Conventional Wisdom
This is the face of a well-rested baby. The face of a baby whose mommy is also well-rested. This is the face of a baby who slept for EIGHT hours last night. Woohoo!
According to American baby, "Conventional wisdom has it that most babies sleep through the night--loosely defined as six to eight hours--by 12 weeks of age." Dax will be 11 weeks old tomorrow. He has been fairly consistently sleeping 5 to 6 hours at a stretch for a couple of weeks now. And last night, we hit the mother lode.
See, I had been waking up after those 5 to 6 hours to the sound of Dax sucking loudly on his thumb and I would get him out of his cradle and feed him a bit. When I say, "a bit"? I mean he would only eat for about five minutes and then he'd fall asleep again. Then he'd sleep for another couple of hours. But yesterday we read a tip that said that I shouldn't respond to him immediately upon his waking because he might go back to sleep again. Usually when he wakes up in the night he doesn't cry. I just hear him doing that sucking thing. So, I figured I could wait it out without traumatizing him. That's what I did last night. Lo and behold....it worked.
So I know we are on the right track with the sleep plan. We've started a little ritual to cue him that bedtime is coming. He has been going to bed at the same time every night. Before we put him down to sleep he gets a diaper change, some cuddles, a bedtime story and a feeding. We can put him down in his cradle when he is still awake and he will put himself to sleep. He has the cutest little comfort thing he does. He sucks his thumb and rubs his head. Works every time.