Hellobee

Oh, sleep. The thing I struggle with most as a parent. I personally have pretty high sleep needs, and when I don’t get enough sleep I have a very hard time functioning! Before Little Lion was born, I was sure we were going to have a schedule and he was going to be the most perfect sleeper in existence! The best laid plans… We have had our share of struggles, mainly with his tendency to stop sleeping when he gets overtired, and to wake up really early, but overall sleep for Little Lion has been pretty good, and we are lucky that our difficulties have been manageable and not too extreme.

What was Little Lion’s sleep like as a newborn?

He was born 5 weeks early, so he was very very sleepy as a newborn. We spent the first few weeks of his life fighting him awake to try to get him to eat. Eventually he started to be a little more awake, but it took a long time before we had any periods of wake time that were longer than a feeding and diaper change.

Has Little Lion always slept in a crib? Did he cosleep or sleep in a bouncer or swing?

From the day we brought him home from the NICU, he slept in his own bedroom in his crib. Our room is on the other side of his bedroom wall, and we had no trouble hearing him, so with the blessing of his NICU doctors and nurses we started him in his own room from day 1.

Our teeny guy in his crib the day we brought him home from the hospital.

Starting around 2 months, when he became much more awake than he had been previously, we started using the swing for naptime. This helped tremendously, so he continued to take his naps there until almost 7 months. He then seamlessly transitioned to napping in his crib too.

Snuggled in and ready for a nap in the swing!

Did you swaddle? When did you stop swaddling?

Yes! We loved the swaddle. For our little Houdini we needed to double swaddle. Most of the time we put him inside a swaddle pouch, and then swaddled him on the outside. He loved to have his hands by his face, so this allowed him to do so inside the pouch, but he was then swaddled tight on top. This was a great combination for him. We stopped swaddling at 18 weeks when he got very close to rolling over, and shortly after he outgrew his swaddle pouches!

Uh…mom? I think this thing is too small.

Does he sleep through the night?

Yes, thank goodness! At 9 months old I wrote this post about how he wasn’t sleeping through the night yet, and at that time I was hopeful that it would be just around the corner. It wasn’t. LL didn’t consistently sleep through the night until around 15 months. Before that he typically woke up one time per night from the time he was about 8 weeks old. He dropped his night feeding around his birthday, and we had a week of blissful sleep all night until he started getting many teeth at once, and we were back to waking up at 4 am for several more months. Now it is incredibly rare for him to wake up during the night, though he does occasionally think the day should start exceptionally early (sometimes as early as 4 am still!). Fortunately this hasn’t happened in a while and doesn’t happen very often!

Did he go through any sleep regressions, like the famous 4-month or 9-month sleep regression?

No month related sleep regressions, but his sleep is highly affected by milestones, illnesses, teething, wonder weeks, etc.

Did teething or physical milestones like rolling over or standing affect LL’s sleep?

Yes, yes yes. All of these caused lots of wake ups during the night, and often led to early waking as well. We could always tell when something big was about to happen developmentally, because we would suddenly be up all night with a happy, wide awake baby. This was a bad combination when we tried putting him in a floor bed. At first the floor bed was great, but all of his motor milestones happened very close together, and the lack of restriction around his bed meant that when he woke up in the middle of the night he thought it was time to practice some skills. It also made for very difficult nap times!

Naptime? Who, me?

Did you ever sleep train or nap train?

Fortunately we never had to do any formal sleep training. Because he was such a sleepy newborn it was really easy to teach him to fall asleep on his own in his bed, and as the sleepiness wore off he was already used to his crib. This has continued into his toddler years, and he is very easy to put to bed for night time or for naps as long as we are at home.

We did have a very difficult time with the transition to one nap. Little Lion became chronically overtired. We had a really rough few months while we got this figured out, but now things have evened out and he is back to sleeping well for both nighttime and naps.

Will he nap anywhere else other than his crib, like in the stroller or carrier?

Early in infancy LL would sleep anywhere. Once he got into a two nap schedule he got much more used to napping at home. He will still nap in the car if we are traveling, but we make being home for naps a priority the rest of the time.

What is LL’s nap routine?

When he was younger we would  read a story, play his “goodnight music” which is just a short playlist I created in iTunes, followed by ocean noise which plays for the remainder of the nap (the playlist is 14 hours long so it lasts through the night too), and then put him in his crib/bed. Now it is pretty much the same, except that we don’t usually read a story before nap time anymore. We also make sure to put away any toys that are still out in his bedroom before we get in bed. He is allowed to bring one toy to bed with him, and we tell the others goodnight. He used to get his paci only during naps and bedtime, but he dropped that on his own around 18 months. Now he just has his lovey blanket and a few stuffed animals.

What is LL’s bedtime routine?

Bedtime routine is pretty much the same, except that he has a bath almost every night before bed, and we always read 1-3 stories (depending on the night).

What is LL’s current schedule?

After trying just about everything, we gave up the fight and gave in to the fact that LL really needs less night sleep and more nap sleep. We moved his bedtime later so that he would sleep just a bit later, and let him take as long a nap as he wants. This is hard for me because I need 8-9 hours of sleep to really function, so having a kid who only sleeps 10 at night means I go to bed shortly after he does. But the long naps during the day are definitely nice, so I can’t really complain.

LL wakes up sometime between 6 and 6:30 most days. He has to stay in his room until the light on his stoplight turns green at 6:30. Occasionally he will still wake before 6, but unless he is crying or otherwise needs us we leave him in his room until 6:30. The stoplight was a game changer in our house.

Nap time can be a bit flexible. He goes down for his nap sometime between 12:30 and 1:30, and will sleep between 2-3 hours. I don’t let him sleep past 4:30, so if he is still sleeping then I will wake him up.

We typically start bedtime routine around 7:15, and he is in bed with lights out around 7:45. He occasionally will stay up a little later, especially if he took a nap on the later side, but he is always in bed by 8:30 at the latest.

If you could change anything about Little Lion’s sleep, what would you change?

Oh what I would give to sleep until 7 am. Seriously. 7 am would be glorious.