sleep baby sleep

Nowadays, I evaluate a day in terms of Ziv's sleep. If he sleeps till 7am from the previous night (not necessarily continuous), I'm happy. If he gets two solid naps of one to two hours each, I'm thrilled. Based on these criteria, today was a good day. 

He slept at 7pm last night and didn't wake up until 4:30am. I gave him a bottle, changed his diaper and then laid him back on his crib. He went back to sleep around 6am and then woke up to start the day at 7am. He took his first nap at 9am, which lasted for two hours, then his second nap at around 1:30pm. He woke up after 45 minutes though, but that's acceptable to me.

My son, sleeping soundly

See, I'm a bit (or maybe a lot) obsessed about Ziv's sleep habits. I actually monitor how much he sleeps so I know whether he's meeting requirements for his age. According to Sleepy Planet, a six month old infant needs an average of 13 to 15.25 hours of sleep consisting of 11 to 12 hours of nighttime sleep 2 to 3.25 hours of naps. Ziv usually clocks in a total of 14 hours of sleep. So far so good.

When I was pregnant up to Ziv's early days, I thought babies slept when they needed to. I wasn't aware of the rhythms and patterns of infant sleep. When Ziv was a newborn, he confused his days and nights, having his longest stretch of sleep (3 to 4 hours) during the day, waking up in the late evening then calling it a day at midnight then waking up almost every two hours to feed at night. Even so, I considered him a good sleeper for the simple reason that HE SLEPT. 

Things started to change during his third month, when he was hit by the 45-minute intruder. Sure, he started sleeping early (like around 9pm) and had nights when he would sleep through, but during the day, he would only nap for 45 minutes at a time! I felt shortchanged because I would rock him for 30 minutes, he'll fall asleep but then he'd be awake again after 45 minutes. After 90 minutes or less, he'd be sleepy again and the cycle begins. It was EXHAUSTING! That napping pattern didn't do any of us any good. Ziv was in a bad mood; I was in a bad mood and was starting to feel resentful toward my catnapping son. I knew something had to change.

I was also worried because I wasn't sure whether he was getting enough sleep so began the Internet scouring. Browsing and reading led me to my now go-to infant sleep reference: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. This book gave me all the important information I needed so Ziv could get enough quality sleep. It taught me to keep the intervals of wakefulness short to prevent Ziv from getting too wired to sleep; about the importance of teaching a baby how to soothe himself; about sleep cycles, early bedtimes and more. 

I started teaching Ziv how to sleep on his own when he reached his fifth month. We started with nighttime sleep before we moved on to naps, which were more challenging because daytime sleep gets organized much later. I didn't rock him anymore but still included feeding in our soothing routine for both naps and bedtime. After a while, his naps got longer and although he still wakes up at night, he falls back asleep on his own, without my help.

I know some parents might think I'm such a control freak. And I am. To a fault actually. Sometimes I get too caught up in wanting to set up a schedule for Ziv that I forget that he's just and still a baby. And when you have a baby, change is the only thing that's permanent. So even when I feel that our days are all over the place, I know I need to cut my Zivvy some slack. He needs room to grow so, instead of gunning for a fixed schedule, Momma here is content with a flexible routine. As long as my baby gets the rest he needs, any day is a good day.