By Vanessa
Ever since my son was born, I noticed he slept a lot! My husband and I had to constantly wake him up for him to eat, otherwise, he would only sleep and not drink enough. During his first week, the “maternity care” told us that he might wake up every 1-3 hours to eat, but that rarely happened. If we would not wake him up, he would be sleeping 5 or even 6 hours in a row.
During the first 2 months:
The first eight weeks we tried to follow his natural rhythm and during the day we only woke him up when he slept longer than 4 hours so he could eat. In the evening he would sleep even longer but we were always afraid of him not eating enough so the longest we let him sleep was 6 hours during those first weeks.
During his 2 and 4 months:
When he turned 2 months, I felt it was the right time to establish a routine. I also read on a phone app, which provided all sorts of information and tips for the first months of a baby, that it was really important for young babies to follow a routine as early as possible and so we set fixed times for him to sleep and eat.
Our little one ate every 4 hours during the day, and we would give his last bottle/breast milk at midnight. Eventually, following this advice worked quite well for us since he started sleeping at night for 8 – 9 hours in a row instead of 6.
Starting at 4 months old and until now:
When he turned 4 months old we stopped feeding him at midnight and just let him sleep from 8 pm until 8 am. He is one and a half years old now and he still sleeps that long. Besides all these 12 hours of sleep at night, he also takes 2 naps of around 1 1/2 hours each during the day.
I strongly believe that the routine we followed was key for our baby to have such a sleeping rhythm. Nowadays he eats dinner at around 6 p.m. and then we play with him for around 45 minutes. At around 19:30 we bathe him or clean him and then he gets a bottle of milk before sleeping. When he’s ready for bed we rock him in our arms in the darkness and when we notice he starts to get quiet and relaxed, we put him in his crib, we say good night and we go away.
After this, he will turn around, play with his hands or his teddy bear until he falls asleep on his own. When we notice he is taking longer to fall asleep we play a lullaby through a baby monitor and he will fall asleep right away. Very rarely will he wake up in the middle of the night and if he does, we will play the lullaby again and he will go right back to sleep again.
I consider myself very lucky that my baby sleeps so much because that gives me the time and space to focus on my business and my house chores. I think my husband and I make a great team since we do almost everything together and we follow the same routine with our little one. This definitely helps give him a stable and familiar feeling which is probably why he got used to it so easily.
Vanessa is originally from Peru, she lives in The Netherlands for more than 8 years. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Trade, she is currently working for a Logistics company, and she is also an entrepreneur. Vanessa and her partner have a one-and-a-half-year-old with whom they love spending time after a busy working day.
