Wednesday, June 25, 2014

How Babywise Changed My Life

I could have titled this post many different things. How My Fussy Baby Got Happy Overnight. Diary Of A Clueless Mom. Schedules Work and We're Proof. Babywise--Do It Now. I could go on and on. I settled upon How Babywise Changed My Life because that is truth, plain and simple.
We started Campbell on Babywise almost a month ago. I came to a breaking point after 2 days of non stop crying, no sleep and countless plea's to God to please show me some grace and make my baby happy. After I (finally) managed to get Campbell down one evening, I sat in my bath and sobbed to my husband, managing to only say through my tears that I was failing. Failing as a Mom and failing Campbell......and he didn't deserve that. The problem was, I didn't know what to do about it. I prayed and prayed for God to make Campbell a "smiley, happy baby" and also kept asking him why he gave me such a hard one.
So I'm sitting in my bath sobbing, feeling like a failure, wondering why I'd wanted a baby so badly to begin with (just being honest), and not sure how much longer I could survive. I told Scott I felt like we really needed to get Campbell on a schedule but I had no idea how to go about doing it. We had Babywise laying around our house so Scott picked up the book and started reading it. I would have done it myself but I was so dang sleep deprived and exhausted that I literally couldn't understand a word I was reading when I'd tried. Scott read the book that night, shared the concept with me, told me what to do and how to do it, and that was that.
I noticed a difference in Campbell immediately. My extremely fussy baby suddenly got happy. Then he started sleeping longer at night. Less than 48 hours later, I got the smiley, happy baby I'd been praying for. Not only was Campbell suddenly happy, his reflux also got better. I think it's because he literally just snacked all day long because my solution to stop the crying was to nurse him.
I instantly felt like I got my life back. No more bouncing my baby, no more rocking him to sleep for an hour, no more setting him in the crib while holding my breath and tip toeing out of his room praying he doesn't wake up.
So how does Babywise work? It's actually super simple. Eat. Wake. Sleep. Campbell starts his day at the same time every day---7:30. I usually have to wake him up myself. It may vary by 10 minutes or so but no matter what, we start at the same time every day. The second he wakes up I feed him. After he's done eating, we have our activity time. It can be anything from me just holding and talking to him, setting him on his play mat, or him hanging out in his bouncy chair watching TV while I take care of household chores or get dressed. After he's been awake for around an hour, I head upstairs and get him ready for his nap. I lay him on his changing pad, swaddle him, give him a paci, then sit in the glider and rock him for maybe 5 minutes. He closes his eyes almost immediately, I stand up, lay him in his crib, and walk away. Bam. Done. I start the process all over again once it's been 2 1/2-3 hours since he last ate. Sometimes he wakes up on his own or sometimes I have to wake him up.
The last 2 nights, Campbell slept from 10:15-7:15. If you had told me 5 weeks ago that I would be saying that today, I never would have believed you. We did it! We finally did it. I don't feel like a failure anymore. Campbell was fussy because he was tired. His naps and wake times were all over the place. It makes me sad that my ignorance was making my baby so unhappy. #newmotherproblems. Thankfully, my sweet little boy is very forgiving and doesn't hold it against me. He's just happy that I finally figured it out. And now, I get so many smiles in one day that I can't even count them. Babywise may not work for everyone but it has done miracles for us.

5 comments:

  1. My girlfriends here in Austin with little ones swear by the babywise schedule. Glad it helped you guys!

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    1. If only I'd started it sooner!! Oh well....live and learn!

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  2. A schedule is soooooo key...still to this day. I have to keep Mason on a schedule or else he will wake up in the middle of the night. It isn't always a perfect schedule, but I can tell a huge difference when we are off vs.on.

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    1. See everyone told me you can't put a baby on a schedule until they're about 4 months old. Even our doctor told me that! So I just didn't bother because I thought it was impossible. Lessoned learned. All Campbell did for 2 months was cry. It took us forever to figure it out but we finally did and now I bet his cries total up to maybe 10 minutes a day. HUGE difference!!!!

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    2. I am so excited for you (and Scott)! A happy baby makes for a happier mama.

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