The No-Cry Sleep Solution

So we're back to our normal weekly schedule, thankfully. I got a few things done around the house this morning. Put some dishes in the dishwasher, folded some laundry, and finished getting Savannah's Birthday invites ready to be mailed today. I can't believe in just a few short weeks my baby is going to be 1! I hate how quickly time goes by!

So yesterday I finished reading the No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and I'm super excited about it. I picked up this book from the library in desperation to get some sleep. However, if you are tempted to pick this up for a quick fix this isn't what it's about. It's about fixing the sleep pattern gradually to get optimal success and to keep healthy sleep habits. It takes you through the steps gradually. fed. You can really customize how you use this to your needs and your family. The thing I like the most about the No-cry Sleep solution is that anyone can use it. It gives tips to those who are co-sleeping, those who are breastfeeding or those who sleep in a crib and are bottle fed. The first thing that we changed while reading this book is bedtime. We were under the assumption if we kept her up as late as we stayed up, then the less she'll wake up on "our" schedule. But unfortunately that is not true, it just caused Savannah to become overtired and actually wake up more! So the first thing we decided was to make sure Savannah got to bed every night by 8 p.m. instead of approximately 9:30 p.m. So now the fun begins. The first step of the process is to create your bedtime routine. You start your bedtime routine approximately an hour before bedtime to help your child learn that bedtime is approaching. This is suppose to help bedtime go more smoothly and reduce the fighting to go to sleep. So this is what our new bedtime routine looks like:

7:00 - Bath

7:20 - PJ's & Lotion

7:25 - Read books with entire family in my bed

7:45 - Feed Savannah

8:00 - Bed

The next step is to create a sleep/nap log of the first night so you know how your baby is sleeping now compared to where your baby should be as far as how much sleep they get. The book has a graph on the amount of sleep a baby should be getting. Since Savannah is approaching the 1 year mark we are basing everything off of the 12 month slot on the grid. She should be getting 11.5-12 hours of sleep a night, and taking 1-2 naps totally 2-3 hours of sleep during the day. Here is our first night of logging:

7:58 p.m. - Sleep

12:18 a.m. - wake up - rock/sing back to sleep - 4hour and 20 minute stretch of sleep

12:55 a.m. - sleep

2:57 a.m. - wake - nurse back to sleep - 2hours 2 minute stretch of sleep

3:05 - sleep

6:37 a.m. - wake - nurse back to sleep - 3 hours 32 minute stretch of sleep

6:45 a.m. - sleep

8:00 a.m. - up for day - 1 hour 15 minute stretch of sleep

So Miss. Savannah woke up 3 times on our first night of logging and had a total of 11 hours and 9 minutes of sleep. So she is close to the amount of sleep she needs per night but unfortunately is waking us up often in the middle of the night. Our first day of nap logs looked like:

11:53 a.m. - Sleep

12:34 p.m. - Up - So a 41 minute nap

3:54 p.m. - Sleep

4:50 p.m. - UP - So a 56 minute nap.

So Miss. Savannah had her 2 naps for the day, but unfortunately fell short of the 2-3 hours total. She only received 1 hour and 37 minute of naps, and both naps were under an hour. A "good" nap should be over an hour, and supposedly the key to a good night sleep is good napping during the day.

So now that we have made our first sleep and nap log we know that there is room for improvement. The book says to create a new log every 10 days, but with work and weekends, we either need to do it every 7 days or every 14 days. You do not want to make a log every day because some days will always be worse or better than others, so to get a general idea if the sleep pattern is getting better you need to do it every week or two. The book has many suggestions on how to get the baby to sleep better and for longer. Right now I don't think we are going to take any other suggestions from the book. We changed our bedtime routine and bedtime which is a huge step into the right direction. We'll evaluate after the first week of the new bedtime and see how we are sitting then and then decide on the next step.