sleeping and scheduling -- the final saga

I've previously gone on ad nauseam about Ada's sleep (read about it here, here, and here). Long story short, starting at about two months old, she started waking up after only napping for 30 minutes, and for the life of me, I could not figure out why. I worked on and off with a sleep expert for three or four months before deciding I couldn't do it anymore, at which point I tried to accept Ada's 30-minute naps. That lasted about a week before, yet again, I knew that 30 minute naps just weren't going to cut it for Miss Ada. She needed consolidated sleep!

So when Ada was about 6.5 months old, I hired a sleep expert.

The expert I had previously been using (Jackie) was self-proclaimed and was not certified by any sort of program. Don't get me wrong -- I totally think she knows a lot about baby sleep and I'm even sure she could have been more help to me if she could have come into my home and seen Ada to determine sleepiness cues and such -- but the fact remains that she didn't have tons of experience with babies other than her own and those of a few friends.

The new expert (Pam) was certified and she has helped over 2,000 families. This was a very helpful statistic to me -- I knew she had probably seen it all. However, I was still skeptical, because it truly seemed that Ada just wasn't capable of consolidated sleep, so I asked for a money-back guarantee, which she agreed to.

Well, folks, Ada is now taking great naps 90% of the time, still sleeping through the night like a champ, and even sleeping in later than she used to! Here's everything I had to change:

• Completely blacked out her room.
• She has blackout blinds, but they let in a bunch of light around the edges -- enough light that the room is clearly illuminated during the day, which can be distracting for babies. I blacked out the whole window with aluminum foil. Pam told me that the room should be dark enough (even in daytime) that if you reach your hand out in front of you, you can maybe just barely see it. (Having the room completely dark helps with babies who wake after just 30 minutes, because then they don't get distracted by everything they can see, so they have a better chance of falling back to sleep.)
• Transitioned from a tight swaddle to a sleep sack.
• I had been hesitant to switch Ada because she really seemed to rely on that swaddle to sleep. She also wasn't consistently rolling, so I wasn't to the point where I had to switch her. However, Pam wanted Ada's arms free so that she had options for self-soothing. The transition was rough only the first time we did it. We started at bedtime, and my girl who usually falls asleep within five minutes took just over an hour to get to sleep. There was quite a bit of crying for the last half hour (I went in to calm her every 15 minutes that she needed it), but she finally made it. Starting with her first nap the next day, she went right to sleep, and the sleep sack has never been a problem since. She has been sucking her thumb to self-sooth ever since -- luckily only during sleeping times for the most part.
• Extended Ada's wake periods/establish an age-appropriate schedule.
• Since Ada was only taking 30 minute naps, she couldn't last as long (awake) as a baby her age should be able to. So instead of having her stay awake for about 1.5-2 hours each wake period, I usually only did an hour or so. I didn't know what to do to make her wake periods and (obviously) her naps longer, but Pam helped me out. She gave me a starting point for how long Ada should be awake, and then she tweaked it over the next two weeks based on what Ada did. And the first day or two, Ada was super fussy trying to last those longer wake periods, but everything evened out as I followed the rest of Pam's scheduling rules.
• A big part of Pam's coaching included how to change waketimes based on bad naps. If Ada napped fewer than 45 minutes, I was to shorten the wake period by 15 minutes. If Ada napped fewer than 30 minutes, I was to shorten the wake period by 30 minutes. If Ada napped fewer than 20 minutes, it was considered nap refusal, and her wake period (following crib hour) was only 45 minutes. 
• Crib hour/leave her for 10 minutes.
• No matter how long Ada napped (10 minutes or 30 or 45), I was supposed to keep her in her crib for an entire hour. This is in part to teach her that she's supposed to still be sleeping. It's also to give her a complete hour-long break from stimulation, even if she decides not to sleep the whole time. It also gives her a fair chance to fall back asleep. Another bonus? It gave me a full hour break every single naptime! It was soooo nice getting a full hour instead of just 33 minutes.
• Even if she did sleep for a full hour or longer, I was supposed to wait 10 minutes after she woke to actually go get her. This is to teach her to wake happily, to give her a chance to go back to sleep in case she's not done with her nap, and basically just to wait patiently for Mom. I was also told to leave her for 10 minutes when she wakes in the morning for the same reasons.
• Ditch a consistent waketime and bedtime.
• Before I started working with Pam, Ada had a set bedtime of 7:15pm, give or take 15 minutes. She also woke up for the day pretty consistently at 6:15am. Pam's approach was very different. She said appropriate waketimes are anytime between 6 & 8am, and appropriate bedtimes are anytime between 5 & 7:30pm. Then everything just depended on the schedule. So for instance, if Ada woke from her final nap of the day at 3:30pm and she had a 2-hour wake period for her last wake period of the day, she should go to bed at 5:30pm. If, however, she woke from her final nap of the day at 5pm, she should go to bed at 7pm. This concept kind of blew my mind because 5pm was so early! However, the idea isn't that Ada would go to bed at 5pm every night; rather, it was that on days where she napped poorly, she would catch up on sleep by getting more nightsleep. Then, once she got into a good groove and took good naps every day, the bedtime would pretty consistently be something like 7pm. My mind was literally blown the first time that I put Ada down for bed at 5:30pm and then she slept solidly until like 7am! I hugely credit Ada finally learning to nap to this single change. By catching up on her sleep using her nightsleep (which had always been good), she could finally get out of the overtired cycle she had been in due to crappy naps.
• If Ada woke before 6am, I was supposed to leave her until 6am. So if she woke at 5:20am, she was staying in bed until 6am. Usually that would give her enough time to fall back asleep. But I think this is super important for making sure your kid knows that 5am is sleepy time. Don't let them establish a horrible habit!

