Monday, March 23, 2009

Sleep Baby Sleep

Ashley is so smart. She got with the "Sleep-thru-the-night" program super quick. It took only 2 nights of fussing, and then, walla, she sleeps thru most of the night. I lay her down around 8 ish at night, and then I won't have to go to her until around 4-5 for a quick 20 minute feeding, or sometimes she won't wake at all. There have been a few nights where she wakes and fusses for like 15 mins around 2 am or so, but she falls right back asleep. I love this girl.

I borrowed and read a book from my friend on sleeping, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth, and it said "sleep begets sleep. This is not logical, but it is biological" and "The more rested a child is, the moe she accepts sleep and expects sleep". At first, I thought sounds odd, but then I got to test the theory, and it's TRUE.

Here is how my test went. These past six months or so, I have been getting up at least twice a night. At first I was tired at night when I woke up, but after 6 weeks or so, you just adjust and it seems normal. I was tired, but I wasn't zombie-tired all the time. So 6 months passes, and I am still tired, but totally functional once I fully wake up in the mornings. ( I am more awake when I wake up at 1 am than I am at 8 am.) So, this past week, when Ashley started sleeping thru the night, I got to sleep for like 7 hours straight a few nights, from around 11 until about 6-6:30 am. And strangely enough, I am more tired now than I was when I was waking up at all hours of the night! Also, Ashley never napped for over an hour. Now that she is resting well at night, her naps have are becoming longer. In fact, she just woke up from an hour and a half nap!

So, I testify it is true! Sleep begets sleep!

2 comments:

Traci said...

Thanks for posting about this, I need to try it out on Penina.

Johnson Family said...

Yeah!! I'm so glad you can sleep more at night. I'm looking forward to when I can. :)