Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Another book that had been recommended to me by several folks (including Lilly's pediatrician) was a book titled Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth. This is a helpful resource for new parents like me who are not sure how to balance out the realities of a baby's ability (or inability) to "arrange" sleep into nighttime sleep and naps at any given age, with a parent's desire to work with the child to help them develop healthy sleep cycles.

The author (a pediatrician and sleep specialist who works in Chicago) speaks at length about why a well rested child is good for both the child's long term development, as well as why having a sleeping child also means well-rested parents, and an all-around happier household. He then goes on to describe the sleep patterns of children at different ages (one to four months, four to twelve months, toddlers, etc.)

I think the two key pieces of advice I walked away with from this book was "\if the baby has eaten in less than two hours and starts crying, they're most likely tired instead of hungry, so put them down. The second piece of advice is related to the first: if a child is overstimulated, they'll have a harder time going down because their body releases hormones (just like adults) to try to allow a "second wind" to kick in. You need to "read" your child, to see when they're beginning to get tired, and start to coax thme to sleep before they hit the fussy stage, because by then they're overtired and you'll have a harder time getting them to sleep.

This has made a huge difference for me. Of course, when Lilly was brand new (not that she's still not pretty brand new, at 8 weeks old!) her little stomach was so tiny, I had to nurse her "on demand". Being a new mom, I didn't know that this pattern should change at some point. I went through a fairly hellacious week when she was 4 weeks old. She would keep "rooting" around, signalling to me she was hungry. As another author put it, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"; when your baby cries, you just want to nurse because you know that nursing them will quiet them down. So, I nursed and nursed and nursed and nursed, often times every hour. I had one particularly bad day where she nursed every other breast every 15 minutes. I was in tears and utter pain by the end of the day. I wasn't supposed to feed her bottles or formula yet, so I felt trapped... if I didn't feed her, she couldn't get food, but then again I was in so much pain, it made me very angry towards her. (Massive sleep deprivation didn't help matters.)

Once my pediatrician explained to me the concept of this author, that a baby might be tired instead of hungry, it has made all the difference in the world. Lilly only nurses every two hours now (instead of every hour or 90 minutes) so I'm not hurting as much. On the flip side, she's a happier child because I was depriving her of sleep before when I nursed her, whereas she really needed just to sleep.

A side note: I briefly looked at the book "On Becoming Babywise", which advocates a fairly strict 3 hour cycle of "feed - play - sleep" for the baby. I personally find that too rigid, not in the sense that the book advocates depriving your child, but in the sense that I'm not going to wake up in the middle of the night to feed my child just so I can have less feedings during the day. What I like about the Healthy Sleep Habits book is that it basically tells you to watch the signs your child is making and roll with them; if she's yawning, she's probably tired. Along the same lines, it's not advocating total "on demand" feeding, in the sense that if the baby is acting hungry but is really tired, put her to sleep. However, it seems to leave open the notion that, if the baby is hungry, also look for those signs and feed her. I feel like this is a much more realistic approach to parenting than a strict schedule. (However, having never actually tried out the Babywise method, I can't speak to its effectiveness or not.)

If there are any other moms, I'd love to hear your advice or experience about spacing out sleeping and feedings throughout the day.