To have your child wind down and peacefully drift off to sleep by themselves is a dream (pun intended) for most parents. Before Madi was born, friends would jokingly tell us to get ready for the start of months (years?) of sleep deprivation. After she was born, the top question would always be ‘how’s your sleep?’ or ‘are you tired?’.

To be honest, both Matt and I are not sleep deprived and (apart from a few weeks of the first month) are sleeping quite well. Now, we’ve always been really good sleepers to begin with. Matt can fall asleep in 30 seconds (anywhere, anytime), while I’ll drift in about 5 minutes and sleep like a log until morning (I’m that person who has to set 5 alarms in the morning)!

In general, Madi was already a really really good baby when it comes to sleeping or feeding. However, I needed her in a routine more for my own sanity. As a new parent, our first month was all over the place as we tried to make sense of what she wanted, when she wanted it, and learning the new skills to do it all.

First week back from hospital, she must have been overly tired because she would literally eat and sleep in 2-3 hour cycles with barely any wake time (15-30 minutes). I would breastfeed her until she drifted off, then put her down on the bed for a 1-2 hour nap.

Second and third weeks were tougher. She started refusing to go to sleep during the day after eating, or would only sleep in 20-30 minute increments and cry a lot for seemingly no reason (fed, nappies changed, temperature was fine). We felt it must be gas and started to think she was suffering from colic (she wasn’t). As we didn’t have a schedule and just let it be baby-led, she woke up at different times each morning. We were also bathing her too late in the night towards 8-9pm, then trying to get her to sleep again around 10pm. She fought with this timing a lot as her moods would fluctuate from day to day.

By the fourth week of continued inconsistencies and my nerves fraying more by the day, I decided to give sleep training a try. I documented our progress religiously for 17 days before she was relatively settled (and I was confident enough) to start relaxing the schedule.

I still remember our very first night of sleep training, where we followed the book to the letter. Basically putting her down and walking out. She wailed on-off throughout our dinner for over an hour. Both Matt and I felt incredibly pained by the experience and I felt so horrible for doing it to her I ended up in tears. After that, I decided one of us would stay with her and pat her to sleep to give her that comfort and security that she is never alone. For such a young baby with her short time in the world, she really needed this reassurance. It started off taking a good 30-45 minutes to settle her, and each day could be vastly different. But we stuck it out and eventually it became faster and less challenging for her to drift off.

I should also clarify we never picked her up to hold or rocked her to sleep (aside from those times she fell asleep while being breastfed). I’ve been firmly against it from the beginning because I did not want the added complications of having her only being able to fall asleep in our arms. While it sounds sweet, it is an extra reliance on me and my increasingly painful wrists.

Once she was asleep, we would always (slowly, carefully!) get up and leave the room. If she wakes and cries for more than 5-10 minutes, we would then go back in to resettle her. We did not go in straight away as sometimes she would just be ‘protest crying’. Eventually she started resettling herself. She would wake, wail a few times, then turn her head and fall back asleep. Progress!

We also implemented other consistencies like:
1. Only putting her down on the bed when it’s time for her to sleep. During waking hours,we would take her out to the lounge, or play with her on the bed in our master bedroom. That way, we made her bed as a sleep cue so she’ll always go to sleep and wake up in the same place. As she grew older, we introduced her to napping in her pram bassinet while we took a stroll around the block, or putting her in the carseat and go for a ride to get her used to sleeping in other places.

2. Before we prepare her to sleep, the room is darkened and white noise is on. It doesn’t have to be fully dark, but blinds will be down enough to ensure no direct sunlight hits the bed.

3. We would get her into a rhythm where she’ll be fed as soon as she wakes, burped thoroughly, then have a play and a nappy change before bed. I used to follow the clock rather than looking out for her sleep cues (besides yawns, it’s not always obvious for a new parent!), but now I’m more able to pick them up.

Finally, at around 10-11 weeks, Madi successfully advanced to the next stage: where I was able to put her down while she was awake (but displaying sleep cues), turn the white noise on, and just walk out of the room and close the door. Liberation!

These days, Madi sleeps for about 2-2.5 hours during each daytime nap, and about 8 hours at night (7.30pm to around 3.30am), then feeds and sleeps again to 6-7am. She’s so into her rhythm I only need to loosely follow timings and usually let her lead with her cycle.

One last thing:There is no such thing as ‘sleeping too much during the day’ for a baby. This does not equate to less sleep at night. In fact the opposite is true. Less sleep during the day = less sleep at night! Babies are much happier and calmer when they’ve had enough sleep. Otherwise, they would cry and fuss when overtired yet refuse or fight going to sleep!

Good luck to all the parents out there trying to reclaim their sleep!
It really IS possible to do so!