Sleep Routines

Little man has been struggling somewhat with getting to sleep. Not terribly, but not great.

Our bedtime routine has him getting to bed around 6:30 to 7:00. We come home from daycare and play, eat dinner (more on baby's good eats in another post), have a bath, play more. Between 6 and 7 we will brush Little Man's teeth, read a story and get into the crib.

More often than not he goes to sleep. Lately, he has fussing and then sleep.

Tonight, he went into the crib, cried like "WTF?" and he bellows occasionally. But he also sucks his fingers, holds onto his Fox in Sox or his blanket and self soothes. He's usually asleep asleep by 7:15. He may wakeup at some point in the evening, but we rarely pick him up. He cries for 15 seconds and then it's back to sleep.

Writing it out, it doesn't look so bad. But there are times when I just worry that he is going to be up forever. If we don't get him into bed at the right time, then he's so overtired he just CAN'T fall asleep.

It makes us careful of his schedule, because if we can hit the sweet spot, tired but not overtired, then he goes down blissfully. Otherwise? it's just stress.

Classical Music Makes Me Fall Asleep Too

Little Man and Boo both have Tiny Love's Farm Animal Mobile at their respective cribs. Both love to watch the motion of the mobile, which I will say is oddly hypnotic.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard it cycle through Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. Each time at some point both babies fall asleep.


Some kids in primary grades fall asleep at story time at school. The sound of someone reading aloud is so deeply ingrained as part of their bedtime routine, that it triggers a sleep response. So, here's what I think. I'm training them to fall asleep when they hear classical music. Don't know if that's a bad thing or a typical thing.

There are Rules?

So, in reading around the interweb, I have come across folks talking about the 2-Hour Rule. For those of you who aren't in the know on this one, apparently you are supposed to get your darling noodle to be awake for no more than 2 hours at a time. To which I say, "BUH?"

Granted, Little Bug's start is different than most babies. The nurses in the NICU had him on a strict 3 hour schedule as soon as possible. Before we took him home, he was Mr. Regular Schedule Man.

When he got home, he was on several different medications that he was scheduled to take every 3 hours. Because all of the meds were compounded for him, he took them orally, in his bottle of expressed breastmilk (more on that later) every 3 hours, so the every-3-hour schedule remained the same. Change diaper, feed, put down to sleep. Even at 2:30 AM and again at 5:30 AM. Our household got into the rhythm of his life.

Now that he has been off the meds for a couple of months, our routine has slacked. We feed him when he's hungry, which is every two hours this week as he appears to be in a growth spurt, we put him down to sleep when he gets tired.

And, you know what, for the most part he sleeps through the night. He's up at 5:00 or 6:00 AM, and he naps for extremely short periods of time. Then he goes to sleep at about 6:00 PM with occasional wake ups for extra food until we go to bed at 9:00 or 10:00 PM.

But there are plenty of periods of time where he is up for way more than 2 hours. We lead an active life and he joins us on hikes and shopping trips and he even goes with us for pedicures. If he falls asleep while we are out, that's great. But if not we don't stress about it if he seems happy, which he does most of the time as his adorable and incessant giggling show. Do we force him to nap every 2 hours? Oh hell no.

And this may be a radical thing to believe, but I kind of think that Little Bug tells us what he needs. When he has got his crank on, sure, it's time to nap. But I don't think I'm depriving him of much needed nappage right now (if anything, he deprives ME of it).

Maybe that's why some of the parenting stuff is so wild to me. Little Bug lets us know and I'd wager many babies do the same. Scheduling rules and the like seem so a product of needing to control anything. Perhaps I'm Bad Mommy because I have learned a thing or two about wanting control and not having it. Perhaps I'm not setting the boundaries necessary for future happiness. Hell. Perhaps I'm raising a Future Insomniac for America.

But, honestly, it doesn't matter. As long as Little Bug keeps kicking and giggling and smiling, I think we're okay.