As a new parent, your life is consumed with many new things including diapers, breastfeeding, immunizations, and SLEEP. Now, I know that some of you have never been in this position and for others it was many, many moons ago, but stay with me. If you talk to any parent of a 0 day old infant to a 2 year old toddler, they will talk about sleep. Who is getting it, how often, how long, where, and more. It is an all-consuming topic that you never really thought about before (unless you have been a surgery resident who works 30+ hrs straight, but then you just go home and sleep, no big deal).
Enter Luke, dreamy easy baby, love of our life. We did fine with the initial sleep deprivation since it was nothing compared to residency. Waking up to feed him at 2 am was so much more pleasant than talking to a clueless nurse or dealing with a drunk, belligerent trauma patient at all hours of the night. As he got older, I started to read about sleep training online, checked out books from the library, and quizzed my friends. I knew that Tim and I would be firmly in the scheduling camp rather than the attachment camp of parenting styles, meaning we wanted to encourage Luke to sleep and eat on a schedule that coordinated with ours. After all my new found knowledge and education, I was ready to tackle this elusive thing called sleep.
And it was completely, totally anti-climactic. I wish I could walk you through the awesome conquest where our little Newt went from 2 hour stretches to 12. I would love to impart all my successes and mistakes in a logical way so that I might help others. The truth is, he did it all on his own. Magically. Perfectly. Without any help or input from us.
In the beginning, he woke up every 2-3 hours to eat. One night, when Luke was about 2 weeks old, he slept through one of his usual feedings and from then on, he never looked back. Pretty soon, it was just one feeding at 2 am. When he was about 3 1/2 months, he stopped waking up for that one too!
Now, this does not mean Luke sleeps for 12 hours straight every night. It also does not mean we never backtrack. Occasionally, the big, mean fart monsters still attack at 4am and it takes the whole family, Bailey too, to fend them off. Traveling at funny hours and sleeping in strange places can be both good and bad for the schedule, but we always manage to get back on track. The most amazing thing is the realization that sleep begets sleep. If he has a great night, sleeping 10-11hrs straight, he takes three long naps the next day. If he only gets 8 hrs and wakes up a few times in the night, he goes on a serious nap strike, taking 20-min cat naps, getting more tired in the process.
At this point in time, all we have to say is 'Sweet dreams, baby Luke. Sweet dreams.'
