- I want to say it took awhile to get here,
because we did the courses
that were like the popular courses to take
to figure out how to get your kid to sleep.
Those were my worst nights,
because I was just like trying to do this thing
that was not working,
and I was kind of not fully committed to it.
Hey guys, my name is Shayla, welcome to my channel,
I talk about motherhood, I talk about pregnancy,
I talk about all the things that I'm learning.
Today we're going to talk about sleep training,
and I want to start this video by saying, I support you.
I support you if you do cry it out,
I support you if you do bed sharing,
I support you if you,
whatever works for your family, I support it 100%.
And some people don't have a spare bedroom
that they can put their child in,
they bed-share because of necessity.
Some people have to go back to work
so they have to do the cry it out method.
There's like, there's a million reasons
why you have to do what you have to do,
don't feel like you ever need to justify that to anybody.
I'm going to tell you my experience
because we're kind of in like the realm of sleep training,
we're considered like softies, and I'm okay with that.
It took awhile to get here.
Because we did the courses
that were like the popular courses to take
to figure out how to get your kid to sleep.
Those were my worst nights,
because I was just like trying to do this thing
that was not working,
and I was kind of not fully committed to it really.
If you take these courses and you're like,
"Yes, yes, yes, this all makes sense to me,"
they're probably perfect for you.
If you're taking a course and you're like,
"Hmm, I don't feel super good about that,"
you have to believe it for it to work.
It's a general guideline and a lot of times
there's a ton of really good information packed into them.
But I picked and chose what I wanted to use.
I have no idea if I'm doing it right or wrong.
In fact, I might watch this video
in a couple of years and be like, "Oh, sweet girl."
But right now, what we're doing is working for us,
and it's not how we should be doing it at all.
I'm going to talk to you about,
if my baby sleeps through the night,
if she can put herself back to sleep,
and what I wish I had known from the start.
I think that the best thing that you can do
is follow what your,
follow your baby's cues, do what works for your family.
But if something happens where it's not working anymore,
then seek out help specifically for that thing.
Does that make sense?
Does my baby we sleep through the night?
Nope, does it work for us?
Yes, so what happens is I usually put her down,
her bedtime needs to be 5:00 PM,
and then she usually wake up at like 5:30 or six.
When I say that she's slept for that long,
what I mean is she probably woke up every
like three to four hours,
nurse her a little bit and then go back to sleep.
Couple of things,
when she wakes up in the middle of the night,
go lay on her floor, give her the boob,
she falls right back asleep, five minutes or less, done.
Not a big deal for me.
Usually she goes to bed at seven now,
that happens around like 10 or 11, I'm still awake,
and then I go to sleep
and she wakes up again at like two or three ish,
I'll go get her, bring her in here,
and then we wake up at like seven.
After about four months, I put her in on her floor bed.
We started with naps during the day,
and then, even though I was bringing her in here at night,
I would get, I would do her whole nighttime routine
in her room, and then come in this room
when she actually fell asleep to put her down.
The second question is, does my baby fall asleep on her own?
Nope, she nurses to sleep every single time.
Whatever way you want to do it,
you will find information to support what you're doing.
So basically, you just need to figure out
which way do I want to go,
and then find the information to support that,
and ignore everything else.
Everything you do is going to have good
and it's going to have bad.
And so you just have to decide what do I want for my family?
Do I want to be waking up every night
just to go comfort my baby?
Or do I want them to learn
that they can put themselves to sleep?
Do I want them to stay in their room from day one?
Do I want them in our room for the first year or two?
Am I okay with them coming into our bed?
What are the things that you want?
Why is this working for you?
As soon as it stops working for you,
(baby cries)
then start trying to figure out what you can change.
My baby does not take a bottle.
She has not taken a bottle,
I waited six weeks to introduce it,
and that was, I think too long.
She'll chew on it now and just get milk everywhere,
If I'm not home, she'll usually take a bottle
for Seth a little bit, but then she's like,
"Okay, where's my mom."
Is nursing to sleep super inconvenient?
Sometimes yeah, I need to like,
wire my life around her naps
to make sure that I'm home for her naps,
but I'm always home,
so it's not that big of a deal to me.
Nursing is like, it's so much easier.
I don't have to clean a bottle,
I don't have to clean pumps,
I just, it's like, we're at home, she's hungry,
I worry about my boob.
We're out and about, I get in the backseat,
I nurse her.
If she's sleepy, I nurse her.
If she's upset, I nurse her.
It's just so easy for me,
and I like doing it and it just is, I don't know,
it just works for us.
And it's just your comfort level.
If you're like, "I don't want to whip out my boob
"in a parking lot in backseat,"
well, then you should figure out how to use a bottle.
