Sleep habits

Since before my first baby was born, I researched sleeping because I found it one of the top 5 of being important on my baby list. Niah was such a great sleeper, she started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks old and always napped well. As she got older her night time sleep habits were getting worse waking several times in the night. Anyways, I read the best book on sleep I have found called "Healthy sleep habits, Happy Child," started applying the book to Niah's schedule and you can read about that here (I wish I would have read it before she was 9 months old). Now, I have a wonderful sleeper!! The only time she does not sleep well is when she is not feeling well and she had a little trouble when I came home from the hospital. She is 22 months goes to sleep between 7 and 7:30 wakes up between 8 and 9, and never wakes in the night. She takes one 3 hour nap during the day, she puts herself to sleep and does great. Everyone once in awhile she will need help going to sleep but for the most part I lay her down and she goes to sleep great.

Now I have baby boy to think about and I never read the book for Niah, when she was that young and the author, Weissbluth makes some very interesting comments on babies sleep before the age of 4 months. He even addresses babies and their eating habits and his main goal is that a baby is taken care of but learns to self-soothe. He even says in the beginning of the book you do not like an idea of mine just rip that page out. So far little man is a great sleeper, he tends to want to be held more in the evening but I love cuddle time. Right, now Malachi is not old enough to have a rythmic sleep pattern but will be approaching it shortly as he comes on 6 weeks. I have to admit when we get home in the evenings I do spend a long amount of time cuddling with my sweet boy but at night I always try to lay him down as soon as he gets done eating so he is use to that routine. My main goal is to get a good sleeper and help Malachi to not become overtired. Weissbluth says most babies under 4 months should not have any awake time longer than 2 hours. The next few weeks as my little man starts to form a schedule I plan to try and be really sensitive to his cues of being tired and help him get into a routine. I hope he is as good as a sleeper as his sister.

Anyone have any good advice for getting a good self soothing sleeper.

Here is my sweet boy taking a nap with me.

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