Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to episode 106 of Outnumbered the Podcast. Do you have a baby who's keeping you up at night? In this episode, we share all our tips and tricks for getting those babies to sleep at night so that we can get our sleep too. And we specifically share our thoughts on the cry it out method. We know this episode is going to be helpful to all moms who are awake at night.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. We're experienced moms to a combined total of 18 children. Our mission is to help overwhelmed parents find peace in parenting and humor in the chaos. Come join us as we attempt uninterrupted conversation about parenting with joy and intention.
Speaker: OK, and we're back and we are excited to be answering a listener question this week. We love it when you guys send us questions and contact us on something you really want to know. And that's how this week's episode came about. So we're going to read that exact question here in a second. But Bonnie has something humorous to start you off right.
Speaker: Yeah. So we're going to be talking about sleep today, especially for little ones. And, um, you know, we've all been interrupted in our sleep a hundred million times. You can't even begin to count how many times somebody's needed something from me in the middle of the night.
Speaker: Um, but probably the most memorable was when I was in a deep sleep and all of a sudden I, in my subconscious, I hear this and wake up just in time for a kid to vomit all in my hair. Oh, such a nice thing. Somebody hadn't been feeling good and they came to sleep with mom and dad and I was there to catch the vomit. Thank you so much.
Speaker: With your hair. Super fun. And good luck getting back to sleep then, right? Because your entire bed smells like puke and you have to shower. It's not the most pleasant, but I'm sure so many moms can relate. Oh, yes. And not even humorous until like a year later, at least. It's been a couple of years, yeah. I could laugh about it for a while. I was like, no one's allowed in my bed anymore.
Speaker: All right, so speaking of kids in your bed and sleeping, this is the question that we got. Some people are telling us that it won't be sustainable to have a large family unless we sleep train. We don't want to leave our baby to cry, but also want lots of kiddos.
Speaker: Practical advice on how to handle naps and nap time when you choose not to let a baby cry it out, please. So many people tell me it won't be sustainable to be responsive and have multiple kids. So yes, thank you so much for this question. We did do an episode way back episode eight about kids in sleep. And so we encourage you to listen to that because it's about all ages of kids.
Speaker: But in this episode, we're going to kind of focus on babies and young children because they're the ones that more often, most often wake us up in the night. And also, we're so glad for this question because Bonnie and I are really, really passionate about responding to a baby's cry. Yeah, totally. And you know, I just have to share right up front that in my experience with talking to moms about babies and sleeping over the past, you know, 15 years since I had my first child,
Speaker: I've found that it seems like everybody seems like they're expected to fall into one of two camps and those two camps, and I'm being super facetious and like exaggerating here, but these are the two camps that it seems like exist. One is like the hippie mom camp that does everything attachment parenting and is there to respond to their child every second of every day and night, including never ever getting any sleep, right?
Speaker: The other camp seems to be like the hard nosed parent that puts their kid in the crib and walks away and doesn't come back till the morning. We're gonna listen to what the kid does, right? Clearly I'm being, like I said, facetious, but I really feel like there's a beautiful middle ground where we can be responsive to our children and also get a full night's sleep. So that's what we're gonna be talking about. Yes, exactly. So first of all, we're gonna start with sharing the methods that we use for our own babies and young children during both nap time and bedtime.
Speaker: Okay, so basically, you know, caveat here, every age baby is a little bit different and most moms know this. So you do have to be a little bit flexible. You know, sometimes what worked for a baby as a newborn all of a sudden doesn't work because they go through a growth spurt and they need a little bit more sleep or less sleep, et cetera. So just keeping that in mind, our nap time routine usually looks something like this. And it is also a great tip to go ahead and Google the amount of sleep
Speaker: that each child needs at each age. This has been really helpful for me with my first few kids when I was just kind of clueless. In fact, in that first episode on sleep, we have a lot of resources that link there as well. So that's just a really good place to start. So once you know that then for us at our house, what it looks like is we calm maybe down, you know, however it
Speaker: Usually, there's some sort of routine we do regularly with each baby. It always looks a little bit different, but it can be something like, time for nap, you communicate it, you go to the place where they sleep, which for little babies is my room and for bigger babies is a room with a sibling. I usually rock them either in a chair or just sing them a little song, pat their back, soothe them, let them know this is the time to sleep.
