I hear a lot of complaints from new moms, but the biggest complaint is lack. of. sleep!  (Now, that's not to say I don't hear about an overwhelming amount of joy, because I do.  But my coaching clients don't hire me to talk about how much they love being a mom.)  I recently read that new moms lose about 350 hours of sleep in the first year!  Nobody told us we wouldn't sleep for an entire year. Maybe nobody told us that before we became a mom for fear of extinction.  We don't function well on less than a full night of sleep.   

One of my clients was complaining that her baby was staying up until 11:00 p.m. when she and her husband went to bed and only slept eight total hours at night.  After we spoke she decided to try letting her baby learn to put himself to sleep around 7pm and after crying for less than an hour he was fast asleep.  And, he slept until 7:00 a.m. the next day.  She was shocked - how could this be so easy?!

Sometimes we don't give our little ones the credit they deserve.  We're apprehensive to try new things for fear that they won't adapt or it won't work or that it may make things worse than they were before we tried.  And sometimes when we try new things we learn that our stories about what *may* happen are just that - stories.  And our reality is often different from our stories.

I am completely guilty of this.  I hear myself saying things like "I'm afraid to eliminate Hudson's 5:00 a.m. feeding because he may wake up a lot earlier than his usual 7am wake up".  Last night was night three of weaning Hudson from his 5:00 a.m. feeding.  For the past several months he goes to bed at 7:00 p.m., usually wakes up around 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. for a 10-minute feeding and then he falls right back to sleep until around 7:00 a.m.  Although the 5:00 a.m. feeding is quick, it still breaks up my (and his) sleep, which isn't ideal for either of us.

I thought for sure he would scream and protest when I refused to feed him, but like is most often the case, I was wrong.  He has woken up around 5am the past few mornings, and I haven't fed him, but after a few minutes of whining he's fallen back to sleep.  I go into his bedroom and tell him "it's time to go to sleep, baby", and I leave the room and crawl back into my snuggly bed.  Within 10 minutes he's out like a light.  

Hudson's pediatrician has told me time-and-time-again that it will only take 3-5 nights before he realizes he's not getting fed at 5:00 a.m. and he will start sleeping straight through.  He's usually right about everything, but for whatever reason I've resisted trusting this advice.  Tonight will be night four and I *believe* that Hudson is smart enough to sleep straight through without waking.  And if not, I'll keep trying.