Babywise revisited

It seems most people have a strong opinion about Babywise (if they're familiar with it) - either they think it's GREAT or they think it's AWFUL. I used to spend time on discussion boards, but since having Nadia I have stopped visiting any. I had to cut something out, and I would rather keep reading blogs than db's. Well I recently was invited to join "Circle of Moms" on Facebook, and I haven't spent time on it, but this morning I saw a post (as they sent a summary to my email) on sleeping through the night so I went and read the thread. MANY people responded and of course the usual books were mentioned by different people - Dr. Sears, Ferber, Babywise, Weissbluth, etc. and some people were again really in favor of Babywise and other cry it out methods and others posted that such methods are unhealthy for the child, etc.

I would say I am more neutral on the topic than most people seem to be. I gave it a try with Nadia. One thing I couldn't find in the book was how long to let her cry. When I read of someone letting their baby cry 5 hours, I think that's way too long. I could never let Nadia cry for 5 hours straight without trying to calm her down. Weissbluth says for a nap to let them cry at the most 1 hour. From ages 5-12 months he says there is no limit to how long you let them cry during the night. Of course all of this is assuming that baby's needs have been met (not hungry, not sitting in a poopy diaper, not sick, etc.). For ages 5-12 months Weissbluth recommends a bedtime between 6-8pm and a morning get up time of 7am (6am at the very earliest). He says that some babies need to be fed at most 2 times during that 12 hour stretch such as say midnight and 5am or something like that, but he says by 9 months old at the latest they should be able to go the whole 12 hours without any feedings. So that has been my current plan with Nadia is to make her go at least 4 hours at night in between feedings and to keep working towards 1 feeding and then eventually (by 9 months at the latest) no nighttime feedings.

If "sleeping through the night" means having one stretch of at least 5-7 hours, then she's been doing that most nights (of course not every night) since she was about 12 weeks old. When she was that young her bedtime was later so it felt more like she was sleeping through the night, but now that her bedtime has been earlier it hasn't felt that way to me, but technically she has been. Allison wisely suggested that I let Nadia have another nap at say 5pm and that would help push her bedtime back to 8pm instead of 6pm. Last night Paul let her have one last nap around 4pm so she didn't go to bed until 7:15pm. Unfortunately she had a poopy diaper a couple of hours later so last night wasn't a good example of having a nice long stretch. However, I am hopeful that if we can put her to bed later that she won't think 4:00am is the time to get up for the day. Yesterday when she woke up early I did nurse her but then she slept until 7:30 so that was pretty good. This morning she woke up at 5:40 and since I was leaving for work I decided to let her get up then so I would be able to nurse her. I think that's part of the problem. I know consistency is important. I want her to sleep in until 6 or preferrably 7am on T, Th, Sat, and Sundays but I don't mind when she gets up earlier than that on MWF as I prefer to nurse her before I leave rather than pump. So I really don't think we can work on this wake up time until the semester is over as then I can be consistent about not letting her get up before 6am, and I think I will shift that to not letting her get up until 7am if her bedtime is shifted to 7 or 8pm.

Anyhow it's not that I was opposed to Babywise when I read it, but it just didn't seem to work for Nadia. Maybe it was because she was premature and I was so worried about her gaining weight. I was scolded for letting her cry in the NICU as that would burn too many calories. I was encouraged to do demand feeding since we had to work so hard to get her to gain weight. As long as it took her to get back to her birth weight, technically she should have been labeled with "failure to thrive." Let me tell you I am VERY glad her pediatrician didn't use those words with me even though she fit the definition. If she had used those words, I am almost positive I would have given up completely on nursing. So I am glad no one used that label. I think it also had to do with her being rather fussy for awhile there - almost colicky. When I tried to let her cry to sleep instead of nursing her to sleep she would cry for an hour or more and still not go to sleep, and then she would be so worked up it would take me a long time to get her calmed down. Being overly tired makes it harder for little ones to sleep, and so it was a vicous cycle. She was getting almost no sleep during the day and not that much at night either. That was why I gave up on trying to follow Babywise awhile back. However, if we have another baby, I might try it again. I'm not opposed to it, but when Nadia was smaller it didn't seem to be what was best for us.

However, now I actually do follow some of the practices recommended by Babywise, Weissbluth, and others. For example, I carefully watch the clock but I also carefully watch Nadia. I have in mind based upon the clock when each nap time will start, but I adjust that in either direction based on her behavior. I look for things like yawns, rubbing her eyes, etc. as the signals to guide me, and nap times are now 90% of the time a breeze. Sometimes she doesn't cry at all. Most of the time it seems she feels the need to cry for at least a few seconds. It cracks me up as sometimes she really starts in a loud scream (not a little whimper) but by the time I have walked from her crib to the door of her bedroom she has already stopped crying. Rarely does she cry more than 3 minutes these days...except for when her schedule gets all messed up like yesterday when I went to the dentist. The same goes for when she is put down at night. I would say at least 90% of the time she puts herself to sleep these days, and 10% or less of the time she is nursed or rocked to sleep at any time of day or night. Her favorite way to soothe herself is to suck her thumb. She cries for a few seconds and then pops her thumb in her mouth and starts sucking away. It's sooo cute. Yay for thumbs! The only time she cries for an extended period of time is at night when she wakes up 2 hours after she has just been fed, and I just let her cry. Hopefully in the next few weeks that will stop being an issue as it is hard for me to listen to her cry that long, but I know she can go longer than 2 hours without being fed.