Landen’s Sleep Story Part 2 - Environment and Routines

Note: This blog has images of unsafe sleep practices. Things were different and I knew differently 5.5 years ago, but I’m just sharing my story openly and honestly.

Landen as a newborn was impossible to schedule. He was premature, so there were some extra things to consider when trying to schedule him, and I quickly learned that we needed a routine that worked but could be flexible. Once he finally started eating more quickly and in more quantity, we were able to get him on a 3 hour feeding schedule, and we worked in his naps around that.

Landen had short naps for a very long time…

But his “naps” were usually very short and were almost never in his crib. At first I would try to schedule things around when I *thought* his nap time should be. I did a fit4mom stroller workout class a few times a week and tried to have him napping before the class. He would NEVER go down in his crib, so I’d try to leave a little early and walk around to get him to take a quick nap in the stroller. This was hit or miss, but many times you’d find me as the one in the stroller class doing squats with the world’s largest child strapped to my chest (he outgrew his preemie clothing VERY quickly).

This was the norm. I would try to get him to sleep at home, he wouldn’t, I would be super stressed about a plan we made and try to get him to sleep in the stroller or leave early and have him nap in the car and drive in circles. Usually, he would wake up the second the stroller or car stopped moving and these naps were usually 30 minutes MAX (all of his naps were usually 30 minutes max).

I thought I was doing everything right following wake windows and sleepy cues…

So in case I didn’t get my point across, Landen’s naps were bad. Really bad. Short naps make a daytime sleep schedule basically impossible at this age, so I continued to follow wake windows and his sleepy cues. Fortunately, his cues were pretty obvious. He rubbed his eyes when he was tired, and although I often couldn’t get him sleeping in his crib in those early days I could get him sleeping in the car, stroller, swing, or baby carrier (or, *gasp* a rock n play during those pre recall days). And for the most part, his mood was good. Really good.

Overall, Landen was a pretty easy baby AND I have schedule anxiety. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to do and what is super normal for a newborn - taking short naps, being erratic, and preferring contact or motion naps - and I was trying to schedule his life when he was too young for it and making myself crazy wondering why he wouldn’t nap in a crib. And by the way he COULD NOT be transferred.

But night sleep was almost perfect (there’s no such thing as perfect)…

During this time, Landen was very quickly learning to sleep in his crib at night. In fact, he was turning into an incredible independent night sleeper. I didn’t really understand how his crib was such a safe and comfortable space for him at night but during the day he wanted to sleep on me, moving, or inclined. And I just kept telling people (and myself) that no, Landen wasn’t a great napper, but he was a great night sleeper and if I had to pick one or the other, I’d pick nights.

Then on January 14, 2017, two days before Landen turned 3 months old, he fell asleep on the floor in the middle of the living room in broad daylight.

Obviously he did this because he was completely exhausted, but it made me realize that he was in fact capable of napping flat on his back without motion or touch. Maybe I didn’t have to choose between naps or nights, and we could do both well.

That was the day I realized that maybe it wasn’t Landen that was the problem, but me and the environment and expectations I was setting for him. What was so different about night time that was making it so easy for him to put himself right to sleep at bedtime, and what could I change about daytime that might help?

Environment and routine.

When Landen was first born, I knew that it was important to help him learn the difference between night and day so that his long stretches of sleep would happen at night and his circadian rhythm would begin to set. The best way to do this is keep those daytime naps in the light, on the go, in a room with noise, or really anywhere. Newborns will sleep anywhere and everywhere, and they don’t care about the environment. They eat and sleep and eat and sleep and sometimes do both at the same time, and that’s about it.

What I didn’t realize, though, was that at a certain point babies “wake up”. Once his circadian rhythm was developed, I didn’t need to keep having him nap anywhere and everywhere, and in fact I was inhibiting his ability to fall asleep. At night, yes there were sleep hormones present helping him go to sleep on his own on his back in his crib, but the environment was also ideal. It was naturally pitch black in his room because he was a winter baby, he had white noise all night, and he was swaddled. During the day, I gave him NONE of this. I simply put him in his crib when he seemed tired.

Guess what. It didn’t work.

Landen’s Bedtime Routine…

We had a routine that we did every night before bed. After his last bottle, he got a bath. We realized early on that Landen needed a bath to calm down. It was the only thing that got us through the witching hours in the early days. This should have been my first clue into his sensory issues. The second his body hit the water, he relaxed, so he was basically always a “bath every night” kid. Also his dad is a germaphobe. I know now from my sleep consultant course through the Collective for Family Rest and Wellness that the temperature changes in the body from getting in and out of the bath help begin Melatonin production, but at the time I just knew it helped calm him so it was a win.

After the bath, we would lather him from head to toe in aquaphor, and put on a diaper and pajamas. Even as an infant, pajamas had to be long sleeve and long pants (and we had to change him for naps in the summer). This should have been my second clue into his sensory issues. Then we read Goodnight Moon, and we would sing rockabye baby while rocking him and putting on the swaddle/merlin sleepsuit/sleepsack (whatever we were up to at the time), and then turn on the sound machine, turn off the lights, place him in the crib, and walk out.

He was usually asleep within seconds, a few minutes at most.

(By the way my kids are watching Doc McStuffins as I type this and I just heard her say “you need a bedtime routine that should be the same every night to prepare your body for bedtime”, and now she’s singing a song about it so, thanks Disney for everything amazing in my life.)

During naps though, neither the ideal sleep environment OR the routine were present.

We knew we had to make some changes…

First, we put up blackout shades (AKA taped cardstock to the windows cuz we fancy like that). Then we began to do his whole bedtime routine (minus the bath) at nap time too. I could see his body visibly relax and get ready for sleep when he heard this book and song. He would begin to twirl his hair in his fingers (his soothing method as soon as he dropped the pacifier). He needed this routine to help him prepare for bed. In fact, the NEED should have been my first clue into his anxiety/OCD tendencies. Today at 5.5 years old, he won’t go to sleep without the book and song and he still twirls his hair.

So anyway, we did the routine for naps too. And just like that, he was napping in his crib!

JK it’s obviously not that simple. He hadn’t had a chance to practice! Independent naps take practice just like independent night sleep. So we walked out of his room and didn’t immediately swoop in the second we heard a sound. We gave him a minute or two (seriously that’s it, just a minute or two!) to figure out how to settle himself. Sometimes he went to sleep, sometimes he didn’t, but we kept practicing, and when he didn’t go to sleep I did what I would do at night. Instead of taking him in the car or stroller I would help him settle in the crib by picking him up and putting him back down once calm, or his personal favorite, rubbing his head or belly. And after a few days he did get it! It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t every time, but he was certainly learning to nap in his crib flat on his back.

Landen did not start taking those long restorative naps that the eat play sleep blogs talk about right away. In fact, he didn’t stretch his naps at all until he transitioned to two naps, and he didn’t consistently take a long (ish) nap every day until he was on one nap at 15 months old. But he did start going down on his own. I never knew in those days when he would wake up, and this was really tough, but I knew that he WOULD go down and I wouldn’t always have to hold him.