Speaker: If they're nursing babies, I'll nurse them to get them to calm down. If not, maybe a little glass of milk or a sip of water or whatever. And then we put them in their bed and we walk away. That's just how it works with our house. Yeah, pretty similar, also dependent on age at our house. So usually with extended breastfeeding, I guess I lean probably a little more toward the hippie mom camp.
Speaker: although I do get my full night's sleep. So anyway, usually, because I do extended breastfeeding, my kids are usually beyond nap age by the time they're done breastfeeding, so two, three -ish. So the nap time usually looks like this. I nurse the baby till they fall asleep. I lay the baby down.
Speaker: And, oh, okay. I have to back up here because one thing I really do that helps me be able to transition the baby from breast to bed is I swaddle them so that they don't get jarred. I mean, there's tons of reasons I swaddle. Maybe we should do a whole podcast about swaddling babies.
Speaker: I swaddle the baby so that one good side effect of swaddling is that when you take them from the breast and lay them on the bed, there's not the jarring and the, you know, the flashing out of the arms trying to catch themselves because they feel like they're going to fall. And so that's basically nap time routine. I do have
Speaker: my let's say six and under kids take a nap on Wednesdays because we do have a night Bible study on Wednesdays and it's just better if they're rested and can stay awake. And obviously I'm not nursing kids up to six. So what I do is just have them lay down and usually if they're up to like six, they're more resistant and they're like, but I don't want to take a nap. So we call it a rest. I need you to lay down and have a rest and here's the clock. And when it says three o 'clock, you can get up.
Speaker: There's probably nothing more boring than laying, watching the time pass on a clock. It just bores them to sleep. Totally tick, tick, tick, and they're out. They're hypnotized by the hand of the clock. You know, before I go into bedtime routine, I'm really glad that you mentioned that you kind of lean more towards one side of the camp because that's totally going to be the case for each one of us. I think we probably know.
Speaker: going into parenting, which side we'll kind of lean towards. I just think it's important that we all realize that there is a gentle kind way to be whatever parent you want to be and still get sleep. So that was kind of the point, right? And you can kind of tell, you know, which way each of us lean and hopefully get some tips for how you can use your own tendency as a parent to get yourself some sleep as well.
Speaker: Okay, so bedtime routine is really similar for us. Often with younger babies, it involves a bath because they're dirty from crawling on the floor or whatever. One thing that I will bring up here is, for some reason, my older kids after dinner is like their wild time. They finish dinner and then they just start running around the house. All of a sudden, it's like, well, let's burn off all the calories we just ingested.
Speaker: And so I have to really watch out for my littlest ones to not get too into that wild time because the older kids have some time to calm down after that, but the little ones go to bed pretty much right after dinner, you know, seven, 7 .30. And so if they're being tossed around by the older kids and wrestling with dad and all these things, then it becomes very difficult to calm them down and get them ready for bed. So usually I'll just kind of whisk them away right after dinner and they blow kisses and they go get washed up.
Speaker: and then they get their pajamas on, we do the same kind of a thing. It's usually a little bit longer at bedtime, a little rocking, a little singing, maybe nursing, and then putting them in their bed. And sometimes I'll stay there a little bit longer because my kids go in their own bed. Sometimes I'll sit there a little bit longer with them and tell them another story or sing them another song so that they transition from being in mom's arms to being alone in the bed by themselves.
Speaker: OK, our bedtime routine has probably gone through every iteration that you can imagine a bedtime routine as depending on the different kids and the different ages. So one thing, bedtime for those who are the babies that are breastfeeding is pretty similar to nap time in that I swaddle them. I nurse them to sleep. I lay them down on the bed. And I did want to mention about baths that I have discovered with some children that a bath in the evening really riles them up.
