Sleep Journey: Send Help

This is not a post about having all the answers. It’s actually the opposite. See the picture below? He was 10 minutes into a nap shortly before it was taken. A picture of him awake suits him anyway. We are struggling and honestly, it makes us think we’re doing something wrong. Benji is 9 weeks old and this is what we’re trying to do now…

Bedtime at 7:00 pm
Nighttime feedings around 12:00 am and 4:00/5:00 am 
Daytime naps last about 30 min to an hour

Let’s start at bedtime. We try really hard to get him fed, freshly changed, and dressed for bed right before 7:00 pm. It doesn’t always happen. Sometimes he falls asleep at 6:00 pm and sometimes he wakes up at 10:00 pm wanting more milk. We also encourage him to fall asleep on his own even if he cries it out. He’s getting better but still cries a few minutes before falling asleep.

Nighttime feedings. These are tough because he’s not a baby that falls back asleep easily. So after he wakes up and eats, we need to go through the routine of changing his diaper and rocking him before being ready for sleep again. I so very wish he would fall asleep right away after these feedings as you can imagine.

Daytime naps. There’s somewhat of a trend forming. He always takes 1 long nap (2-3 hours) that often lands in the late morning. The rest of the naps are “cat naps” no longer than an hour. We also realized he can’t stay awake much longer than an hour after eating. So, we try to rock him before that hour mark to avoid fussiness.

One of our desires is putting him to sleep without crying. Are we missing the window? Are we putting him to sleep too soon? Are we rocking him too much? These are all the questions dancing in my head.