Bedtime Blunders

Horray!! Bryn is sleeping through the night!! 7-8 hours straight :)  Aside from luck and LOTS of prayers, I believe we have nailed this whole bedtime thing. **Knocking hard on wood**

I think instead of telling you what works, I will tell you what didn't work.

Here is a list of our Biggest Bedtime Blunders:

1. Letting her sleep longer than 2 hours at a time during the day: This one should be a given. If I take a nap longer than that in a day I have a hard time sleeping at night too. It is tempting when she hasn't slept much the night before to lay down and sleep with her for hours on end during the day but to get to the end result of a sleepy nightime baby you have to cut out those long naps. I usually try to keep her up for at least an hour after she eats and this helps her to nap less because she wakes up hungry for her next feeding after about 45 minutes.
2. Putting her down for the night before she is in a deep sleep: When she was less than a month old she had a really hard time being put down. Everytime we put her down she would wake right back up a soon as her little body hit the mattress. She required TONS of rocking, swaddling, shushing, and pacience to go to bed for the night. It took around an hour! We were exhausted by the time she went to bed only to wake up 2 hours later so she could eat again. We were so anxious for her to fall asleep that we would put her down prematurely and pray she would stay asleep. Finally we figured out the signs of Bryn being TOTALLY asleep: open mouth, deep breathing, and limp arms. Then we waited at least 7 minutes after we noticed all of these signs and we would put her down. Now she can be put down, at 2 months old, with a nuk, swaddled, full belly, and half awake and she will put herself to sleep the rest of the way. What a difference a few months can make.
3. Going to get her before she is REALLY crying: I know I don't have the only baby that cries in her sleep. She has gotten us a few times where she is crying on the monitor, pretty loud, and we went to get her to change her diaper or give her a bottle and we walk in and she is sound asleep when we open the door. Other times she is wide awake and we stick the nuk back in her mouth and go back to bed for a few hours. Just because she was crying didn't mean she needed anything. This is really the trick to getting her to sleep through the night! As soon as we stopped picking her up everytime she cried or fussed she was sleeping longer and longer stretches. By no means do we ignore her and let her cry it out. I believe that if you do that in the first few months they learn to not trust you. Just my opinion. 
4. Turning on the lights: From day one we started turning out the lights in the house around 8pm. From then until morning Bryns little world was very dim. I put a nightlight in her room so that we did not kill ourselves tripping over anything when we went to get her for feedings but other than that there was no light. We even keep the lights turned out for diaper changing and feedings.
5. Talking after night waking: Rule of thumb: the less stimulation after bedtime the better. The more relaxed she is the better she will sleep. Anytime she wakes up during the night we keep our lips zipped unless a little shushing is required :)
6. Keeping her bassinet in our room: This lasted one day in our house. Anytime she would fuss we would be up like a shot and making sure she was okay. Putting her in her own room with a monitor that only picked up after a certain decible helped US sleep better.
7. Not putting diaper cream on before bed: When she did start sleeping more through the night she wasn't waking up to have her diaper changed. This resulted in a mild case of diaper rash from being in a wet diaper for a long period of time. Now every night before bed we put lots of cream on to avoid this. No diaper rash in the morning anymore :)

Here is our basic routine for bedtime in the Davis house:

• 8pm: Bathtime! This relaxes little Bryn to the point where she has actually fallen asleep in the bath tub a few times
• 8:15: Lotion and PJs: Bryn likes the fleece ones from Carters.
• 8:30: Last little playtime/giggle time- She is pretty much ready for bed by this time but if she isn't we play a little
• 9pm: Last bottle: I offer her at least 5 oz. but if she will eat more I will give it to her. Full tummy= happy/sleepy baby
• 9:30: Snuggle time-We swaddle her and a half hour of cuddling and she is OUT!
• 10pm: Bed time!
• 5-6am: Diaper Change and Bottle and back to Bed! Usually takes around an hour to do everything.
• 7-8am: We are awake for the day :)

Sweet dreams! :)