A friend gave me a copy of On Becoming Babywise about a month before our oldest child was born (gosh, that was 11 years ago!). The premise is to put your infant on a sleep/wake schedule so they have a routine to their day and start sleeping through the night quite early. We have followed most of the plan and this very light-sleeping mommy is happy to report that all our babies started sleeping 6-8 hours stretches at night at around 2 months of age. In their own room.
Now, over the years I have heard many, many critiques, angry comments, accusations of neglect... from other mothers for following this plan. But what is so evil about making sure that a baby eats and is awake every 2-3 hours during the day? What is so horrid about making sure a baby doesn't sleep all day and stay up all night? I do have other children that need my attention and if I had experienced much more sleep-deprivation I doubt we would have had more than 1-2 children. I certainly have not had to deal with issues like these (from Faith and Family's coffee talk board this week):
I have an 18 month old who will sleep for a few hours on his own in a crib but then starts waking beginning about 1 a.m and wakes several times during the night. I have taken to bringing him into our bed and letting him nurse. However, he ends up nursing most of the night, latching on and off every 5 to 10 minutes... I love my son dearly, but my husband and I are suffering from sleep deprivation. I’m in my seventh month of pregnancy and having great difficulty being comfortable nursing and sleeping with my pregnant tummy.
We co-slept with our babies and they have never left! They are between 6 and 10 years old now and they will not, cannot sleep by themselves. We tried putting them in a room with each other but it wasn’t not enough. They are scared, they want snuggling, etc. They can’t even go to sleep until one of us lays down with them. So here we are, still all together. We’ve tried to force the issue several times over the years but we caved after all the wailing and sleepless nights.
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2 comments:
I successfully used the Babywise approach with both of my children too. I hadn't thought of it before but what a great gift idea for a new mother. Our children still have wonderful sleep habits.
~Dana @ oursunnyside
*shrug* Our experience was the opposite. . . Babywise undermined my milk supply and led to a lot of family stress. We discarded it, and were able to breastfeed successfully and had no problems with sleeping.
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