We started sleep training at eight weeks and Buddy slept through from 12 weeks, no regressions.
Frequent conversation in our house:
Me: My friend is pregnant!
Tee: Are you going to tell them about Tizzie?
Me: Well it’s not for everyone…
Tee: When you’re on a plane and there’s an incident do you say “well I’m going to wear a life jacket but it’s not for everyone”?!
We used a book called Save Our Sleep by Tizzie Hall. This is the single most valuable book I’ve ever read, and yet I’m reluctant to recommend it. Why? It’s controversial. Have a look at the reviews on Amazon: 50% 1 star, 50% 5 stars. Let me break down what I call the Four Levels of Tizzie.
Level 1: The 7pm Bus
Put the baby to bed at 7pm and wake her up at 7am. Never miss the 7pm bus. While she’s on the bus, if she wakes, feed in the dark and putt her straight back down, no interacting. This is relatively uncontroversial as it is about setting the baby’s circadian rhythm (internal body clock) and and differentiating between night and day. The bus alone will get babies sleeping through the night eventually, but likely with regressions.
Level 2: Teach the baby to self-settle
Put her down calm, let her protest a bit and if it continues, pat and shush until quiet. Self-settling is an essential skill that all babies need to learn at some point (I’ve written on this here). It is my experience that you can teach them early. You can also wait until you’re exhausted and decide “That’s it! We’re sleep training!!”. Or have a melt down and go to Tresilian/Karitane. Or you can let them figure it out themselves – anecdotally I’ve seen this happen between 2.5 and 3 years.
Level 3: Put your baby on a routine.
Parents have strong views on whether or not to put their baby on a routine. I think this comes down to personality. Some people would not accept feeding a baby on a schedule. Or living their life according to a clock. Some say the baby knows best. I think kids adapt to whatever you teach them.
Tizzie’s routine is very detailed. As the baby grows, the routine gets simpler, easier to follow. I liked being able to plan my day. I book calls during his sleep slots and lunch dates during awake times. It helps me get out and about. Our take is: the routines are there for us (the parents) – if on occasion it suits us to break the routine, we’ll do it. Though we don’t tend to – he just sleeps so well on routine, and well slept baby = happy baby = easy life.
I also found a baby routine good for equal parenting – see this post.
Level 4: Use a precise type and quantity of bedding
Babies are used to being bundled and very warm in the womb. To sleep well they need to be swaddled and warmly dressed, with cellular cotton blankets (used in hospitals) to provide weight.
Highly controversial. The criticism is: 1. SIDS risk 2. Overheating risk, and 3. it’s a money-making scam because Tizzie sells bedding.
At around 8 weeks we decided to go Full Tizzie and buy her cotton blankets. They are very low TOG but provide weight. Buddy immediately started sleeping like a dream. Whenever he’s had sleep issues, I’ve looked at the bedding and realised that something was a cotton/poly blend and it’s made him sweat, which has later made him cold. Interestingly we are able to wrap him up and pile on a million blankets and he doesn’t get too hot or get sweat rash or anything as long as everything is 100% cotton so it breathes.
A few reflections
We started the bus at 4 weeks, routines at 6 weeks, self-settling at 8 weeks, bedding at 8 weeks.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about when we would start the routines for a hypothetical second child. Sometimes I think from Day 0. My one reservation about the routines is around breast milk production. Demand feeding helps increase supply. Tizzie’s routines get around that by making you express milk at certain times to teach your body to produce more. That seemed really complicated and onerous to me. Also, I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise supply in the first few weeks. I think I’d wait 4-6 weeks so I felt like breastfeeding was really established and that my supply was good. And only if I had a chubby baby, the sign of a good feeder.
I found going ‘Full Tizzie’ very annoying and cringeworthy, like I was blindly buying in to some sort of multi level marketing scheme, or that I was becoming an anti vaxxer. I couldn’t believe i was buying Save Our Sleep-branded bedding. But it worked for us so we’ve kept doing it, and now we’re completely addicted getting so much sleep and we’re afraid to lose it.
I don’t know what the minimal effective dose is – whether you’d get good sleep outcomes just from the bus and the routines, for example. We just went all in. And we’ll do it again next time.
No matter what sleep approach you choose, it can work as long as you’re consistent. It can take weeks/months to see results, and in the postpartum period weeks feel like years. And sleep and feeding is ALL you think about. It’s tempting to keep changing your approach, trying to find the magic bullet. Hold your ground, do it once and do it properly. It’s worth it.