Mommy Talk Tuesday: Sleep

This week's Mommy Talk Tuesday from The Not-So-Secret Confessions of the Second Time Mom is on sleep! Sleep or rather non-sleep is probably the thing parents dread the most after having a new baby. For me, it turned out to not be so bad. In fact, in the very beginning, I had to set an alarm clock to wake RC to nurse him because he didn't want to wake. He probably would have slept through the night from day 1 if we would have been allowed to let him!

RC has continued to be a pretty easy baby. Around 8 weeks old he began sleeping through the night. By sleeping through the night though, I mean sleeping for about 8 hours. He first began with going to bed around midnight and sleeping until 8am (this wasn't a big deal for me as I generally don't sleep well before midnight anyway.). I decided to let RC make his own schedule. With being a SAHM and RC the only child, I figured things would probably work out easier if I let him do it himself. It didn't take long before he worked his way from midnight as his bedtime to around 8pm with still sleeping until 8am or later.

With him sleeping so long we ran into him waking due to peeing through his cloth diaper. It was time to find a nighttime cloth diaper combo to get him back sleeping through the night. We finally found a combo with a Flip cover, stay dry microfiber, and 2 hemp inserts. Another problem we ran into was him waking due to being hungry. He went from not nursing during the night to feeding every couple hours again around the 4 month mark. This turned out to be because he was getting bigger and not getting a full belly before bedtime anymore. He went on rice cereal at that point and the first night he had the cereal, he was back to sleeping through the night!

Nap times are a bit trickery. In the beginning, of course, RC was like any other newborn. Later, he started taking only 2 maybe 3 times a day. Now, there are days that h one nap is a struggle, but only if when I can tell he is super tired and keeps fighting sleep. Most days he takes a nap no problem. Again since I let him tell me, sometimes that means nap time doesn't come until 4pm! This usually isn't a big, but sometimes does push his bedtime a bit later for that night.

RC is only a year old and later I do foresee some potential problems. Currently we are on a trip where he is sleeping on a twin mattress. In the middle of the night, he has begun waking and thinks it's play time. Later when we decide to move him from a crib to a big boy bed, I think we may have some issues with him getting up and playing in bed. I suppose if this happens and he is quiet, it might not matter too much. He does like to wake a play quietly in his crib for about an hour before he actually cries to get out.

So far with RC, I am not pushing anything and I feel it is working out well for us. When we decide to have number two, I hope things will work out the same way.