There are three things someone who has kids asks when you say you have a newborn son.
-
How old is he?
- What’s his name?
And, I’ve come to realize that questions 1 and 2 are lead ups to the real question:
3. How Does He Sleep?
A lot of the planning for Elliots arrival involved quite a bit of research. As any parent knows (now I know), the main issue for new parents in one way or another was related to sleeping.
If you have been following each of our experiences. This holds true. I think it’s because it’s the first real thing he learns to do on his own.
After Elliot finally arrived, I was settling into parenthood quite nicely. I was sleeping well, the benefits of not having to breastfeed 👍🏾. There wasn’t much for me to do, other than making sure Kate had her nursing area stocked with water and what not.
Elliot got very comfortable being nursed to sleep.
After a few months of this, Kate was having a slighly different experience. I didn’t realize what we got ourselves into until one day Kate came downstairs and said, “I can’t do this anymore”. It was then that I realized she was going upstairs at 6 pm and was back downstairs at 8 or 9 p.m. after a marathon bedtime routine.
Yeah, I know, most of the time I’m on the ball with this husbandry thing, some of the time I’m clueless.
Sleeping. That’s Easy. Riiiite?
Some kind of sleep training had to start.
Let me start by saying Elliot comes from two parents who love their sleep… Dare I say “professional sleepers”. So what follows made no sense to either of us.
We read all the books, websites, MURMUR, FERBER, hold him to sleep, don’t hold him to sleep, stay in the room, don’t stay in the room, jump around and pat your belly… everything… none of it worked.
Seeking Professional Help, The Best Money I’ve Ever Spent
In life sometimes you realize that you can’t do it on your own and need help. We got a professional sleep trainer.
I was a little sceptical. What is this person going to do or tell us that we weren’t already been doing. But it was the best money I’ve ever spent. The sleep trainer gave us a structure to follow, we still refer to it today. And best off all, Kate and I don’t have to argue about what to do when he wakes up randomly at 2 a.m. and tensions are running high.
So now, Elliot is in bed by 7:30 p.m. (ish) and Kate and I are downstairs together watching TV amazed that the bedtime routine is only an hour long from bath to bed, no nursing and no tears. And he’s staying asleep until about 6am!
Don’t get too excited, we still have to re-sleep train him every time there is something that throws us off like a vacation, cold or new tooth. But now we have a system to follow that we’re all familiar with.
So now that we’ve got sleeping, sorted (yes I’m knocking on a lot of wood).
What else do I need to prepare for? The terrible twos aren’t really a thing, right?
Daddy Allstars 
Love this!! So real. Good on you guys that you went to a professional for some help. So glad it worked out for you guys.
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LOL!! Wait for sleep regression at 24 months. The terrible two tantrums are a whole other joy! Hopefully you have an easy going guy who will only need a little help. My Connor is still having tantrums and he is almost 5! Oh you have no idea… Good luck my friend!
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Wow, I’ve started kind of looking at how to handle the tantrums…. i feel like we’ve got the tools to handle the sleep regression. Tantrums… I’ve got no clue
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The terrible 2 tantrum starts before 2 and it ends around 4 LOL.
I’m lucky I don’t do night shifts!!!
Thank you for sharing!
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