for nan. baby sleep. :)

i hope this doesn't seem like i think i know what i am doing, because i don't. :) but my friend nan asked and i can't remember how many times i've had this conversation with other moms, because all of us moms love to "talk shop" about our babies and techniques that work for us. because lord knows, when you have tried EVERYTHING you can think of and are just worn out, you will try ANYTHING someone tells you that might possibly even get you 10 more minutes of sleep (or whatever it is you are dealing with) so i will share what has worked for us (thus far) in our very limited experience with two babies. and nan, if this comes back to bite me in the buns and she quits being a good sleeper, well then i am coming after you. haha.

1. read a book, read message boards, blogs, as many things like this as you can to get all the information you can and find stuff that makes sense and works for you. i really like dr weissbluth's book, healthy sleep habits happy child. we don't follow it to an extreme, but it's got a lot of good information and seems to jive with what our pediatrician shares with us. things i love that he points out:
- lay the baby down drowsy but awake, establish any kind of routine you can as early as you can and stick to it, don't let them get overtired, try to lay them in the same places for sleep as much as possible, the earlier kids go to sleep the more they will sleep (i believe he says "sleep begets sleep"). that last one may not apply to newborn babies, but reese has been going to sleep about 8:30 most nights and sleeping until about 6 or 7! so it might even be true for them! but those are some of his principles we have tried to stick to and have worked well for us, even as we tweak link's routine as he gets older.

2. as SOON as i get clearance from my pediatrician to let the baby keep sleeping and not wake them to feed, i do it. with reese it was at two weeks. :)

3. with link, i SWORE it was starting a bottle of formula rather than breast milk for the "last" feeding (assuming you can find a time they are getting a long stretch during the night - that would be the "last" feeding to me). with reese, it has been swaddling before her last feeding. link hated the swaddle, reese loves it. and who knows on the formula, although i know other people that feel the same way. reese has taken some formula here and there, but not with any consistency at bedtime. again, i think it has to do with a routine and finding what works for your baby, and that just takes time.

4. making sure they are well burped all day long. to me, if a baby is crying, you should see if they need to be burped, b/c it seems it is often the culprit with mine. so i try to make sure we get good burps at every feeding to make sure they are comfortable for sleep.

5. plain ol' luck. both of my babies were big (9lbs and 9.2lbs) at birth. wives tales say bigger babies sleep better, and for mine, that has been true. they eat a lot and sleep a lot. reese is eight weeks old and weighs 12 pounds. :)

there you go, nan. that's about all i've got. we don't do a whole lot of "crying it out" around here until our babies are about three months, but we did that with link and it was much faster at a younger age to train him than most of our friends experienced that waited longer. could have been a coincidence, but i don't know! we plan to do that with reese once she is three months. today she did it on her own in about 25 seconds while i ran to check on link after laying her in her crib.

hope something here is new for you and clicks with your little guy!