Halle{freaking}lujah

I know. You don't have to say anything. I know. I've been neglecting the blog. I'm sorry. I've had writer's block {aka: Saxon}. But I'm back. And I'm coming back in a big way. Why, you ask? Because Saxon slept through the night last night.

For those of you wondering what this means, I'll spell it out for you. It means I can drink again. No, seriously. I know I talk a lot about drinking. And you probably think I drink more than I do. But drinking when you have a newborn is seriously about as fun as squirting lime juice in your eyes. Let me be clear. When you are waking up every 3 hours to feed a newborn, you're already waking up feeling hungover - no booze needed. For the past 11 weeks, I stagger out of bed in the morning looking like a scene from Hangover 2. I do not joke.

I've had zero desire to indulge because why add insult to injury? It's ironic because if there is ever a time to hit the bottle, it's when you have a newborn. But it's really a bad idea. I even decided to push back my 30th birthday party {yup, turned the big 3-0 last week} because getting home from a huge birthday bash only to be woken up by a screaming tiny human sounded like an awful way to ring in this huge milestone. "So, yeah, we'll celebrate when Saxon is sleeping through the night" is what I told everyone.

Now, if you know me, you know that I have serious control issues. As a result, I've sleep-trained all three kids. Yes, that's right. I'm a 'Babywise' mom. I realize that Babywise is like Sarah Palin. Moms either swear by it and think its tactics will be life-changing. Or Babywise foes will tell you that following its methods could give your kids brain damage. Look, at the end of the day, Rylan and Sawyer sleep 12 hours a day and still take a 2 hour nap at ages 4.5 and 3 {respectively}...the jury is still out on Sawyer's mental health - but I'll save that for a different blog post. Middle child. First boy. There are a lot of things working against him besides Babywise.

So how did I do it? Well, we start at 2 weeks old. Before that it's feed on demand. The first two weeks are awful for a Type-A mom. No control. No schedule. Just balls-to-the-wall-I'm-a-slave-for-you-type parenting. So after 2 weeks you start baby on a feed-play-sleep every 3 hour routine. It sounds crazy. But if you're like me, it's great because you're establishing a fool-proof routine. Here's what our day looks like:

8am: Wake and feed {keep awake}
930am: Nap
11am: Wake and feed {keep awake}
1230pm: Nap
2pm: Wake and feed {keep awake}
330pm: Nap
5pm: Wake and feed {keep awake}
8pm: Feed and straight to bed
11pm: Dream feed {feed baby while he/she's asleep and then say your prayers that baby sleeps all the way through until 8am}

In the beginning the baby will naturally wake at 2am and 5am to eat. But as time goes on and the baby learns to sleep longer periods of time, the goal is that he/she will sleep through the 2am and 5am feedings. Do you hear that? {angels are singing}.

Now sometimes babies need a little "help" so-to-speak to drop one or both feedings. This is when the critics will tell you that you're on the fast-track to years of therapy for your kid. Both my boys needed the "help." I think Sawyer would still be eating at 2am if I hadn't forced him to drop that feeding years ago. Saxon was the same way. So 2 weeks ago {and right about the time I made the decision to go back to teaching spin at 6am 3 days a week- I know, brilliant, right?} I decided it was time.

Saxon woke up at 2am like clockwork but instead of feeding him I gave him a pacifier and he went back to sleep. It wasn't actually as easy as that. There were tears involved. From both of us. But the next night, he went right through until 4:30. Yahooo!! The night after that he made it until 5am. So, if you're still with me here, we were now feeding him at 11pm and 5am. Ahh, I can taste that 3rd glass of wine on my lips. 6 hours in a row is magical.

Our next goal was getting him to drop the 5am feeding. And I didn't want to force this one. I really hoped I had one of those kids that would do it on his own. Rylan was like that. She slept through the night at 6 weeks. Overachiever. She may look like Eric, but she's all me folks. So last night when Saxon slept through his 5am feeding Eric and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. Of course we were awake. That first night when they sleep through a feeding, you never do too. We just sat there at 5am watching the monitor waiting for him to wake. He didn't. We're morons.

The last feeding to drop is the "dream feed." And this one is the scariest one, in my opinion. You've just got your kid to sleep from 11pm - 8am without waking up. Why mess with a good thing? What if you don't feed at 11 and he wakes at 5? Truth is, after a week of ensuring the baby can go from 11-8, dropping the dream feed is magical. You know why? Because then your baby is sleeping 12 hours from 8pm to 8am and you're off the wagon telling the Babywise critics to suck it.

That brings us to today. Saxon is 11 weeks old and sleeping straight through from 8pm-8am {with 11pm dream feed}. Next week we'll tackle dropping the dream feed. One week at a time. Tonight Eric and I are off to see Hangover 2 and will throw back a couple to celebrate.

Cheers!