Sleep Saga

This is what Felix looked like after his first time sleeping through the night.

We don't have too much to complain about really, Felix has been a good sleeper. He never had day and night confused. He has always just woken up to eat and goes back to sleep almost instantly. There was a little bit more to it when he was younger, but for the most part we avoided feeding or rocking him to sleep. From about 1.5 months, we started putting him down slightly more awake each time and he had no problems learning to fall asleep on his own, gradually without the swaddle but still loving the pacifier.



At around 2 months old he was only waking up at midnight and then at 5am...then came the "Four Month Sleep Regression". He would wake up every 2 or 3 hours again...gradually, like clockwork back to waking up every 3 hours like when he was a newborn.



The challenge has been snacking. He wants to wake up to eat. My dear work spouse, Lisa, recommended reading The Sleep Easy Solution. I loved its advice on weaning the night feedings. The general idea was to time your feeds and then gradually decrease the number of minutes you nurse each night.



I started doing this when he was about five months and managed to cut out one waking entirely. I was pleased, but then realized he was only BFing once per night and I was sad because as annoying as interrupted sleep can be, there is nothing sweeter than feeding a sleepy little baby in the middle of the night. I know I'm a nostalgic fool, but I wasn't quite ready to let go. Over the last couple of nights, with no parent interference, that feed has moved from 2am to 3am to 3:30am to 4:30am...and finally this morning I woke up at 5:30 feeling very uh "full" with Steve's elbow in my face and lay there just hoping he would wait until 6 to wake up. And he did it. First time sleeping through the night!



I know this doesn't mean that we will get this every night in the future, but it's a big milestone for both of us and I'm so proud of Felix.