When it comes to starting a family, everyone has a little bit of information that is going to solve all your woes. There is always someone that thinks they have the missing piece to the puzzle to help you and your screaming baby. What is the single, best piece of advice that I learned? Don’t take anyone’s advice. To put it bluntly, what worked for one family isn’t going to work for another family. What worked for one child in YOUR family isn’t going to necessarily work for another. In addition, what worked for babies 35 years ago, ain’t going to cut it now. There are so many new research developments on babies that the information literally changes from year to year. Yet, you still get an influx of old school recommendations – some warranted and some not.
There was certain advice that Scott and I kept getting on repeat. When Grady arrived, we actually attempted some of this old school advice that seemed to be tried and true. Sure it might have worked for some, or even YOUR children. We quickly learned that the advice we received just wasn’t going to work with OUR kid.
Make lots of noise, run the vacuum and let the baby sleep anywhere
This was the NUMBER ONE piece of old school advice that I got. Everyone said to run the vacuum. So I did. My kid wouldn’t sleep. He would wake up and stay awake. Everyone said to make lots of noise. So I did. My kid would wake up and not go back to sleep. Everyone said to let the baby sleep anywhere. Guess what? My kid would’t fall asleep. He would admire his surroundings and eventually get so overtired that a massive tantrum would ensue. I tried the whole “make noise and sleep anywhere” bit for several weeks thinking the sleep situation would get better. It didn’t. He wasn’t sleeping and when he would fall asleep anywhere, it was usually only for 20-30 minutes. The first two months of his life, sure, he would fall asleep anywhere but things had changed. This is what they said to do, I thought.
My neighbor had a baby that was a couple of months older than Grady. She wasn’t having trouble getting her baby to nap (so she claimed). I asked her what her secret was. In the crib, dark room, swaddled, sound machine on! she proclaimed. I needed his nap time to emulate the long sleep. The old school advice of making noise and letting the baby sleep anywhere wasn’t working so I needed to try something else. So after several weeks of putting him in the crib, dark room, sound machine on, he began to sleep. We now have a consistent nap schedule and Grady is in a jovial mood 90% of the time. We know what to expect and when.
Formula makes the baby fuller and helps them sleep through the night
I’m actually laughing as I write this little tidbit. Sooooo laughable. NOTHING is going to make that baby sleep through the night. Not at first, anyway. Yet, SO many people said give the baby formula to make them sleep through the night.
After about 5 weeks of waking up every two hours to feed I was desperate. One night, I told Scott I was going to give the baby formula all night rather than breastmilk. I was going to give it a test run to see if, in fact, formula would keep him fuller and I would get more sleep. Nope. He continued to get up EVERY TWO HOURS even after a bottle of formula. I tried it a couple more nights. Nope. The boy would still get up. Our pediatrician even said formula wasn’t going to get him to sleep through the night. What got him sleeping through the night was time, a solid routine and a bedtime.
Keeping the baby awake longer will make him sleep longer at night
No. No. And no. One thing I have learned about my child, (not all babies, just mine) is that if he doesn’t get the allocated amount of sleep he is supposed to for his age, he becomes OVERTIRED. In addition, he becomes cranky and does nothing but flail around and cry.
We took a trip to upstate New York to see the sights and go apple picking. Grady was about 2.5 months old and he was sleeping through a majority of the night with just one wake at around 3am. I had worked hard on maintaining a nap schedule and keeping a routine. One particular afternoon during our trip, Grady refused a nap. “So and so said to keep him awake longer and he’ll sleep more at night. It won’t hurt him if he misses this nap,” Scott said. I tried to argue with the research but he insisted that Grady would in fact, sleep soundly through the night because we were going to wear him out. That afternoon ensued a raging temper tantrum that lasted 45 minutes, only to be followed by waking every two hours throughout the night. It’s rather difficult to start getting up every two hours when you’ve been sleeping soundly with only one interruption. Some might say it could be because we were traveling and that’s why he was getting up all night. It could be. But this incident happened the second day we were there and he was only up once the night before. In addition, we’ve traveled quite a bit since and he’s slept through the night. He gets up earlier (like 5am)…but he’s not up all night.
Never wake a sleeping baby
The oldest advice known to man, right? Oh my gosh, how many times did we hear this??? Well, you have to wake a baby – when they first come home from the hospital. There is a difference between waking an infant and a baby, we learned. You have to wake the infant every three hours to feed. If you don’t, they’re going to continue to sleep and not eat and lose calories and that’s the opposite of what you want a baby to do. Eventually as they grow, they’ll be able to wake themselves up. That’s not the case in the beginning. You have to help them.
I met a girl whom everyone told her not to wake the baby to feed. Her grandmother came over and asked how long the baby had been asleep without eating. Six hours. Even though her granny was old school, she knew to wake the baby.
Only feed the baby when he lets you know he’s hungry
Which takes me to the last piece of advice we heard over and over. Don’t worry! He’ll let you know when he’s hungry! One of the things we learned as new parents is that the LAST thing a baby is going to do to show he’s hungry is to start screaming. Why let it get to that point? If you start feeding on a schedule, the baby will eat when he’s hungry and he’ll stop eating when he’s full. If you feed on a schedule, when he DOES start crying, you’ll know whether it’s because he’s hungry or if it’s something else that’s bothering him. Personally, if you only feed the baby when he’s hungry, you’re dealing with a lot of crying and waiting on him to cry to let you know he’s hungry. Too much crying. Not only that, when you feed the baby in 2-3 hour increments in the beginning, you’re setting him up for a good schedule and routine. (That’s not to say he won’t want to eat every hour and a half. I’ve been there too.) Now that we’re in his eighth month and still on a feeding schedule, Grady will eat every 3.5-4 hours with solids in between. But I don’t wait for him to start crying to let me know he’s hungry. At three and a half hours I’m mixing the formula and getting ready.
Advice is not something that I offer up freely these days, especially now that I have a baby and was bombarded with so much advice myself. I do know that everyone that offered advice was just trying to help and although I do appreciate it, some of it just didn’t work with my kid. It might have worked for their children and their friends children, but not mine. It’s just like when I was in the classroom, what worked for one student might not have worked for another and what might have been a masterpiece of a lesson for one teacher might have been a dud for her neighbor next door. All babies are different and unique and you have to figure your baby out. One teacher I worked with said her son and daughter-in-law asked for her advice with their new baby. Her response? Well this is how I did it…but that was 30 years ago and you might need to do it differently…one hell of a response if I do say so myself.
Now, when someone asks if I have any baby tips, I tell them to get the Baby 411 book. It literally gives you the 411 on all things baby.
What about you? What was some advice you’ve received that totally didn’t work for your baby?