The Sleep Routine.

I am going to start this blog by saying I DO NOT KNOW WTF I AM TALKING ABOUT, I am not a professional, I am a mother trying my own techniques that (sometimes) work with my kids. My parenting skill is what I like to call ‘trial and error.’ 

Hendrix and his sleeping routine... 

Well from when he was born I listened to my mom (she’s been there, done it, got the t-shirt) my mother is literally the Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant/Steve Kerr of mother’s aka she is sooo clutch, so why not listen to the best ay? Anyway my mom advised me once Hendrix was born to feed him every 4 hours and NOT on demand. So I tried my hardest to stick to this and I really believe this is what has got him sleeping through the night from the beginning. Again this is my opinion, if you disagree that’s perfectly fine, I’m just stating what worked for me. To be fair Ryan and myself LOVE to sleep so that probably helps when it comes to the sleep routine.

When Hendrix was a baby, I’m talking up to 2/3 months I will be very honest I didn’t have a routine apart from I fed him every four hours. I would bathe him when I wanted and would pretty much go with his flow. I only breast fed Hendrix for the first 4 weeks because I was not producing enough milk and my child is a hulk baby and needed more than I could provide so we put him on to bottles. There were days when he would take a monster 5 hour nap in the day and there were times when he would take the same nap at like 8pm and I would just have to deal with him in the evening. I didn’t put a routine in place until he was about 4/5 months. I started to bathe him every night before bed. Now I know the new “rule” is to not bathe your baby every night as it’s not “good” for them. However, my momma told me she used to bathe me every night before bed, it was bonding time for us and also who doesn’t like a nice bath before bed? It never harmed me so again I went with her advice. I would put Hendrix in his bath before bed around 8pm when he was a baby and I found that this really relaxed him before his last bottle of the day. His last bottle used to be around 9pm and usually this would knock him out by 930pm/10pm. He would then usually sleep through till about 6.30am/7am. Now don’t get me wrong there were times he would wake up in the night BUT I would not give him a bottle, instead I would try and soothe him back to sleep. I was trying to have him not rely upon a bottle to get back to sleep at stupid o’ clock in the morning. Also as a baby (3-9 months) I would try to not hold him and rock him to sleep although this was very hard because all I wanted to do was hug and squeeze him. I have made a conscious effort to let him self soothe as much as possible. Now he very much so does that when he goes down for a nap, he will put himself to sleep and also at night he doesn’t need me there, unless he is teething or ill then he wants to lay on top of mom alllll night.

When Hendrix got to about 10 months this is when I changed his routine completely, he went from four bottles a day to just two and I also moved his bath, bottle and bed up to 7.30pm. I was finding with him being at nursery he was knackered and was starting to get aggy AF. Now at 15 months he is down to just one bottle at bed time. He will go down for a nap usually between 11/12 and will sometimes sleep for a hour or so but that’s his only nap of the day. 
NUMBER ONE RULE OF THIS SLEEP ROUTINE IS, DO NOT LET YOUR LITTLE HUMAN SLEEP PAST 3PM!!!!! 

Hendrix eats constantly throughout the day, he has his last meal of the day at about 6pm when he’s home from nursery, then aggy hour starts where he’s a complete asshole because he’s getting tired and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Then at 6.30pm while the bath is being ran he will either piss on my floor, piss on me or just hold his willy while he pisses somewhere. In the bath I will let him have a good soak and play then at about 7ish I will get him out and lather him in lotion as he has eczema like his daddy. Pj’s on then he will come to the kitchen with me while I make his bottle, at this point he’s so tired he is cussing me out in baby talk. I imagine it to be something along the lines of “lady will you stop pissin about and get me my damn bottle please, damnnnn... oh and brush your hair mom.” Then around 7.30/8pm I put him in bed with his bottle. He drinks his bottle in bed with the lights turned off. I know he’s done with the bottle because my little cherub will launch it at the wall when he is finished and then roll over and go to sleep.... and that is where he stays till 7.30am the next morning. THIS IS NO SCIENCE, I am not the baby whisperer, this shit doesn’t work every night (does work most though for us) for example he mocked mine and his dad’s lives by not settling till 11pm last night. That was our own fault because we fucked up on rule number 1 and let him nap past 3pm.

The nights when it doesn't work and he is up & on one, basically being the cute little asshole that Henni is, we let him just do him. So if after bath, bottle and bed he is wide awake and just wants to chase his ball around the lounge, this is what we leave him to do. I really try not to stress the fact that my baby is awake and creating a shit storm in the front room with all the toys i have just fucking tidied away. I found me stressing because he has broken his routine and then spending x amount of energy trying to convince him to go to sleep doesn't work out well for anyone. Its like he can tell moms about to lose her shit as I’m trying to put him to bed and he says fuck you mom, I’m turnt up!! Whereas when i ignore him and let him do his thing, he will soon after tire himself out and start resting his head on anything soft enough to put himself asleep. Again all babies are different, all parents are different I just found this works with my little rugrat.

Feel free to try out anything I have mentioned above, in fact message me (on my insta @badgyallolo ) and let me know if any of it worked/ didn’t work for you, I would love to hear your stories. 

GOOD LUCK!