Category Archives: Sleep Training

Sleep Training Part 2: Sleeping Through The Night

(Excerpted from Sleep Training Part 1) To SKIP this section and go straight to Part 2, Click Here

Sleep Training isn’t new. The formal rules/guidelines are rather new, but I asked my mom what she did with my brother and me, and she said she didn’t train us to sleep. She had me in my nursery room, they didn’t have a monitor, and she closed my door and closed their bedroom door. She said “Yeah you probably cried, but you were fine.” ha!

Some parents choose not to formally sleep train and to let their baby grow into their own natural rhythms of sleeping and needing comfort through parental intervention. That’s completely fine and each and every family goes about the topic of sleeping at their own approach. After hearing some horror stories of non-sleep trained babies, we decided before Jia was born that we would read up, take notes, and train Jia.

So what’s “Sleep Training”? Continue reading “Sleep Training Part 2: Sleeping Through The Night” »

Sleep Training Part 1: Weaning from Night Feedings

“Awww, how cute. Is she sleeping through the night?” Seems like I got this question 1 out of every 3 strangers we met. For me, I didn’t mind it too much. That’s because when she was little, she wasn’t expected to (not yet) and when she was older, she slept for about 5 hours at a time so I wasn’t complaining. However, it doesn’t help me from feeling like I’m jinxing ourselves for that night. If you’re a new parent, I’m sure you have gotten this question a fair number of times.

This post is mostly for new parents who have heard about “sleep training,” but don’t know the details, parents who are having restless nights, those sleeping in few-hour increments, those who have babies who cry a lot when put to bed, and those who are anticipating the need to sleep train to get those delicious-sounding 12-hour stretches with baby sleeping soundly.

If you’ve already weaned from night feedings and need to know the next step, or have already read this post, read Part 2: Sleeping Through the Night.

So what’s “Sleep Training”? Continue reading “Sleep Training Part 1: Weaning from Night Feedings” »

Your Snoozin Sprout

Whether or not you plan to (or currently) “sleep train” your baby, new parents and parents-to-be are familiar with wondering if their baby will be a “good sleeper,” or if they will be up all night long. It seems as though the instant you bring your baby home, strangers and family members start to ask “ohhh is she sleeping through the night yet?”

For some, it’s nothing more than an innocent question, but for others it can be obnoxious. Tired parents will sense a notion of judgment or eagerness to hear of the parent’s failure to being able to keep their baby asleep, or they just dread hearing the question because it reminds them of how little sleep they are actually getting.

Good sleeper or not, there’s one thing that I think we can all agree on – that newborns sleep differently than young infants, and young infants sleep differently than older babies. When Jia was sleeping in our living room in her crib, Jeff and I tiptoed around our 1-bedroom condo like you wouldn’t believe. For a handful of weeks I was living on-edge after 8:30 PM. I dreaded bedtime. Whether it was the dogs barking at something they heard outside our window, needing to take a quick trip to the fridge, opening and closing our squeaking front door (thank you WD-40) or wondering if the dropping of the shampoo bottle in the shower was enough to rouse her from her light sleep, I was going nuts.

Nowadays, in her own room sleeping 11-11.5 hours straight, I still wonder: how come our friends’ toddler needs the clanking of pots and pans or loudly opening and closing dresser drawers to wake up, whereas sometimes it seems Jia can sleep through an army passing by her door but other nights her sleep will be disturbed by Jeff blowing his nose next door?

We started talking about this and I became curious – how are sleep patterns and brain waves different for infants and toddlers, and when do they change?

Continue reading “Your Snoozin Sprout” »

For Crying Out Loud…!

Crying. Screaming. Tears. Red-faced. Sweaty. It can drive a newor even an experienced parent crazy, left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, confused, and fed up.

We have been really lucky – Jia really was never much of a crier. The only time we really experienced much crying with her was in the early days when she was trying to teach us what she needed – to be fed. After that, around 3 months old (like the photo above), she only cried when she was in an unfamiliar place and someone else wanted to try holding her, or if we were in the car. Yep, the “drive the baby around the block to stop their crying” didn’t work for us at all. She’d be a happy smiley baby and the second you got in the car, you better hope you didn’t hit the red light on your 1/2 mile drive to Target.

Anyway, we attribute our happy hardly-crying baby to white noise and swaddling, which we started literally from the day she was born. Jia was swaddled basically the whole time we were in the hospital and when she cried, Jeff immediately placed her on her side and shushed then jiggled her and she became serene. Immediately. I wanted to share with you what tips for white noise and swaddling we swear by. Continue reading “For Crying Out Loud…!” »