HOW I GOT ARYA TO SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT

Babies love consistency and that's something that I had to learn the hard way as a first time mom.

Let's be honest, y'all. There's like a lot of things in motherhood that are- here comes the f word- super fucking hard. Round the clock feeding, diaper changing, bathing, cleaning their poop with barehands, what else? But one of the many things that freaked me out the most was getting babies to sleep through the night if that's even possible. Other parents might prefer asking for help from their parents or siblings or just "someone who probably knows" but I'm one of those who don't. I'm a lone wolf, metaphorically. I like to do things without asking for help from anyone- well as much as I can, atleast. Except google because I ask google basically everything. "Why does my baby keeps waking up in the middle of the night?" or like "why won't my daughter sleep?" are the kind of questions I asked google several weeks after giving birth. And as it turns out, it is in fact, possible to get our babies to sleep through the night.

Sleep is like one of the most important thing for us humans, basically. And us parents need sleep as well as our children. If the they doesn't get enough sleep, it affects their brain development plus they'll get cranky and fussy and will cry bloody murder and if the mom doesn't get enough sleep, she'll get snappy, moody, irritable and will most likely cry murder just as bloody. And I know we all feel like we can't get enough of our babies and that we just wanna be with them every second of every minute and look at them all the time. I get it. But I mean come on. We're only human, WE NEED TO SLEEP.

Motherhood can be exhausting and having everyone say in your face that "babies like to change- tonight she's gonna sleep, tomorrow she won't and the next thing you know you're walking like a zombie and you don't even know it" doesn't really help make the job easier. A few weeks in and I was always like no I'll be okay I mean how hard can that be, right? I mean we're doing great so far; we sleep with lights on all night long since day one and whenever she's asleep I would just stare at her until my eyes hurt. Is it just me or don't all first time mothers creepily stare at their kids while sleeping? Every time I just look at her like it's all I ever wanna do.

...until we hit the fourth month sleep regression and all I wanted to do then was sleep for at least 4 hours without getting interrupted.

I had no idea about anything that has to do with babies' sleep; like overtiredness, the difference between long naps and short naps because as far as my knowledge goes, if she's asleep even for only 15 minutes, we're good to go. That's where I was wrong and I regret having wasted so many times that I should've spent with Arya because I was too exhausted to really be there. I could've done better and if you're expecting, a mom to be or one with a newborn, here- let's get down to business

When your baby is overtired, it simply means that her body is past the point of being ready to sleep. When your baby is overtired, she is so physically fatigued that her body’s stress-response system is activated. Once your baby is overtired, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline flood your baby’s bloodstream, making it even harder for your baby to relax and calm down. And this tends to be a cyclical pattern; the more overtired your baby becomes, the harder it is for your baby to relax and fall asleep, which makes overtiredness even worse, etc. etc.

-source The Baby Sleep Site

Not many filipino parents know this, and I know it because how many parents have I heard saying that when babies get so tired from playing or something eventually they will fall asleep on their own. And I admit, over the course of four months after becoming a parent myself, I believed in this bullshit. I even came to the point where I would tell anyone who was watching Arya to "keep her awake" which later on I found out was wrong in all sorts. If the baby is sleepy, don't hesitate just put them to sleep! Motherhood bitch slapped me, "Oh there she is, I'll let her play until she's tired. Oh why is she crying? Oh why won't she go to sleep? Oh is that the sun?" Yeah. There were times when Arya would cry murder and it was just the two of us and I didn't know what to do because I kept her awake for too long and now she couldn't sleep anymore. I don't believe in growth spurts, personally. When a baby cries murder they're most likely tired or worse, sleep deprived. Every time I try to talk about overtiredness with other people I always get like "You're crazy don't believe everything you read on the internet" and that there's no such thing. Well whose baby started sleeping through the night at five months? Mine! Whose been getting decent sleep five months after giving birth? Me!

Your baby gets overtired when she stays up longer than she should between naps, or before bedtime. Older children can obviously handle long periods of wakefulness, but newborns can’t handle much awake time at all; many newborns cannot go more than 45 minutes without needing another nap. (This is one reason why it’s easy to let your newborn or young infant become overtired!)

• A newborn can handle no more than 45 minutes to an hour of awake time.
• A 6 month old can handle about 2 hours of awake time.
• A toddler can handle 4-5 hours of awake time.

-source The Baby Sleep Site

When it comes to Arya's nap times this timeline has always been my best friend. I've read this over and over so much that even without looking at the clock, I knew when it was time for a nap. When she was a newborn, I really loved rocking her to sleep and I know some would say it's not a good idea that I'm spoiling her or some shit but I didn't really care, you know? And then she got heavier and dancing her to sleep became overstimulating and everything just basically went downhill. So when she turned four months, I tried swaddling and it kinda helped for a while. We both slept better at night but during the day, honestly, when it's just hella hot here in the Philippines, you just can't swaddle a five month old baby who rolls on her tummy all the time for a half an hour nap now, can you? And anyway swaddling only works until your babies start rolling on their tummies. It's totally unsafe, that's why they only recommend it on babies younger than five months. It got us through the first sleep regression and arya really liked being swaddled as a baby that's why it took as almost a couple of weeks to adjust sleeping without it.

At almost five months I have constructed a predictable schedule for the both of us. Wake up time, nursing, nap times, bath times, quiet times, bed time- I had everything on schedule. I watched Arya more closely for sleepy signs, tired signs- of course there were still  times where I'd miss the nap window and she'd get overtired and everything would go down to hell and get super ugly but then again, I'm not a perfect mom that's why reading really helped a lot. I stopped watching the telly just so I could put her down for bed early. We started sleeping with no lights, pitch black room so nothing would be too stimulating for her. Of course it wasn't an overnight change. I mean she used to sleep at around 11pm and then wake up for a few hours some time in the middle of the night and then sleeps until lunch. Everything was all over the place and it was all fucking horrible, basically. After a few weeks she started sleeping at 8pm and only wakes up at night for a couple of times to nurse and then goes back to sleep. Another week in and she started sleeping at 6pm (tops) then nurses herself back to sleep at night and then wakes up at 6am. It took us about a month to get used to the schedule. For me at first, getting up so early in the morning used to be so hard because I was never a morning person. After a couple of weeks I figured sleeping at 11pm and waking up at 6am wasn't a good idea so I started sleeping at 8pm and to be honest, I've never felt so good.

Babies love consistensy, people.

Consistensy is key.

Living on schedule may come off as hard and strict or even lame to some people but it made everything better. Adjustments have been made so me and my daughter could both have a good time together. We've so far been through two sleep regressions and kicked about four nap transitions in the ass because again, consistensy is key. Now at almost 18 months, she naps once a day, sleeps at 6:30 and wakes up 12 hours later happy and fresh! Going on schedule comes with pros and cons just like other things in motherhood. Cons, I would often choose to stay home than go about until whatever time it is because Arya needs sleep and people think that's boring but over sleep? I'm sorry because I don't care what y'all people say. For pros, well we get a good night's sleep and we function great during the day. What more could I ask for? I'm not a sleep expert but I got a toddler who so far sleeps through the night, we're not sleep deprived and we're happy af! Life's great!

The point is, always listen to what your instinct tells you. Always.

E x