Let me start out by saying that I’m not saying that I don’t believe that the following situation cannot happen because I hated it when I heard people say that “parents who say their babies sleep through the night are lying.”  Abigail totally did very early, and I didn’t want people thinking I was lying about that.  So anyway . . .

At our garage sale, a family came with their 9 month old.  Here’s how our conversation went:

Man: How old is she?

Me: 15 months.

Man: So, is she off the Pampers?

Me: Umm, do you mean, ‘Is she potty trained?’

Man: Yep.

Me: Um, no, she’s only 15 months, and we’re not going to work on that for awhile.

Man: Oh, that’s weird.

Me: What do you mean?

Man: My oldest child was off the Pampers at one year.

Hmmm.  I’m not accusing him of lying, by any means.  I’m just skeptical.  Abigail is a very smart girl, but I know she’s incapable of pulling down underwear, sitting on a potty, wiping, washing hands, etc.

So, I just wanted to know from you parents: How old was your child when you started potty training, and when were they fully trained.

I was going to write a post about movie reviews, but that will wait until next week, I guess.  I just got off the phone with my lovely cousin and friend Katie.  We were talking about her sweet, new, GORGEOUS baby girl.  She reminded me about some feeding charts that I had made to keep track of Abigail’s eating/poops/wet diapers/sleeping times, etc.

In the hospital, they give you about 4 or 5 pages of charts.  But, I had a c-section, so I was in the hospital for awhile and never got a chance to make a copy of an unused chart.  Thus, I had to make my own.

So, remember to keep a clean chart from the hospital to make several copies.  Or, you can use my charts that I made.  This first one is the one I used for her first few weeks.

Once she was okay with weight gain, started eating less than 8 times a day, and didn’t need wet/dirty diapers counted, I started using this chart.

The charts will get bigger if you click on them.  If you need the charts in Microsoft Word so you can customize them more, let me know, and I’ll email you copies.

This is a continuation of this post: Baby Sleeping Through the Night.  Please read it before you read the following post:

If you decide to follow our scheduling, it’s important to devote time to sleep training and be consistent.  Give it at least a week!  But optimally, try to have no disruptions to the routine for at least two weeks– except for maybe church.  In other words, I don’t think this should be done half heartedly.

Before we would put Abigail down to sleep, we’d think of the possible things that might make her cry: gas, dirty diaper, body temperature, hunger, sickness, etc.  So, before I’d put her in bed, I would always change her diaper and try to get her to burp.

I don’t like the term: “cry it out” because the definition is different for everyone.  Some think this means to let your baby cry until they fall asleep, regardless of how long it takes.  We never did this with Abigail.  In our case, letting Abigail cry for a small period of time was necessary for the initial sleep training.

Here’s what we did with her: We would put her in her crib, walk away, and look at the clock when she started to cry.  If she was still crying after 10 minutes, we (most times, I’d send Jonathan so that Abigail would not smell my milk and so I wouldn’t be tempted to nurse her) would go into her room, pat/shhhh her for awhile (most times, she would stop crying), and then leave.  We would not take her out of bed/I would not nurse her.  If she started crying again, we’d watch the clock, and if she was still crying after 10 minutes, we’d go check on her again.  Sometimes, we’d let her cry up to 15 minutes– but never more.  We’d repeat this process of checking on her until she’d stop crying for good and fall asleep.  This never took more than 2-3 times of going in to check on her.

For example, her pattern would go like this: Night 1: cry for 10 and 6 minutes.  Night 2: cry for 10 and 10 and 2 minutes.  Night 3: cry for 3 minutes.  Night 4: cry for 6 minutes.  So, it might seem like baby’s backtracking, but if you stick with it, it will eventually go away, and you will have a baby that sleeps at night without crying at all, like Abigail has done for about a year now.

Also, if she fell asleep but woke up after a few hours, we’d let her stir or cry if we knew she wasn’t hungry due to a growth spurt, etc.

