As a breastfeeding mama, I learned to let go of this false notion of sleep schedules early on. As in, 2 or 3 weeks into this. And you know why? Well, for starters, breast milk is all natural and highly digestible--and this is the choice I've made. So the baby could really be hungry after just an hour after a full feeding, or 3 or 4 hours. That's just how it is. So when I decided to let go of this "sleep or feeding schedule," and be at peace with "whatever may be" and "whatever it wanted to be," my life was so much more peaceful and stress free. Because I thought, seriously, why would I want to let my baby go hungry because "it's the schedule and that's how it's supposed to be 'cause I said so!" Or the "cry it out method" which has been soooo badly misused and don't even get me started on that! But I've never once implemented a "sleep schedule," and yet, the sleep schedule just happened on its own, organically. Nice! Bambina usually eats and goes down at around the same time each night now. She then "sleeps through the night", which in babyland means 6 hours. Once in a while now it varies between every 2-5 hours. Although last night she slept a whopping 7 hours. (She ate a lot yesterday though which is probably why.) But when she gets up at night, I breast feed her on the bed in the lying down position, and when she's done eating, she goes right back to sleep. Then I put her back in her crib. Simple. Done.
I know that some moms (or dads) are really strict with this notion of schedules. Baby needs to eat a certain time, and nap or sleep at a certain time. And it has to be the same way everyday. But I know that as a grown ass adult myself, sure I have a certain time everyday that I wake up, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and hit the hay. But that doesn't mean that on some days I'm hungrier for some reason so I have a snack. Or I'm particularly tired so I have to take a nap. We are natural beings, that's just how it is. I would imagine that formula fed babies (or FF) would be easier to set on a rigid schedule, since "babies don't know when to stop" when they eat formula. So you can feed them tons and have them knock out. It's similar to when we eat junk food or fast food. We get really full and sleepy, and may sleep hard and for a long time. But the food we ate wasn't necessarily the healthiest or will take a while to digest. It's empty carbs and fat. Know what I mean?
My point is, that I let go of trying to establish a rigid schedule, and now I am working towards establishing a loose schedule, based on the patterns that I see my baby taking on. Like, when she wakes up, when she's hungry, when she wants to play or take a nap or when she's ready to go down for the night. She's happy with it, I'm happy with it. Cool. And this is just what worked for me, personally. I believe that having an infant has to be a self-less act. It's all about this baby now. I've been gifted this challenge, so I want to be there for her and her needs 100%. Because, so I hear, before I know it, she will be off to college and I will be wishing I had her right next to me in her little bassinet wanting to be held by mommy. In the end, I've been sleeping good at night and so has she. So there you go. The sleep schedule is a success in my book. Well, at least for now. Teething is in the works, so we'll see how well she sleeps through that. I'll keep you posted :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment