been as strict with our routines during the day. The only way we’ll know for sure if we had much to do with his nighttime sleep habits will be if we have another baby and do things exactly the same way. One thing that has helped is to not stress about it. When we are more relaxed, things go much more smoothly, or at least it feels that way. I used to really stress about his sleep, but now that I go with the flow a little more, things are much easier.

If you have a good sleeper, do you think they were naturally a good sleeper, or was it due to your parenting?