Oscar's Sleep Routine

Thursday 19 December 2013

Asleep on your playmat - not a usual napping place!
Oscar has always been really great (to this point, don't want to jinx anything!) with his sleeping. The first night he was at home he slept 5 hours straight and has only ever woken once during the night for a feed and a change in the first 3 months and after that point, he started to sleep through. He now currently sleeps 12 hours straight throughout the night.

We have never nursed Oscar to sleep, from the very beginning he has always been put down awake in his cot or if he was falling asleep on us, we gently moved him into his Moses Basket. I think this was hugely beneficial to us having him being a good sleeper has he has never grown attached to sleeping on anyone. We use Ewan the Dream Sheep who I cannot praise enough, Ozzy absolutely loves him and he has been another key element in him going down to sleep.

Once we started trying to get him into a routine at around the 6 week mark, we did have to go into our room and soothe him a little and pick him up for hugs and reassurance and then put him back down again and walk out. This really only lasted a week or two and Ewan was his main comforter in helping him sleep.

Again, around the 6 week mark, when we started to implement the routine we ended up feeding him at around midnight and then he would sleep through until about 6.30/7 am. That was the starting point for us eliminating the night feed as we started to gradually bring back his midnight feed earlier and earlier (usually around 15 minutes earlier each night) and then he ended up having his last feed at around 8pm and waking somewhere between 7 and 8am.

Also, we have always had him sleeping separately from us, for the first 10 weeks he slept in his Moses Basket in our bedroom but he got too big for it so he moved into his cot in his nursery and has stayed in there ever since. I know a lot of people tend to have their baby in with them for the first 6 months but we didn't really want to do that - he is quite a noisy sleeper crying out in the night and kicking his legs despite being asleep and also his cot is really too large to fit in our room.
He has been really happy in his nursery and sometimes he even cries until you go and put him in his cot and then he settles down and goes off to sleep.

His current routine involves him waking up at around 9am, having his breakfast and then he has a nap at about 11.30 for anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and then he has his lunch. Usually he is ready for his afternoon nap an hour after lunch which he has in his cot which usually lasts for 2 hours although he does go through phases of waking up after an hour or sleeping for up to 3 hours which we just let him do. He then has his tea and then another short nap for about 45 minutes and then he is awake until he goes down to bed at 9pm after having his final meal.

I'm not sure how much of it is down to good luck and how much of it is down to us getting him into a routine but we are extremely happy that he is such a great sleeper (obviously!) and I do think that Oscar has really benefit from having a routine as he knows when he's going to be getting fed, when his nap times are and when his bedtime is.

I spent a lot of time whilst I was pregnant reading all about the different ways to do things with your baby and for me, having a routine and not using any co-sleeping or attachment parenting was something that I thought would really work well for all of us. Oscar has always been fully supported by us and whenever he has been upset or needed a reassuring hug we have been there for him, but I do feel that he is a much more settled baby because he knows how to self soothe.

5 comments:

  1. Oscar sounds like a little angel! I hope my little one is similar, it sounds like you are very lucky! And what a cutey :) x

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    1. Thanks Hannah, I feel so lucky that he has been a good little baby so far! I'm sure you're little one will be wonderful :-) x

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  2. Wow it sounds like you have a little gem on your hands and routine has paid off.Everything you said I just kept nodding-we did the same with routine and it is now really paying off.Ophelia was originally nocturnal and only slept 1hour the night we bought her home. it took her a while to turn it around but weve made it! X

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    1. Thanks Sophie! I'm glad that doing a routine worked for you guys too, it's been a blessing for us! x

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