14. Sleeping Beauty

Our daughter is a sweetheart. She was born at noon, and was supposed to keep us awake through the night. Only in the first week she fed every three hours, which increased to 4 to 5 hrs of sleep at night by second week. By the time she was three months old she slept 8 hours through the night. Moment she keeps turning her head from one side to another, it means it’s time to sleep. She never gave us sleepless nights, lots of love and hugs to her for that.

People keep saying us that we are lucky, well yes we are, so far. A little credit for her sound sleep does go to us as well, especially her mom. We taught her to sleep well from the very first day. Sleeping is not as easy task for the child, they have to learn to sleep. Every child is different, different methods works for different baby. We can only share the secret that worked for us; the good news is that it worked so far.

 

She sleeps with us in our bed, and we made a fixed place in the bed for her. That place is only for her sleeping, and not for playing. For playing she has the rest of the house. A known comfortable place for her to sleep makes it easy. We play with her, rock her, hug her and cuddle her a lot throughout the day. No, it does not spoil the baby. It creates a happy environment and builds trust with the baby. But none of that have been used as a method to help her fall asleep. It is very important that the child learns to sleep by herself. If you keep her in her bed she might cry for few minutes, even half an hour, but soon she will fall asleep. It might sound harsh, but sometimes you have to be a bit harsh for the good of your child. Once she learns to fall asleep by herself in the first few weeks, she will never wake up and start crying in the middle of the night. Most children cry in the night because they get up and find it hard to fall asleep at will again. It is neither good for the health of the child nor for the parents.

Another important thing to remember is that the child should be comfortable sleeping under normal condition. Though you don’t want to play hard rock while she is sleeping, you should not create a totally sound proof environment for her either. The calling bell, the phone ring, a barking dog, the honking cars in the street, etc, is OK. If you let her, she will fall asleep within all these noises. Remember you won’t be there with your child throughout his or her life to protect her from noise pollution. If you are in India it is better if she is comfortable with noises. She will thank you for the practice of good and easy sleep, which will help her for the rest of her life.

Like I said before, every kid is different. different methods work with different baby, and different parents, you have to find the one that suites you. For some a strict schedule might work, but since we don't bound us to schedules and rules we never maintained it. At the end of the day all sleepless nights will turn into sweet memories, important part is to enjoy this wonderful journey. 

P.S: ‘She’ used for simplicity. No sex biasness implied :p!