You guys, can yall believe Camille is a whole 7 months old now? Like how sway? But can you also believe up until the last few weeks, she STILL wasn’t sleeping throughout the night? Yeah, your girl has been surviving off little to no sleep for quite some time now. I feel like all my brain cells are gone lol. As I’ve stated previously, I can be a pretty laid-back mom. I’ve never sleep trained any of my children, rushed them off the paci or to be potty trained, etc. I truly believe that most kids get it when they are ready! BUT 3 kids in and being in the busiest season of my life right now, desperate times…call for desperate measures lol. Camille breaking me and my husband’s sleep smack dab in the middle of the night, every night, was becoming BRUTAL! So I started looking in to sleep training techniques. I was even this close to buying books and all, but thanks to a good girl friend of mine who recommended simply trying to get Camille on a consistent daily schedule first, I didn’t have to take it that far. We truly had her on no schedule. We just allowed her to tell us when she was hungry and sleepy. As her mom, I knew all her cues. But chile, I was like “it’s time for you to get on OUR schedule now, and not the other way around little girl” haha. When I tell you simply putting her on a consistent daily schedule did the trick and did it quick! There was no crying it out needed or anything crazy! Now I’m mad at myself for not doing this sooner, but better late than never. A break down of her schedule is below:
A few things to keep in mind:
- She’s exclusively breastfed through bottles
- It’s recommended breastfed babies her age get about 25 ounces of breastmilk a day
- She gets 5, 5oz bottles a day
- She’s eating baby food 3 times a day on average
- Depending on if you nurse on demand, formula feed, the age of your child, etc this schedule may vary but it works for us!
Now on to the schedule:
- 6am: first bottle of the day
- 8am: breakfast (pureed baby food)
- Nap
- 10am: second bottle of the day
- Noon: Lunch (pureed baby food)
- 2pm: third bottle of the day
- Nap/ possible afternoon snack
- 6pm: fourth bottle of the day
- 7:30ish: dinner (pureed baby food)
- Bath
- 10pm: last bottle of the day
As you can see, the time in between each bottle is evenly spread out. We do 4 hour gaps in between each bottle. One of the biggest contributing factors is we do NOT let her sleep in between her 2nd to last and last bottle of the night. This can be tough, especially in our case, with her attending daycare because she’s exhausted at the end of the day. We just try and let her crawl around and play with toys or distract her to keep her up. Also, you’ll want to develop a night routine. Whether that’s food, bath, then bottle or whatever you want to include. But just so your baby will start to pick up on those night time cues. Now she’s sleeping for 8 hours straight, from 10pm-6am every night! We try our hardest not to deviate from that schedule. I even typed it up and provided it to the daycare, so they stick to it as well.
Before starting this schedule, Camille was still getting one middle of the night bottle. To eliminate that bottle, I started offering less and less ounces each night until she was no longer getting one. It took about 2-3 weeks for her to start sleeping throughout the night consistently. So don’t give up if it doesn’t happen in a couple of days. One of my biggest concerns was making sure Camille was getting enough milk throughout the day since she would no longer be getting milk at night. All you need to do is look up the recommended daily milk intake depending on if your baby is breast or formula fed and their age, then see how you can divide that up into their daily bottles evenly spaced throughout the day.
It’s as simple as that. I’m grateful that I no longer feel like a walking zombie. Although, as moms, are we truly never not tired? But I’ll take any little boost I can get haha! I hope this helps you mama’s! Hang in there. This too shall pass! Then they’ll be like Carri who I have to fight to get up in the morning lol. Sigh, some type of the struggle as moms is inevitable!
As Always…Love You All,
Courtney N. Williams
Love this post and I screenshot it so I can have it when I keep them 😂☺️. You’re awesome mom 💪🏾👏🏾
Great post. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get my now 13 month old on a good nighttime routine. Some nights she fights her sleep for 30-45min and by then it’s even later if we go to bed late to begin with.
Thanks for reading. Just do the same thing, at the same time each night so she can start to associate the routine with bed time! Wishing you some much needed rest mama!
Very detailed post. I have an almost 7 months old as well and we are still struggling with sleeping through the night.
She just wakes up almost every 2 hours to 🙄🙄🙄 cuddle? Make sure I havent abandoned her? Whoops 🤦♀️ I really dont know.
She’s exclusively breastfed and eats solid twice a day. I hope I can try and stick to this method of yours.
So does Camille just puts herself to sleep? My daughter would not fall to sleep on her own except she’s rocked or backed.
Thanks for reading. Wow every 2 hours, I know that tough. Hang in there mama. But Camille typically falls asleep with her last bottle of the day. That’s why it’s important to keep them up the last 4 hour window. So by the end of it they are pretty tired. I hope this helps. Wishing you some much needed rest!