Sleep & Layla

Layla's sleep journey began much differently than Lincoln's because I was educated. I knew all about wake windows and naps, but most importantly, I knew that the newborn stage goes fast and instead of HATING each wake-up, I had the mentality of "this too shall pass" which was honestly refreshing after having such a hard postpartum period with Link. I felt lucky to have such a happy peanut instead of dreading crossing the room to feed her.

However, my kids are only 15 months apart and that brought on some new struggles that I was not fully prepared for. I did the one thing I said I would NEVER do: co-sleep. Unlike with Lincoln, I now had a 15 month old to chase while cluster-feeding, changing dirty diapers constantly, and bonding with a newborn. When Link went to bed each night, I wanted to, too, since I was exhausted. The first waking each night, I'd grab her and put her in bed with me so I could fall asleep while feeding her and she'd fall asleep after feeding.

Fast forward to 4.5 months old, she was sleeping all night, but in my bed, and something had to change. I hated tiptoeing to the bathroom, worrying about rolling on her, and being stuck in my bed when I wasn't ready or had things to do (remember, that other kid!?)

At 4.5 months old, this is an example of her day:

• 6:55 wake
• 8:35 nap for 42 minutes
• 10:43 nap for 47 minutes
• 12:44 nap for 41 minutes
• 3:02 nap for 23 minutes
• 5:30 nap for 41 minutes
• 6:56 down for night
• Wake at 12:15, 3:27
• 6:25 wake

For being 16 weeks and having little sleep training, I was pretty happy with her schedule. I went into my sleep guides and looked at what her schedule should be like. I'm sure from her example day above you can see there's a lot of naps. She would give me her sleep cue and I'd put her down. But she was sleeping way more than she should've been, so I started to lengthen her wake periods and place her in her crib, sleepy but awake. ​

Instead of this improving her schedule, it only ended up cutting her naps. She became a serial short napper! I would spend a week adding 15 minutes to her periods then taking away 15 minutes again, trying to troubleshoot why she wasn't connecting her cycles. She was going down just fine but at that 45 minute mark, waking. At night she started waking again, too!

I needed her to take better naps so that I could spend some more time with Lincoln (quarantine had me in all my mom guilt feels). I had randomly started following Carianna from All The Sleeps on instagram, and she was running a special for Mother's Day so I jumped on it and contacted her to help me fix these nap problems and figure out what to do.

For two weeks, Carianna helped me go through Layla's sleep problems, transition her to 3 solid naps a day, wean the night wakings/feedings, and get her connecting sleep cycles the appropriate way. She listened to what I was/wasn't comfortable with and developed a plan with me. Sleep is so damn important so I said I would do whatever it takes to help Layla get better, more restful sleep.

For the first week, I was supposed to help lengthen Layla's naps if they were less than an hour, but that quickly flew out of the window because, similar to Lincoln, she only got triggered when I went in. So we started to practice crib hour, which is when they're in there crib for each nap for an hour no matter what. It helps them understand that nap time is nap time and get her to be comfortable in her crib whether asleep or awake. 

I was nervous about Lincoln waking up if Layla was crying, but having noise machines in each room really helped prevent the rest of us from hearing each other. I didn't do anything in one night with Layla so there was no long periods of crying. Instead, because she had a solid foundation, it was just little bursts of protest that were easy to ease.

At 6 months, this is an example of her day:

• 6:53 wake
• 9:00 nap for 2 hr 7 minutes
• 1:47 nap for 43 minutes
• 6:05 bed
• Wake at 2:41
• 6:27 wake