Eating my words

So, a couple of years back, when Carys was a mere newborn, I blogged about babies sleeping, namely my own, and something about how it just all made sense and how easy it was and that I didn't know why other people were having such a hard time with their sleepless babies and... blah, blah, blah. What did I know? Carys was my first baby and I guess because she was such a good sleeper, I assumed all babies were like that?? To put it lightly, I was mildly delusional to think all babies slept so well, but, at the same time, I was also extremely, extremely lucky to have such a baby- one who slept through the night from 6 weeks old on.

Fast forward 20 months later and baby #2 (sweet baby, Paisley) makes her grand appearance and the contents of that blog came back and bit me in the a--. From the get go, getting Paisley to sleep was a struggle. She squirmed, cried, grunted and made more noise than you can imagine. We made the same noises, out of pure frustration, in an attempt to get the kid to sleep. We assumed she slept so poorly because she was so "new" and that good sleep habits would take a little getting used to. There wasn't much we could do to get the sleepless baby to sleep at night or during the day. We looked forward to those magical days that people would tell us about: "oh, it gets much better, you'll see". We passed the 4 week old mark, then 6 weeks, then 8 weeks, then 12 weeks and all with high hopes that her sleeping would improve. Then, 3 months passed, then 4 months, then 5 months and we're now and 6 months and guess what? She still doesn't sleep all that well.

At the beginning of April, when we were at our complete wit's end and beyond exhausted, we implemented a serious sleep routine. After speed reading a plethora of useless sleep books, I managed to find a common denominator in all of them: routine. Babies thrive on routine. So, this is what we did: at 6:30 p.m, we went upstairs, turned on the lullabies, ran a bath, bathed her, brought her back to her room, massaged her legs, put on her PJs and gave her a bottle in her room. We wanted to eliminate 2 of the 3 night feedings, which we believe she only needed/wanted out of complete habit. Darren decided he would try and swaddle Paisley when she'd wake up and miraculously, it worked- she fell back to sleep for a couple of hours. We managed to skip the 11 pm feeding. Eventually, we got the feedings down to one. Now, 1 month post hard-core-bed-time-routine, we have seen her sleep habits improve by leaps and bounds. We haven't swayed, once, from the bed time routine. We still have some work to do, but we can manage with our current situation and we will gladly take it over what we were going through 2 months ago.

But, man oh man, talk about eating my words. I feel like a fool for believing or assuming that *all* babies slept so well from early on. I also feel like a fool for thinking Paisley would be exactly like her big sister and eventually adopt her good sleep habits. I'd seen and heard countless stories of people who had 2 totally different kids in every aspect possible. But, still, after Carys, I still couldn't understand why new parents were so completely sleep deprived. Now, I know. Carys and Paisley are so completely different in their looks and personality. It didn't matter that we tried the very same thing that worked with Carys. We just had to accept that Paisley was different. We're all less sleep deprived now and I think Darren and I are both seeing that wonderful, glorious light at the end of the tunnel.

I thank God for car seats and strollers because this is where Paisley did and still does a good lot of her sleeping!