"Is she a good sleeper?" is a question I probably get asked the most about my toddler. What does good sleeping look like? What does bad sleeping looking like? What I think most people mean is one of three things:
Do you get enough sleep? Yes, I do get enough sleep, most of the time, but it is because I have fully leaned into my daughter's natural sleep tendencies. More on that below.
Does she sleep independently? No, she does not. She is very independent in many aspects of her life, except sleep. She is very dependent on me. She prefers contact sleeping, sleeping in the stroller or sleeping in the car so we plan accordingly. She had just started allowing me to transfer her from me to the bed to finish her naps, but she still sleeps longer on me. Solo sleeping results in a 40 minute nap. Contact napping can stretch it another whole hour (total of 1:45), but I rarely can stay in one spot for that long, so if I'm lucky, she'll nurse back into her nap and sleep longer, I just have to be ready to stay put.
Does she sleep through the night? Sort of. Only because she sleeps right next to me and I nurse on demand. She nurses anywhere between 3 and 9 times every night. Yes, every night. But, because she is right next to me, I never have to get up, I never have to fully wake and now that she is a but older, most of her nursing sessions last 30 seconds to 3 minutes. That's it. Easy peasy.
I wrote on what we were doing re: sleep when Madison was 7 months old here. Turns out, not a lot has changed since. We still cosleep. Part of it is because we are living with family while we build our next house and have no other options. Although, we would probably be doing it anyway because Madison still dream feeds at night. One thing that has improved, is that once she is sleeping, I can often leave the room for a few hours, whereas previously I was lucky to slip away for 30 minutes. She cluster feeds less often, although will sometimes in the morning, which often buys me an extra hour or three in bed. She goes down around 7pm and wakes around 7am. I do 100% of the bedtimes since she nurses to sleep. I also do 100% of the wake ups because she pees on the toilet first thing (I love elimination communication and plan to transition into potty training in the next few weeks) in the morning and that skill is important enough to me to stay on top of it.
There are a few key things that make this work and not stressful. First and foremost, I trust the process. I understand normal human sleep development enough, that although it seems like everyone might have it easier than us re: sleep, this is where we are at and I know it's not forever. Parenting Madison is the most important thing I'm doing right now. It's not the end of the world that I can't go out for a late dinner or leave her with someone. Second, I have the luxury of doing paid work very part time, so I am with Madison a lot. I can rest when she rests. I can go to bed when she goes to bed (called a reverse sleep in by Boob to Food) if I'm feeling tired. I rarely stay up past 9 (unless I can't stop reading a Sarah J Maas book). So, even though I have multiple wake ups at night, I am never leaving bed because Madison is sleeping right next to me, and I'm spending a total of 10-12 hours in bed and accumulating enough sleep to feel rested. Third, there are some awesome benefits of our dream feeds. My milk supply stays boosted. The longest I go without feeding her is 7 or 8 hours and that is always during the day. Gradually decreasing overnight feeds is easier on my boobs. Also, Madison has a tongue tie and the longer and more frequent she feeds, the better her palate development and less chance of us needing to utilize orthodontics in the future. Last, but not least, I never check the clock or count overnight feeds. I don't have a clock (or my phone) in the room. I only have a rough estimate of the number of feeds. I do know it's never been less than three. It is what it is. I'm not going to change it anytime soon so I'm not going to stress about those details. I know she'll eventually sleep independently, because that's simply what humans do.
It's not always fun or easy. There are times I feel resentful that I'm the only one taking care of our toddler's sleep. I sometimes feel jealous that I am at home while Quinn is out at night hanging out with friends. Or that we've been up for hours before he even rolls out of bed. But, overall, I'm very content with our sleep situation. It's easier for me to lean into Madison's sleep tendencies rather than fighting them. Hopefully reading this gives you some insight on what toddler sleep can look like. And that it's okay. Trust your gut. You know what works best for both you and your child.
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