The Bed Time Routine

For a long time after Evie was born, my night went a little like this:

-Feed Evie
-Rock Evie to Sleep
-Put Evie in her newborn napper and hope it doesn't instantly wake her
-Listen intently to any noises/get up and check on her
-Sleep for 15 minutes if she manages to stay quiet long enough for me to fall asleep
-Feed Evie
-Repeat

These days nights are a lot simpler, and go a little something like this:

-7:00PM: Begin feeding Evie. She falls asleep
-7:30PM: Take a break to change her and put her in PJs if she isn't already. This wakes her up
-7:45PM: Finish feeding her
-8:00PM: Swaddle and put her in the Rock n Play
-Enjoy some time with A/Alone time to watch some TV or do something else
-9:30PM: Sleep

And that's pretty much it. I went from basically hoping and praying she'd stay quiet long enough for me to pass out between weird noises to putting her down and her instantly falling asleep when I was going to be up another hour plus anyway. Sometimes she'll spit up and I'll clean it up and she'll go back to bed. And by the time I want to sleep, there are no distracting noises, as she's happily passed out! This has been our routine since about 9 weeks. She's now 11 weeks. She generally sleeps 4+ hours that first stretch. She had two nights where it was 3.75, but even that's an improvement. And last night? 6 hours! I put her down at 8. She spit up at 11:30 for some reason (reflux is an a-hole) so I cleaned her face off and gave her her binky (without having to get up. Co-sleeping FTW [not bed sharing, though. She sleeps in the rock n play because of her reflux]) and she fell right back to sleep. For some reason I kept thinking she was up at 1, but when I went back to sleep it was after 3, and there's no way I was up two hours. Maybe an hour. Maybe. I changed her diaper and fed her and that was it. It took her about 5 minutes to get to sleep, but... there's no way she woke up before 2.

There was a time when I was certain she would never, ever sleep, but we've gotten into a relatively comfortable routine of about 8-1, then 1:30-5. If she goes to sleep early she's up at 4 and that messes everything up, but, generally speaking, it's a decent schedule where I get 3+ hours, then another 3. And then we take a nap.

We did this with one amazing, magical word: Schedule.

My pediatricians have been telling me to get her on a schedule for forever. And I kept thinking "clearly they don't know my child". My mom was on my case about it. And I just thought they were insane. But one day I decided to throw caution to the wind and put Evie on an every 3 hours eating schedule. Holy life-changer. The myriad ways things are better is sort of mind-blowing. She still doesn't nap. But she does sleep at night.... ever since that first night. She does start to fuss a bit before each feeding, but normally her pacifier takes care of that. And she's eating more, which, with my tiny peanut is a good thing. She went from taking 2oz whenever she pleased, to taking 4-5oz every 3 hours between 7 and 7. Then she gets up at night and takes 3-4. I feel like things are so much more manageable. I don't have to wonder if she's going to start screaming when we go out because I know how much she ate and when and I know when her next feeding is. She wakes up smiling because she actually slept! Rather than attempting sleep at 10pm and waking up every 2 hours. And that little 45 minute nap we get from 5:30-6:15 or so every day is my favorite part of the day. I wake up, bring her up to my lap or my chest and we sleep. Then I wake up and she's happy and smiling at me. That smile melts me. It's changed who I am in the most fantastic of ways. And it's because we put her on a schedule.

I don't know that this would work for everone.. but it works for us. She's happy. I'm happy. We're rested. And life? It's good.