So those were all the initial changes. Then throughout the two week period, as I said, Pam tweaked waketimes. We started out with 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 / 2.25 (so three naps), and throughout the two weeks, Ada's waketimes were changed to 2 / 2.25 / 2.25 / 2.25 (//disclaimer// Pam's way of saying waketimes is kind of weird -- the stated waketime allows for 15 minutes to fall asleep, so if the waketime is 2.25 hours, you put the baby down at 2 hours so that they will be fully asleep by 2.25 hours. Ada almost always falls asleep immediately though).

By the time Pam and I said goodbye, Ada was doing pretty great. She was sleeping through that 33-minute wakeup habit (aka, not waking up) or returning to sleep within crib hour for pretty much every nap, and she was also sleeping through the night still, regardless of whether she had an early or later bedtime.

Then, two days after my time with Pam was up, Ada started going back to 33-minute naps. For a whole week, she took maybe one or two good naps (total). And I was freaking out! I was worried that the same thing that had happened before was happening again -- that Ada learned for a little bit, only to revert to bad habits!

However, a few more emails with Pam helped me discover that it just meant it was time to tweak Ada's schedule -- this time on my own. Pam had given me a three-month forecast of how Ada's sleep would change. It contained information like how much total sleep Ada would need in a day, what her wake periods would be, and how to know when it was time to extend a wake period. She gave more detail, but basically the ways to know it is time to extend a wake period are:

• If baby takes a long time to fall asleep (more than 20 minutes) 
• If baby wakes up happy after a short nap
• If baby has happy nightwakings -- This shows that the total waketime for the day is too low, so baby is making up for that at night.

Once I tweaked Ada's schedule, she was back to golden naps. This was a little tricky because Ada was always further ahead than Pam's forecast. For instance, Ada was using Pam's suggested wake periods for 9-month-olds at 8 months old. But now, after having adjusted her wake periods two different times by myself, I am much more aware of when a change needs to happen.

So now, at 8.5 months old, Ada is down to two naps per day (usually one that is 1.5 hours, and the other that is 1 hour, but both naps have also been longer on occasion), with her wake periods being 3.25 / 3.5 / 3.5. She's been going to bed at about 7:30pm, and she's been waking up at about 7:30am.

Ada's sleep is something that seriously plagued me for five solid months. After a lot of my own research and talking with two different sleep experts, I almost feel like an expert myself, now! 😂  I'm obviously not an expert, but I do know a lot more now than I knew during my five months of misery. So if you're having similar (or different! I might still have an opinion! 😂 ) sleep issues, feel free to shoot any questions my way. I'd love to help you out!

Moral of the story? I knew my baby needed more than just 30-minute naps (even several 30-minute naps!), and I wasn't willing to stop until she got it. The money I spent on the sleep expert was literally the best money I've ever spent. I am in HEAVEN having a girl who has kept all of her good sleep habits (going right to sleep, sleeping through the night, waking happily) while acquiring the one that she had been lacking for so long (long enough naps).