Sleep Training....

So it begins....

Every baby and every child is different even though people STILL mistake C & B for twins. Really?!? Chandler has always been a great sleeper and required little to no coaching from us on how to sleep through the night. He occasionally needed his binky reinserted, but that's about all it took.

Then came Brighton, and he was quite the challenge. He was nursing round the clock (every 1-2 hours) until about 6 months old. Granted he did most of his nursing at night time and he did seem to have a constant cold from ages 2-6 months. Uggh!

Luckily, both "big boys" sleep great now and require almost no help from us once it's lights out. Now onto our next family member, Maverick.

Maverick was doing quite well in the sleep department until he reached 3 months old. Things started to change with him and it appears that as of June 22, 2011 a switch has been flipped. He used to stay up till 9-9:30 p.m. before going down for the night, but now he goes down from 7:30-8 p.m. and you better follow his lead or you'll be sorry.

After "learning" from our mistakes with Brighton, I refuse to let the nibbler's habits continue and I will not nurse him back to sleep. I will nurse him once he first wakes up (12-2 a.m.) and then again at 6 a.m. (usually I cave by 5:30 a.m. if he's been stirring for a while, and he generally has). He sleeps great until the first nursing, but then starts stirring about 3 a.m. and doesn't really ever settle back down until a great sleep. I'm really hoping that this cycle stops soon. Mommy and Daddy are tired!

Here's my cutie eyeing up his lion to take a bite. He's not the biggest binky fan all the time, and he's learning to bite on other things. We'd like him to take the binky in the night to get him back to sleep and sometimes he does and other times he launches it to his toes by spitting it out of his mouth. Little stinker...

We leave for the beach tomorrow and hopefully he will continue sleeping this good and get better. Once we return, Maverick will finally move into his room and his crib. This move has been delayed by a few weeks since he's turned 3 months and we've done so much traveling. He naps in the crib, and for the most part does well in there. His morning nap is 45-60 minutes. That is usually taken about 2 hours after he wakes up for the day. His afternoon nap tends to be 2-3 hours and if it's cut short, then he takes one more pre-bedtime snooze of about 30-45 minutes. Here's hoping we are all "sleeping through the night" soon!