Speaker: And this was a surprise to me when I had my first kid that got very riled up by taking a bath. And so eventually I learned that that child gets a bath first thing in the morning, not before they go to bed. But so then the little bit older kids, you know, they get calmed down, they get cleaned up, they get calmed down. They get a story read to them either by me or by an older sibling. I have one daughter who really loves to pick a long book and read a chapter of it to her siblings at night.
Speaker: when we're doing good with our bedtime routine, we get them in bed by a certain time and then lights off by a certain time and then they are to be asleep by a certain time so that they can get the number of hours of sleep that they need. I did want to mention one thing here about screens that it takes two hours for the brain to shut off.
Speaker: processing after viewing a screen. So screens in the evening are a no go for any child that I want to sleep and sleep well. So screens are avoided after a certain time at night here at our house.
Speaker: Ooh, I'm really glad you mentioned that. Sometimes when I am gonna let my kids watch screens, I tend to default to the evening because I want them to get all their chores done and all their playing out while the sun's out, but I pay for it almost every time. So that's a really great tip is to keep that curtailed if you want your kid to sleep.
Speaker: Yeah, if you are going to have a movie night, do it on a night where it doesn't matter like a Friday night, where Saturday is not as important, maybe not as much going on or maybe not, you know, an early time that you have to rise in the morning. You, us moms specifically, that we can maybe sleep in a little later if our if our sleep gets interrupted or, you know, maybe plan it once a month or something so that they're not, you know, feeling like they're being deprived completely, but also you are not being deprived of sleep every night after night. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's also important to keep in mind when talking about this that most kids will like the vast majority of children will grow out of the needs that they have in the middle of the night. So you know clearly you start with a newborn and they need you every two hours and it's like oh my gosh we're never gonna survive this baby is always hungry or needs to be burped or needs to be changed etc. But little by little they grow out of that and it's a wonderful thing
Speaker: when they do that in a healthy way because then all of a sudden you're able to get back to your own routine, which is super important for your own health and being available for your kids emotionally. Yes, and that does help when you're in the moment up in the middle of the night with a crying or sick child that this too shall pass, right? Right, right. Yeah. So before we got married and had any kids, my husband said to me that he had this belief that a crying child baby
Speaker: has a need, not a want. And especially at night, like the child is not, the baby is not crying to manipulate you. They're not crying because they want a toy or something. A baby, a child crying at night is crying because they have a need and not a want. So they woke you up because they needed something, not because they just wanted another piece of candy or something.
Speaker: And that also has really helped me in the night to wake up, you know, be woken up out of sleep and know, oh, this child needs something. And they're not just being a jerk.
Speaker: Right, you feel a lot better and less manipulated by that child. So yeah, we're talking about mostly under the five to eight year old range, you know, so babies, toddlers. And some of the reasons that a child cries at night are pretty obvious. A nightmare, they get sick, they need to use the bathroom or there's some sort of diaper problem, you know, they're wet, they're stinky, et cetera. Parasites, go check our episode on that. If you want more information about parasites,
Speaker: there was a loud noise or something startled them out of sleep. So that is also helpful to keep in mind that they're normally this child would probably be sleeping, but there was something external, something unusual that woke them up. So sleep patterns. Let's talk about this. How do we train a child to sleep? So in our house, we teach our kids to sleep using
Speaker: the family bed so we teach the child to sleep by sleeping with them and not only do they follow our sleep pattern so you know you go into the different stages of sleep you drop down into deep sleep and then you come up on a rim up
Speaker: into REM sleep. And as you're in REM sleep, that's the part where you breathe and I mean, you dream. And so maybe you like wiggle or twitch a little bit. And that sort of with the baby sleeping with you, that causes them to kind of bump them up out of a deeper stage of sleep up into a more shallow stage of sleep. And then they have their REM period too. And then you fall into a deeper, um,
Speaker: point of sleep. And then they also are not being, you know, bumped or jiggled or whatever you're doing in your sleep snoring, whatever. And so they fall into a deeper stage of sleep. And so sleeping with a child actually teaches them how to sleep. So not only that, but
Speaker: chemically, when you exhale, you breathe out carbon dioxide. So when the child breathes in, they breathe in that carbon dioxide that you have just breathed out, and it sends a trigger, a signal to their brain that causes them to take a breath.
