Hellobee

One thing I really wish I had read about before the baby was a book on baby sleep. Not that I believe it would have made things any better really, or changed my obsessive Googling habit of “insert age nap schedule,” but maybe just prepared me for the amount of time I would spend thinking about and putting my son down for a nap.

Between breastfeeding and nap and sleep schedules, I think there is a very small margin of brain space left for other thoughts in my day. So, here’s my list of the things I wish I had known prior to have a baby about baby sleep. Maybe this would have been covered in a book? Why didn’t I read a book?

Babies need to sleep a lot. Okay, so I guess I knew this, but until he was born I didn’t know this. Your entire day actually does revolve around the whole eat, sleep, poop thing. They need to sleep a lot. I think when I thought about reading a book on sleep, I so naively thought, eh, I know I won’t sleep through the night for awhile, it’ll be fine. I very clearly forgot the part where your baby has to sleep a lot during the day too. Naps are an entirely different beast.

Having a strategy for sleep ahead of time isn’t a bad idea. Sure, sometimes the stuff you read is thrown out the window because your baby is different, but I just had no idea about infant sleep and how often they needed to sleep, what kind of schedule to follow. We switched to a loose E.A.S.Y. (eat, awake, sleep, you) schedule when W was about 7-8 weeks old, and it was a lot easier to have a strategy to the day. Had we started this from the beginning I think I would have had less of a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

Overtired babies are harder to put to sleep. That babies need to sleep a lot part is important. They need to be put to sleep more often than you think. Once a baby hits overtired status, they’re a hot mess. By the time you get them to sleep, they usually sleep for a shorter time. Learn the sleepy cues of your baby early and don’t ignore them!

Newborns sleep a lot easier than babies. I was so one of those smug, my baby sleeps well people. Oh how I want to just laugh at myself now. My son at seven weeks slept better he does at seven months. My Google rabbit hole eventually told me that newborns have different sleep cycles than babies. Babies transition to our cycles, and that’s a whole different can of worms.

Nap transitions are the worst thing ever. Now that we’ve jumped the hurdle from four naps to three, we seem to be slowly moving into two nap territory, I can share with you how much nap transitions suck. Everything you knew about your baby and sleep goes out the door, every day is a little different, and their cues are all over the place. Eventually you get over that hurdle, but while you’re in it, it’s back to survival mode.

Set good habits early to avoid training later. I did attempt this, I really did, but we often went for the easy way out in scenarios in favour of getting W down for a nap. I really wish I had pushed for setting up good habits when he was young and held strong on consistency.

You will eventually figure it out. Okay, baby sleep is not fun. But I remind myself almost daily that this too shall pass. Eventually your child will sleep. It might be in a year, a month or a week from now, but eventually they’ll figure it out. You’ll figure it out. And if you’re still going crazy, you can hire a sleep coach. Which, is the road we’re heading down.

What do you wish you knew about baby sleep before the baby came?