That's just preference.
So there's nothing wrong with either one of them,
just do what you want.
I hope if nothing else from this video
you just get the confidence to feel like,
"Okay, we're not doing what everyone's telling us to do,
"and it's okay."
Or, "We found a program that is exactly
"what we wanted and it's working for us."
Great, great, on the downside is that Seth is like,
"I can't put her to sleep."
He can't, because she needs to nurse to sleep
because I'm home with her all day,
so that's how we do all of our naps,
that's how we do all of our sleep,
so that's like how she knows to fall asleep.
So, when she wakes up in the middle of the night,
that's what she wants.
It will be interesting to see how this progresses,
and how she, as she gets older,
how she is able to put herself back to sleep,
but I'm just not worried about it.
I'm just rolling with it.
And we're all happy and she's not a very fussy baby.
Would I rather that she slept on her own?
Yeah, it would be great to just be like,
"Okay, goodnight, bye."
It would save me a ton kind of time.
But I like the connection,
and I like the comfort that she gets from me,
and it's only a phase, and it's just like,
she's only this little for so long.
And so it doesn't bother me.
And for baby number two, I might do something different.
I don't know, we'll see how it goes,
when we have to cross that bridge.
From what I'm told, the more solids that she gets,
she'll do less feedings,
I don't really know how that goes
because she nurses to sleep,
I'm not really sure to be totally honest,
but we are introducing solids,
and she is eating a lot more, and she is nursing less.
So we'll see.
When I started this breastfeeding journey,
I didn't have like, "I'm going to breastfeed for this long,
"and I'm going to stop this point."
I was just like, I don't know,
"We're just going to start breastfeeding and see how it goes."
I didn't have much expectations,
I didn't do a ton of research, I was just like,
"Let's just wing it, and let's just roll with it,
"and whatever happens, happens."
And so that's where we're at right now.
Thing number three is, what I wish I had known,
and what I might do differently next time.
If you are just starting a couple of things,
first of all, learn, Google awake windows
for your age group.
Like Aaliyah right now it's two to three,
it depends on where you look,
but it's about two to three and a half hours
that she should be awake
before she goes down for another nap.
She was an infant, we were just like,
"Oh, she's asleep now,
"look at, we can talk, and they don't even wake up,
"we should keep doing this."
And then once they hit the floor,
four month sleep regression, and you're like,
"Whose baby is this?"
That's because before four months,
they have two sleep cycles;
awake and asleep, or two sleep, I don't know.
Adults have four.
They've got two, they're either awake
or they're asleep, done.
So I'm reading this book called "Raising Bebe",
and it's about this American
who raises her first born in France,
and it just talks about how they raised them differently.
Well the one thing that she found
was that they do the lamphouse,
the pause, for like, I don't know,
a couple of minutes, two, three minutes,
when baby starts to fuss, they just pause and they observe.
So they're watching the baby and they're like,
"Okay, does she look upset?"
Like she needs a diaper change or she needs food?
Or does she just kind of look like she's
in between sleep cycles and she will figure it out?
And if baby calms down and goes back to sleep,
obviously, that's what they needed.
If baby continues to fuss,
then they go in and they're like,
"Okay, what can we do for you?"
And so that pause helps them learn
to put themselves to sleep.
And it's not letting them cry it out,
it's watching them and being present and observing,
and being like, "Okay, what, let me try
"and understand what you're trying to tell me here."
The other thing is sleepy cues.
Google, sleepy cues, baby sleepy cues, you'll find them.
It's like red eyebrows, they rub their eyes,
they yawn, they stop making eye contact with you.
So, hypothetically for baby number two,
I think, and who knows if this actually happens,
but what I'm thinking right now,
is that when the baby starts to show some sleepy cues,
I'm going to bring them in their room,
sit with them, and let them fall asleep in their room.
And then slowly just kind of like,
set them down and let them fall asleep on their own,
while I still nurse to sleep sometimes.
Yeah, practicing lamphouse,
and following these sleepy cues and awake windows,
kind of help you figure out and help your baby
to learn like, "Okay, you're feeling sleepy,
"we're going to go in your room, is where you sleep,
"now I'm going to be right here when you wake up," done.
That is how we failed at sleep training,
and why I don't really care.
I hope that this empowers you a little bit
to not feel so stressed out,
'cause sometimes when you learn these things
that you should be doing and your baby's not doing them
it just like creates the most tension,
or if you could just be like, you know what?
According to our family,
there's nothing wrong with what's going on,
it's just not what the baby should be doing.
So that's it, I hope this is helpful,
thank you guys all so much for watching,
and I will see you next time, bye.