Speaker: It has actually been shown in studies, we can link some in the show notes, that sleeping with a child, there are less cases of SIDS when babies are sleeping with their responsible parents because that carbon dioxide oxygen exchange is actually triggering their brains to inhale. Oh, that's so fascinating.
Speaker: Yeah, so just to give a different scenario, so we do things a little differently at our house. We do sleep, I sleep very close to or with my infants. They're either in bed with me or in a bassinet right next to me. And then by about
Speaker: six months when they can do a lot of rolling then we move them either to a room with a with a sibling or just a little bit farther away from my bed because it's easier for me to sleep and then eventually they move you know by one they're definitely out of our room and I just share that because I have tried a number of things especially with those first few kids and I found that
Speaker: both my husband and I had a really hard time sleeping when kids were in our bed past a few months. And so that's how we've chosen to do things. I just share that because there are a lot of different ways. And so you can most definitely find a scenario that works best for you. But there, I promise there is a scenario where you can sleep through the night, even with small children. Yes, definitely. And so I do say that I sleep through the night, even though I have a child sleeping with me that wakes up to nurse in the night because it's
Speaker: It wakes me up. It brings me up enough out of sleep to latch them on, but not to have to get up out of bed and go warm up a bottle and get them out of their room. And like, not that level of being waking up, but just the level of, oh, there's a child nursing now. Right, right, right, right.
Speaker: Okay, so a few things, we mentioned a few things already, things not to do before bedtime. We talked about screens, we talked about wrestling and being wild. Sugar is another one. If you can, you know, obviously any sugar in the child's diet, sugary foods in the child's diet is less healthy. But if you can especially limit it the last few hours of the day, that's especially helpful. Caffeine as well, bright lights, loud music. I mean, that's all pretty obvious.
Speaker: Another thing I will share is try to avoid talking about exciting things that are coming up, especially for the children that are old enough to anticipate. I do this all the time and I'm like, why do I not remember this? Like you're trying to talk to them as they go to sleep and very often they're reluctant to go to sleep. So in my mind, I'm like, well, I'll tell them about something fun that's happening tomorrow. Then they'll go to sleep and want tomorrow to come. No. Then they just toss and turn thinking, why isn't it tomorrow? Why isn't it tomorrow?
Speaker: I mean, adults are the exact same way. So that's just a little side note. If you want to talk about something exciting, you tell them, tomorrow, we're going to talk about some plans that are going to be fun in the morning. Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up. You know, I have this little thing I do with my kids.
Speaker: I don't even know what age I started just as soon as really they can kind of listen and process what you're saying. But I talked to them as they're going to sleep about what they did that day. And I think I started doing this because I feel like it's a memory, a memory building thing. And maybe I started because, you know, here at my advanced maternal age, I'm like, what did I do today? Like what on earth? And I try to think back through the whole day and I cannot even remember what I did this morning.
Speaker: So maybe I'm trying to ward that off with my children, but I talked to them about, okay, to remember we got up this morning and this is what you had for breakfast and just a couple little things pick it out through the day and you can really see by their eyes that they're listening and remembering and thinking about that.
Speaker: And then that's kind of like a soothing thing to just kind of go over the day in their mind as I'm putting them to sleep. That's one thing you can do before bedtime is a calming thing for my kids. Another thing I like to do for my kids before they go to bed is give them a snack that has fat in it. So like
Speaker: yogurt or cheese or some dairy free options, maybe some avocado or some nuts, something with a little fat in it because it'll take longer time for their body to burn that fat and process it. And they just seem to sleep better when they have a snack with fat in it before bed. Like I mentioned, a bath for some is a calming routine and for others it riles them up and you're going to know which kid is which.
