Sleep training

Ever heard the phrase..."Sleeping like a baby?" Sure the first few days of Zach's life, he slept like a log. I had to wake him to feed! OMG, I will NEVER do that again.

At 5 weeks old, my little bugger fights off sleep like a pro. Don't get me wrong...he sleeps really well at night. I usually get one 4, one 3, and then one 2 hour interval of sleep with him in the evening. Thing is, he is not a big fan of nap time during the day. Sure, he sleeps well at night, but when I got the pamphlet from the doctor at his one month check-up that said infants his age typically sleep 18-20 hours a day, I thought "They must be joking!"

So, with the advice from my friend Shannon, I purchased the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. He is somewhat similar to Dr. Ferber (ie: let the baby cry it out, but not really). Actual sleep training (meaning, allowing him to cry for a period of time) won't start until he is about 4 months old, but healthy habits can start now.

With the advice of Dr. Weissbluth, we are now working on soothing Zach into sleep after two hours of wakefullness. I had no clue that he was supposed to get to sleep about every two hours (not necessarily for a long period of time) and that if he doesn't, we risk the wrath of OVER-TIREDNESS! When Zach is over-tired BOY is he FUSSY!

So I started training yesterday and we got two GREAT naps out of Zach before bedtime (about 2-3 hours each). He was a doll. We also worked on a bedtime routine. We are going to bathe, feed, then swaddle and rock in a dark room. Last night it took 45 minutes to get him to bed with the rocking, but he barely cried a peep before going down for 4 hours.

This morning I got a 45 minute nap from 9:00-9:45...so we'll see what the day holds!