Baby Wise

It was another beautiful day!

Enjoying some fresh air...

Toes in the grass for the first time!

Today, I was planning on working really hard to implement the feed/wake/sleep cycle that I mentioned in yesterday's post.  The first thing you are supposed to do is determine when your first morning feeding will be and make sure you are within a half hour of it everyday.  For us, I decided that it would be at 5:00 am because we are usually feeding at that time anyway.

The main idea of the Baby Wise book is to "give your child the gift of [independent] sleep."  In an average of a 3 hour time period, you are supposed to keep them awake while feeding them, have some awake time and then an hour to an hour and a half of sleep, then start the cycle all over again. Somehow, babies seem to magically start sleeping through the night once this daytime cycle has been successfully implemented. Let's just say I failed right out of the gate...

We had our 5am feeding and he fell asleep and was so sweet and snuggly I couldn't bare to wake him up so we just went back to bed for an hour and then we were out of sync for the rest of the cycle.  I was able to gradually get back on for later cycles but it was tricky...  Overall, Ayden did great!

One of the most valuable lessons that I learned in college is to be subjective while reading any book, article, newspaper, etc.  It is important to remember that the author of a piece is not all knowing and that you should keep proper prospective while taking in new information.  During my pregnancy I had read The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and Attachment Parenting which are at the end of the spectrum that suggests that you let nature take it's course, have your baby lead the way and never put them down. On Becoming Baby Wise, though it claims to be in the middle, is closer to the other end of the spectrum that suggests that you are the parent, you are in charge and that you should put your baby down awake so they don't become too dependent on you to fall asleep.

I really enjoyed reading all of the books listed above and have been doing a lot of thinking to come up with my personalized hybrid version that will meet at the best place on the spectrum for Ayden and our family.  Here's what I've come up with...

It is important for me to get more sleep at night.  I would be totally fine with consistent 4 hour sleep sessions and 5 would be AMAZING! That is why I want to give this a try.  I do realize that Ayden will eventually need to take his daytime naps independently but that is one thing I'm not in a hurry for him to achieve...  I LOVE wearing him in the Moby while he naps; and the feeling of him falling asleep on my shoulder after a feeding is more wonderful than words can even begin to describe.  So I have decided to first get Ayden used to the cycles (focusing on when/how long he naps, not where or how) which hopefully increase the duration of his nighttime sleep sessions.  The independent sleep can come later (though he did nap for 45 minutes in his crib today!).  

How can something that feels this wonderful and right be a bad thing???

~Sarah