Speaker: There are essential oils that you can either put in a diffuser or write on to your child to help them sleep if you have one that's especially having trouble with sleep. A dark room for some is essential to get them to sleep. And for others, they cannot go to sleep without a nightlight. So you just learn your kids and figure it out. And then a last bathroom stop, definitely something to do before bedtime.
Speaker: I do have kids that lay in bed and say, uh, I gotta go bathroom. I got a little bit more. I gotta go bathroom. I have a little bit more. And I, at first I thought they were doing it just to kind of, you know, get out of having to go to sleep. But my husband said when he was a kid, he used to lay in bed and have the, think the same thing. Oh, I gotta go a little bit more. And so anyway, some kids have to have be completely drained before they can go to sleep.
Speaker: And better to let them go up too many times than not enough and deal with them. Okay, so just a few specific thoughts on the cry it out method since that's what our reader asked specifically about. I am of the opinion that most parents who try the cry it out method.
Speaker: don't do it because they necessarily think it's a great idea or they've heard research that says it's a good idea, but rather because they're exhausted and out of options, right? When you are just so tired that you're afraid you're gonna harm your baby if you go pick them up, then you try to just let them cry. And it can be so overwhelming and so exhausting and so guilt inducing to get to that point. And so hopefully some of these tips can help you avoid that end of the rope scenario.
Speaker: Right, right. Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned that because that is personally the only time that I won't respond to a baby's cry or a child's cry is when I am at my limit and I need to get myself calmed down before I respond to that child. Because if I respond to a child when I am not in a good condition myself, that's not cool. That's not going to come out well.
Speaker: But other than that, that is the only time I don't respond to a child that's crying. I believe that a child, a baby, left to cry, having a need because they're crying will grow up with some abandonment issues. And I have come to this belief from knowing
Speaker: people of my generation whose parents use the cry it out method and they have abandonment issues that they can directly link back to that. I think it can generate a lack of trust between the parent and the child. I was crying. I needed you and you didn't come and you didn't help me.
Speaker: It just doesn't, it's not a rule, it's not a good foundation for a future relationship between two people that one has a need, one has a cry, and they're helpless and defenseless. And the one who has the power to help doesn't respond. That is just like it feels very dangerous foundation to build a relationship on. Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker: And we want to just state right here that this by no means is meant to condemn or make anyone feel badly about having tried this method. We just found that it is not the most effective for us and it does not yield good results for our babies. And we have quite a few children each. That being said, you will encounter children who are more resistant to sleep than others. You will encounter some who fall asleep like that by themselves. You will find some that will never fall asleep by themselves.
Speaker: There's so many different personalities and needs that kids have. It's just up to us to have this tricky role of figuring out what works best for each child and then responding when they still need us.
Speaker: Oh yes, I totally agree. Each child is different. I have one that cannot go to sleep. If I am in the same room as them, it's just like too stimulating for them. Now this is beyond, you know, obviously this is a child that's weaned and out of my bed. But if I'm in the room, like this child has even come to the point where they say, thank you for scratching my back and telling me a story. Now can you go out so I can go to sleep? And I'm like, okay, God, I can do that. I love it.
