Sleep, Baby, Sleep

This post is dedicated to my bro SY : )

I try not to give unsolicited advice about parenting, but this is my blog and anyone can choose to read or not read, right? Anyway I am not saying everybody must do the same thing, just sharing what I read/went through and what has worked for me & my two sons.

What I believe about babies and sleep:

1) Babies need an early bedtime, around 7pm. And this should ideally start from day one. One might think, newborns sleep almost the whole day, how would they know when it is the bedtime? Hmm, I would like to tell you 'trust me, they know' but then, I only have two case studies, lol. So I can only say, I think they know. Jiahe couldn't last beyond 6.50pm until he was at least 6 months old.

 How to set a bedtime? Do a simple bedtime routine. For Jiale, everything was trial and error and I definitely messed up before I did sleep training for him around 7 months old. For Jiahe, I was much more prepared - his routine was very simple - just do a wipedown and change diapers, then feed him (breastfeed in my case), then put him down in the cot. When he was very young, he usually fell asleep while feeding and continued to sleep when I put him down. Now his routine is still very simple - before he goes in for naps/bedtime, I give him a drink of water. So simple, right? Haha. (Yes I do give him water at other times of the day!)

2) Newborns should not be awake for more than two hours each time. Yes they definitely are able to stay up longer than that, especially as they grow bigger.. But they will probably end up overtired and fussy and have more difficulties falling asleep. What I did for Jiahe was, I gave him maximum of two hours between naps. The key word is 'maximum'. Anytime he showed signs of sleepiness, like rubbing his eyes, or being unreasonably cranky (crying even though he had been fed and cleaned and was not too warm/cold etc etc), it was time for a nap. 

3) Ignore the baby when you feed him at night, i.e. just feed, no need to talk to him, no need to look at him. Close your eyes and feed. Just switch on a night light.

4) Babies start to need to have a proper nap routine and to nap in a proper place (e.g. their cot) when they are four months old. The good news is, you can bring your baby around in a sarong carrier or baby sling carrier etc before 4 months old - he will fall asleep anytime anywhere when he is tired. But from 4 months onwards, it's best to let him nap in a stationary place (movement affects the quality of sleep as he is more alert to his surroundings now).

Related to the abovementioned points are:
how to make the baby sleep?
breastfeeding/bottle?
feed on demand/ feed on schedule?

I think these are personal choices and there are pros & cons. So I shall just write about my own experiences.

I breastfed both boys till 10 months old and I fed on demand. I found that even though I fed on demand when they were younger, they naturally fell into a routine when they got older (5-6 months old) and I only had to feed them 2-3 hours apart. But the good thing about breastfeeding is, other than filling the tummy, it is also soothing for the baby. So, whenever I couldn't figure out why they were crying, I just breastfed and they calmed down : ) I always thought that hey, I had a brandnew baby after each breastfeeding! Haha. Some people might worry that the baby might develop bad habit of needing to breastfeed to sleep, etc. But I prefer to solve each problem as it comes. When the baby was still so small, the crying would really drive me nuts.

About sleep training: I used cry-it-out for both boys, Jiale at 7 months old and Jiahe at 5 months old. Basically, it means to put the baby in his cot when he is still awake and leave him to cry till he falls asleep. I shall blog more about this when this particular Koh baby gets older : ) How come I can tahan the crying for so long (Jiale took 50 minutes, Jiahe took 30 minutes) now? Because the baby is older and more hardy! Letting a 7-month-old cry is very different from letting a 2-month-old cry.

For my two boys, they fell asleep while breastfeeding, so it was not a problem getting them to sleep when they were small babies. Thus, it was relatively easy to set an early bedtime and to have frequent naps (less than 2 hours interval). (It was when they got older and became more alert and more aware of their surroundings that they would still be wide awake after I fed them, and I had to make them sleep.) Anyway, early bedtime or not, the baby gotta go down for the night sooner or later, and why not sooner? Sleep begets more sleep - the more babies sleep, the more they will sleep! Means more time for their brains to grow, and more time for the parents to rest!