In my copy of The American Academy of Pediatrics, Caring for Your Baby: Birth to Age Five - The Complete and Authoritative Guide, Steven P. Shelov, M.D., F.A.A.P, on pages 188-189, it says

Sometimes you may think your baby is waking up when she’s actually going through a phase of very light slumber. She could be squirming, startling, fussing, or even crying and still be asleep. Or she may be awake but on the verge of drifting off again if left alone. Don’t make the mistake of trying to comfort her during these moments; you’ll only awaken her further and delay her going back to sleep. Instead, if you let her fuss and even cry for a few minutes, she’ll learn to get herself to sleep without relying on you. Some babies actually need to let off energy by crying in order to settle into sleep or rouse themselves out of it. As much as fifteen to twenty minutes of fussing won’t do your child any harm. Just be sure she’s not crying out of hunger or pain, or because her diaper is wet. Though it may be difficult just to let her cry for even a minute or two, you and she will be much better off in the long run.”

When Abby cried, sometimes it would seem like forever (because listening to a cry is disheartening, and we might feel guilty or selfish).  But really, when we’d look at the clock, we’d realize it was only for a minute or two (sometimes more, sometimes less).  We would keep track of how long she cried; I’d write it down.  It also helped pass the time if we distracted ourselves during this time, by going outside with the monitor to talk, pull weeds, play card games, etc.

If you decide to do this, my biggest advice is to be consistent.  Do not be wishy washy because this will confuse your baby and might make issues worse.  In the teaching phase, don’t not get them out of bed sometimes and then get them out at other times.  You set the rules and stick to them.  Best of luck to you who try!  Let me know if you have questions or need clarification.

I have been meaning to do this post for about a year, but I’ve put it off because I know it is a sensitive subject for many moms.  But to you who are not mommies yet and need a plan before your baby’s born, I hope I can help!

Jonathan and I were blessed with a daughter who started sleeping through the night at 5 weeks.  Author, Dr. Cathryn Tobin (I haven’t read her books) says that, “When a baby begins to smile, it’s the perfect time to encourage healthy sleep habits.”  And that’s when it started working for her.  At five weeks and two days old, she slept 6.5 hours.  Three nights later, she started sleeping 8 hours, and at 2 months old, she slept 9 hours.*  She slept 10 hours at 11 weeks, and right before her 4 month birthday, she started sleeping 12 hours.  And ever since then, she has been sleeping 12-13 hours at night.

Here are some things that worked for us:

1. We kept her on a schedule.  I made sure she got at least 7 feedings in during the day (after she was 2 months, she had 6 feedings), so that she could get that good stretch at night without waking up hungry.  So, I fed her about every 2-3 hours.  I had a log/feeding chart that kept track of when she ate, how much I pumped, how long she slept, how many pees and poopy diapers she had, and if she cried going down.
2. I wouldn’t let her stay asleep after she ate.  Many times, she would fall asleep while she nursed, but after she was finished nursing, I’d wake her up.  (Sounds horribly hard to do, I know).  Then, we’d have play time for about an hour.
3. Then, I’d put her in her bassinet (never did co-sleeping) to nap, while she was drowsy but awake.  In other words, I wouldn’t rock or nurse her to sleep.  We swaddled her the first 4 months so that she wouldn’t wake herself up by her arms twitching, and I think this helped a lot.
4. Then, she would either wake up after an hour of napping, or I’d wake her up to eat when the hour was up.
5. Then, I’d repeat #2-4 until her very last feeding of the night.  Then, instead of keeping her awake for playtime after eating, we’d put her right to bed.

We learned that we needed to take the time to teach Abigail how to fall asleep on her own, so that when/if she would wake up in the middle of the night, she could self soothe herself back to sleep.  Author Suzy Giordano (I never read her book, but I found her quote, and it made sense) says that rocking your child to sleep or driving them to sleep “is creating habits that will keep your baby from learning to go to sleep on their own.”

Now, don’t go thinking Abigail was the miracle child because we dealt with plenty of weeks of inconsolable crying during the day (I don’t like to use the term colic), and she also had Gastroesophogeal Reflux Disease.  But we really owe this to hard work and lots of prayer and God’s grace!  Also, at least eight couples told us about how this scheduling worked to get their babies sleeping through the night around 2 months.  And since Abigail was born, we’ve told a few people about this, and it has worked for four babies.

Next week, I’ll tackle what we did when Abigail cried, being put to bed.  If you want more information sooner than that, just leave a comment, and I’ll get in touch with you.

UPDATE: I did a part 2 to this post here, entitled “What if Baby Cries”

*And during this time, most nights, we would wake her up so we could get all of her feedings in during the day.

**Now, in no way am I telling you “What you are doing is bad or wrong.”  I’m just sharing our experiences because I keep getting asked, “How did you do it!?”

Related Post: Help Newborns Stop Crying