Speaker: One last thing I want to say about the cry it out method is think about how you would want to be treated if you are crying for any of the reasons that your child might be crying. How do you want somebody to respond to you? How do I want somebody to respond to me when I'm crying? And then apply that feeling to your child, to your defenseless baby.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so now I want to take just a minute to talk a little bit about the troubleshooting those reluctant sleepers or those who cry every time they go down. And I kind of have a unique perspective between the two of us because my babies generally I require them to go to sleep on their own. I passed about six to eight weeks. I try not to nurse my baby to sleep because I have found that with a handful of mine, some of my reluctant sleepers,
Speaker: if they fall asleep nursing, then they wake up more often expecting to stay on the breast like all night long, you know? And I got to where I was like, I'm not going to nurse you for six hours continually. So I've done a few different things. In fact, I explain a lot of what we do in a blog post and I'll include that link in the show notes. But one thing to realize is that you can
Speaker: train a child to get almost asleep especially nursing or with a bottle and then teach them to gradually fall asleep on their own without that crutch. If that's something you want to do it's not you know it's not necessary obviously you can do either way. But I had a couple of babies I needed to do that because they just would never sleep past an hour or two. My twins were one example of that and it was really hard because at 10 months old they were still
Speaker: Well, maybe we only made it to eight months. Anyway, it was long enough that I thought I was going to die because I had two babies waking up like every 45 minutes. So anyway, there are some gentle training methods. I'm not going to go into super detail, but like I said, you can check that post. I have a book that I recommend there.
Speaker: Um, and then the other thing I want to say is sometimes some babies are just, and toddlers are just really upset about the day ending. Like they don't want to, you know, there tend to be a little bit on the wilder side and they can't let go of the day and they can't move on to sleep time. And I had one or two babies that
Speaker: I would always be upset at bedtime and I thought I was doing something wrong and I would feel really bad and like, well maybe our routine's not right, et cetera, et cetera. But it turned out that they just needed to cry for a few minutes and I'm talking like two minutes, not like 45, right?
Speaker: They needed to cry for like two or three minutes and then they would fall asleep. And I could not figure it out until I just realized over the years that I think that's just their personality. It's just how they kind of get the last bit of their energy out of their system and they go to sleep. But again, like I said, this is like a two minute wine and then they go to sleep. There's a big difference from like leaving them. And I would be there with them and helping them transition. But just, it's just important to be aware that every child is different and they have different ways of dealing with that transition. It's a big transition, letting go of the day.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. I have had kids who also have, you know, for three, four years through their toddler stages just needed to expend that extra energy by crying. And I got to the point where I realized it with these kids that after they would cry for a minute and expend that, you know, that last burst of energy, then they would peacefully go to sleep. And I got to the point where I would almost
Speaker: sometimes when we're having a rough night or something, I would almost do something to make them cry so that they could expend that energy, get it over with, and they could go to sleep. I have one right now who's like this, too. I'm like, if she's not throwing a fit yet, she's not ready to go to bed. Yeah, I just want to give you a couple
Speaker: points of hope, especially to our listener who asked us this question to give you some encouragement. Babies who have parents that respond when they cry, they learn to trust that when they have a need, someone will respond to that. And they learn to respond to the needs of others when they are crying. They learn to be empathetic.
Speaker: So think about just by the simple response of responding to your baby's cry, you can be cultivating an environment of compassion in your family and then that can overflow into the world around you where responding to someone's needs
Speaker: is kind of a default instead of, oh, they're crying. What a wimp for crying or what a baby or, you know, they're just being a jerk or trying to manipulate me or all these other thoughts that are kind of pushed on us as mothers sometimes when we just want to respond to our crying baby. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yes, and along those lines, I have found that in my experience, when we're both exhausted, me and my husband and a baby is crying, it's very often he that wants to just let the baby keep crying and me that doesn't want to. And I go back to this, I really think that moms have this specific instinct and intuition to reach out to a crying baby. There's a funny, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Storks, it's an animated kid film, and there's a part,
Speaker: there's a part towards the end they're trying to ferry this baby to its home and there's a woman with a stork and the baby starts to cry and they're not supposed to mess with the baby but the woman keeps reaching for it she can't help it and all of a sudden
Speaker: you see in her mind's eye like a flashback of like generations of women reaching for babies that's ingrained in her. She cannot not reach for this crying baby. So, you know, it's not something to fight against. It's just something to realize, okay, my baby needs me. I'm going to help them. And if it's some, if it's to a point where it's beyond my capability, like I'm not getting the sleep and rest I need, then we need to do some gentle training and figure out how to get this baby to sleep longer.
Speaker: Yes, I just want to assure you that babies who have parents that respond when they cry, they also learn to sleep well.
