My baby Hana is already 3 months + 4 days today.. She is such an adorable baby especially now that she babbles non stop. 
But the problem with Hana is that she has sleep problem even way back when she was in neonatal age. Quite restless I might say (considering that she is my first born, so I don't have any other babies to compare her with).
She only falls asleep after being rocked, hold and at night she dozes off after 1 hour + 30 minutes at my breast (it was not fun I tell you since my nip became sore after a while). She also wakes up for night feed twice sometimes thrice which makes me and hubby sleep deprived. Since we co-sleep, I also noticed that she tossed and turned a lot at night from around 2am till 5am. I checked everything to make sure that she is comfortable: she's not cold or overheated, her diapers was not that wet and etc but she still appeared restless.
Catnapping during the day became a big problem for her. She sleeps atas kendong bibik and the minute her head touches the bed, she opened her eyes. Same goes when she was with me. The only way I can get her to sleep is during BF since she recognizes me from my distinct scent. Nak tido jer, she starts looking and searching for the breast. After 10 minutes of BF (or most likely comfort sucking, she started to close her eyes. After half and hour I thought she was already sound asleep but boy, was I wrong. She'll open her eyes once I took out the nipple. I tried giving her dummy but she refused. My mom suggested us to put Hana but I said NO since it is a bad habit.
I pity Hana. On average, she only sleeps about 1 hour during the day and 10 hours at night (but restless). A baby of her age supposed to have a good 15 hours of sleep (5 hours during the day and the rest at night).
But the problem with Hana is that she has sleep problem even way back when she was in neonatal age. Quite restless I might say (considering that she is my first born, so I don't have any other babies to compare her with).
She only falls asleep after being rocked, hold and at night she dozes off after 1 hour + 30 minutes at my breast (it was not fun I tell you since my nip became sore after a while). She also wakes up for night feed twice sometimes thrice which makes me and hubby sleep deprived. Since we co-sleep, I also noticed that she tossed and turned a lot at night from around 2am till 5am. I checked everything to make sure that she is comfortable: she's not cold or overheated, her diapers was not that wet and etc but she still appeared restless.
Catnapping during the day became a big problem for her. She sleeps atas kendong bibik and the minute her head touches the bed, she opened her eyes. Same goes when she was with me. The only way I can get her to sleep is during BF since she recognizes me from my distinct scent. Nak tido jer, she starts looking and searching for the breast. After 10 minutes of BF (or most likely comfort sucking, she started to close her eyes. After half and hour I thought she was already sound asleep but boy, was I wrong. She'll open her eyes once I took out the nipple. I tried giving her dummy but she refused. My mom suggested us to put Hana but I said NO since it is a bad habit.
I pity Hana. On average, she only sleeps about 1 hour during the day and 10 hours at night (but restless). A baby of her age supposed to have a good 15 hours of sleep (5 hours during the day and the rest at night).
So I decided that it's about time that my baby girl needs an intervention. A dear friend of mine suggested a book by Tizzie Hall called Save Our Sleep. The book teaches babies to fall asleep by themselves without the help of dummy, rocker, lullaby, kendong etc..The baby has to learn the skill of self settling /self soothing which is an important lifetime skill. He'll learn to feel calm in other situation too such as when mommy momentarily walked out of the room or when he is just feeling out of sort.
My sleep obsession
An international study (including Malaysia) showed that babies who sleep earlier, falling asleep by themselves and sleep in their own cot, sleep longer and has more quality sleep!!
The most improtant thing this book tells you is to follow a regular bed/naptime and consistent bedtime routine such as taking a bath followed by feeding or a story (babies thrive on consistency). The baby must be put to sleep at a place where you intend for her to wake up and she must be put to bed AWAKE so that she'll learn the skill to self settle. It is just like crawling. If you always carry your baby or put him in a walker, he'll never learn how to crawl since he'll never be on the floor long enough to work it out.
This book also taught us to differentiate babies' different cry. Emotional cry in which the sound will be something like WAA, WAA, WAA (loud and persistent with same tone through out) means that the baby is in distress due to hunger or wet nappy or too cold/hot. Thus you must attend to your baby immediately. A protest cry on the other hand sounds like WA, WAA, WAAA, WAA, WA, pause, WAA, pause (different intonation with few pauses). This means that the baby is protesting and requested to be hold or rocked. It doesn't indicate anything serious.
In the initial part of the process, a baby like Hana who is so used to being rocked and fed to sleep will have a bit of protest cry and need more time to practice. That means, putting Hana to bed AWAKE, letting her cry and NOT doing anything!! Imagine doing that to your loved ones!!!!
So far I'm still in the process of letting Hana to learn to self soothe. On the first day, she cried 30 minutes straight!!! I dengar pun nak nangis jugak and really tempted to go in and pick her. But I know, I'm doing this for her own sake. After 3 days, Hana is still learning but she cried shorter. Tonight she fell asleep after 15 minutes of crying (and I hope she'll keep improving after this)! I'll probably post an entry of my struggle with Tizzie Hall's sleep routine.
Wish me and Hana good luck ya.
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