I don’t know why people say the phrase, “Sleeping like a baby.” Unless they are using it to be ironic, it’s a stupid phrase. Babies need to learn to sleep- it’s not something they just do. More often than not, they wake up a LOT and do not sleep like babies- they wake up like babies.

My first born, a little girl I call Bea, was the greatest sleeper of all time since the age of nine weeks. She slept 12 hours- in a swing- but she still slept 12 hours. Awesome. After a while, we started putting her in her bed and she would cry for a few minutes and then play and sing herself to sleep. She is now two and still does this. To this day she puts up quite the protest about going to sleep but as soon as I walk out of her room, the screaming ceases and she is in la-la land, reading a book or singing or playing with her blanket. It’s all a show. Then she falls asleep and doesn’t get up for 12-13 hours. Brilliant little child.

Now, my little boy, Ben, is a completely different story. He is now six months old and sometimes he sleeps, and sometimes he wakes up screaming bloody murder at 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning. About two months ago, he really started sleeping well through the night. I would nurse him around 7:30 pm and he would pass out in a milk coma. I would put him down in his bed and he would sleep soundly. Since he was falling asleep eating, I decided that he should probably go to sleep on his own. Learning good sleep habits is a very important skill and one I want both my kids to acquire, if not for them, then for me and my sanity.

So I started putting him to bed between 6-6:30pm. He’s so great about going to sleep. I bathe him, read him a few books, sing him a song, then give him a kiss from everyone in the family and wish him sweet baby dreams. No crying, no screaming, no nothing. He just rolls on his side and hums himself to sleep. I would then wake him up around 10:30-11pm for a final nursing and he would sleep until about 6:30am. Wonderful. Well, about a month ago, I cut out that late feeding basically because I was passing out cold before I could feed him. Oops. Well- he took to it well and could go from 6pm-6:30am without that final nursing. I thought I was home free.

Beware the growth spurt.

Ben is now waking up during the night again- has done this all week. I nurse him and he eats as if he has never eaten ever. I am going back to my late feeding and crossing my fingers that this works. After a week, I am going to go back to skipping it again. It should do the trick. Cross your fingers for me.

If you have any tips, please share. I’ll keep you updated on how Big Ben does. He’s bound to sleep through the night at some point right?