Speaker: They're not out there. My teenagers, my nine -year -olds, my six -year -olds, three -year -olds, they're not poor sleepers. They sleep very well, even though I responded to their cry when they needed me. And I love what you're saying about your intuition and your instincts. We have a whole episode about mother's intuition. Trust your intuition. Trust your instincts when you hear your baby or your child crying.
Speaker: How do you want to respond? How are your instincts leading you to respond? What is your intuition telling you? Trust that because that's the right thing.
Speaker: Okay. And just a few final thoughts. You are doing a great job, mom. I just want to always remind you guys of this because sleep is a very, very hot button topic because there's a million different ways to sleep with your kids, a million different ways to get them to sleep. And nothing kind of gets moms on their guard, like being told that they're doing it the wrong way or something. There is no right or wrong way.
Speaker: But responding to your kids' needs is the most important thing as long as you are doing some basic self -care as well. So that's where you have to find that balance. How do I respond to my children while also giving mom the sleep that she needs? And so, you know, best of luck to you. There's a million and one different resources to help you out with this, but we'll, like I said, include some links in the show notes to hopefully get you to a point where you can have that perfect balance.
Speaker: Yes, I agree completely. And I want to say if you're a mom of a small baby and you are being woken up in the night to take care of that baby, you should also be napping when that baby naps. Give yourself permission to sleep when your baby sleeps. I know it's so tempting. Bonnie and I are list checkers and box checkers and list makers and type A and we want to get all this stuff done. But if you're losing sleep at night,
Speaker: Take some opportunities during the day to catch up on that sleep. You deserve it. You need it. Your baby needs you to do it. Just do it. Catch up on your sleep in other times.
Speaker: Yeah, and then also just trust your instincts and listen and learn your child, get to know your child. Like if you leave your baby to cry it out, you're not really learning your child and their needs and their sleep patterns. For example, I have one, I know I've talked about her a lot on the podcast because she's thrown me for a loop, but she is a night owl. She was that way from in utero.
Speaker: And about nine o 'clock at night, she would start having a dance party in my belly. And it would go on for a couple hours, and finally she would settle down and go to sleep. And when she was born, surprise, surprise, I tried to put her to bed at eight o 'clock every night for a couple weeks, and she would just cry and cry and cry for about two hours. And we would walk her, and we would snuggle her, and we would swaddle her, and we would nurse her, and we would do everything we could think of.
Speaker: And finally, about 11 o 'clock, she would settle down and she would go to sleep. Well, guess what? At three, she's still the same way, except I skipped those two hours between 9 and 11 of trying to put her to sleep. And I just let her go hang out with the teenagers so that I lose. I don't lose two hours of my day cuddling her and feeding her snacks and reading her books and trying to get her
Speaker: when she's just not ready to sleep. And that's just her. While everyone, you know, her siblings that are older than her are all sleeping peacefully. And she's just hanging out with the teenagers, having a party and about 11, she curls up and falls asleep. And that's just her.
Speaker: So, you know, I just want to pat you moms on the back too. Give yourselves permission to learn your kids' sleep styles, to get to know your kids if you have a baby crying and you're looking for permission to respond. We hope you found that in this episode.
Speaker: Okay, we'll talk to you next week. Bye. Thanks so much for tuning in. Did you know you can help the podcast in several ways? First up, we're on Patreon and there are three different levels to support us there. Just head to patreon .com slash outnumbered.
Speaker: Next up, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a written review on iTunes. It helps other parents find the podcast and receive the help you're enjoying. And finally, you can follow us on Instagram at Outnumbered the Podcast. We're always having fun over there, too. As usual, if you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at Outnumbered the Podcast at gmail .com. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. Some people are telling us that it won't be so
Speaker: Another dragon. Some people are telling us that it won't be sis... No, I think it's the after effects of the anesthesia wearing off and I have been stumbling over my words and saying the wrong thing. So watch me really close this episode, okay? Take three.
