Book Review: 12 Hours Sleep by 12 Weeks

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When we were expecting Finn, some friends of ours recommended the book 12 Hours Sleep by 12 Weeks Old by Suzy Giordano. While Finn did not sleep through the night at 12 weeks (or until well after 1 year), I found a few things in the book helpful, particularly the schedule recommendations and tips for weaning night feedings. So, as Penelope was approaching 3 months old, I decided to re-read the book. 

Overall, I think the author has a lot of helpful, practical information and resources in the book, and yet it is presented in a way that is not overwhelming. I also really like that it is designed to be a quick read. I would recommend it for families that want to help build healthy sleep patterns for their baby.

Here are the specific things I liked and found helpful. 

The Limited Crying Solution

The author outlines her philosophy of “The Limited Crying Solution” on page 7 as her recommended method to use during training. It is more of a middle ground between the “cry it out” method and the “no cry method”. I definitely found this helpful, especially for when Finn was a baby, because I couldn’t bring myself to let him cry it out forever and ever, but obviously going in right away so he didn’t cry at all was unrealistic.

Empowered as a parent / set boundaries

One of her “Four Foundations of Baby Sleep Success” (pages 16–18) is “You must feel empowered as a parent”, and as you are empowered by that realization, you must also realize that you cannot protect your baby from everything. One of the quotes I particularly appreciated said, “You are entrusted with your child for a short period and need to help him build skills during that time.” I like this overall philosophy that we are entrusted with our child, and we need to give them tools and skills to get them ready for the world. This definitely resonated with Dylan and my overarching philosophy of raising our kids.

Order of training

On page 52, she outlines how to get started with her sleep training method. I think the idea of sleep training a baby is a bit overwhelming from the get-go. I really appreciated that she outlined an order of training to help the parent know exactly where to start, even that day, and to not feel overwhelmed. 

The order of training she recommends is to work on

  1. Feeding during the day

  2. Feeding during the night

  3. Sleeping during the night

  4. Sleeping during the day

In conjunction with the order of training, she also outlines the Requirements for getting started (page 53) based on your baby's weight, amount of food consumed per day, and age.

Daytime & Nighttime Toolboxes

A large crux of her sleep training is based off of the utilization of a Daytime toolbox to help stretch the time between feedings, and a Nighttime toolbox for soothing baby without picking him or her up (pages 54–56). These items are not necessarily anything mind-blowing, but I think as a new parent, it helped me to have a few items to bring to mind quickly to try to help distract or soothe my babe. 

Eliminating night feedings

I found this to be the single most helpful part of the book when we had Finn. He held onto his 3am feeding forever. For quite a while, I really do believe he was hungry, and it was the right thing to do to continue that feeding. However, there came a time when I knew in my heart that he could make it through the night and just wanted it for comfort primarily. So, I used the author's techniques to help wean him from that feeding. I honestly don't know how I would have approached eliminating his night feeding if I hadn't read this book.

Two additional notes—

  1. She gives her information about eliminating night feedings in both ounces (for bottle feeders) and minutes (for breast feeding moms) so her techniques can be used by anyone.

  2. She also includes a few sample schedules, which are nice for more visual learners to see what a day would look like.

Tell me, have you read 12 Hours Sleep by 12 Weeks Old? If so, what did you think? Any other sleep training books you would recommend, especially to new parents?

(Affiliate link used)

Design Inspiration for a Baby Girl's Room

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Baby girl's room is coming along, and today, I wanted to share my inspiration and general design direction for the space. 

I'm not sure if there was any particular jumping off point for how this room came together. I knew I wanted it to feel cohesive with Finn's room, which is across the hall. That meant sticking with white walls (Behr Polar Bear) and pulling in some darker grays to mirror his room. I also wanted the room to feel calm and a bit more muted than how his turned out. I came across the rug on RugsUSA (linked below) and fell in love. It is so beautiful in person, and it is really soft too. I really liked how it pulled together a lot of the colors I wanted but in a muted way. It ended up guiding a lot of the other decisions for the room.

From there, I knew we would need a dresser for storage. The closet in her room is small. And after a lot of searching, I decided on the gray storage cabinet to corral toys, dolls, and books. It will also serve as a landing place beside our rocking chair for a lamp and our phones/water/whatever while we feed and rock the baby. 

Originally, I was going to use our crib from Finn (this one) and paint it dark gray. While searching Craigslist for something else, I came across a Jenny Lind crib in white for a great price. I couldn't pass it up! It saved me a lot of effort to not have to paint the other crib, and I absolutely love how it looks in the room. It fits so well with the other elements. 

I plan to use art to bring in some pops of color. I have a vintage bird print I bought in Paris last summer, and I want to make an abstract art print as well. I also have a ton of images of flamingos saved and hope to print one or two to hang in the space. Eventually, I would like to add the Dotted Iris print from Etsy (linked below). I think the colors are perfect for her room, and I like the vintage vibe of it.

There you have it! I'm hoping to take photos of the space as I finish it up in the next week or so here. Below is the source list for all of the items. 

Source List

DaVinci Jenny Lind Crib in White

Burt's Bees Striped Crib Sheet in Gray - These are the best! So soft and fit very well. 

Gray Curtains

Swan Mobile

Louvaire Ashen Traditional Rug - This rug is so beautiful in person and very soft under foot.

Keekaroo Changing Pad — We have had this changing pad since Finn was born, and I HIGHLY recommend it! It is so nice that you can wipe it off rather than having to run it through the washing machine when it inevitably gets wet/dirty.

3-tier Tray - to corral diapers, wipes, butt cream, etc on her dresser

Dotted Lavender Iris print

Storage Cabinet

Rabbit blanket

P.S. Here's the Inspiration for Finn's Toddler Room as well as the final result, Finn's Room. 

P.P.S. Affiliate links are used for some of the Amazon products. I receive a small commission if you purchase through my affiliate link.

A Tip for New Moms

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There is so much out there in terms of advice for new moms. There is one thing I never came across that I wish someone had told me before we brought our tiny newborn home from the hospital—learn a song.

It seems silly, but I remember sitting in the chair in Finn's room, holding his tiny little body against me, wishing I could think of the lyrics to a song to sing to him while we rocked slowly back and forth in the dark.

It does not, and probably should not, be a complicated song. The main criteria is something you won't care to sing a zillion times, likely in a row.

I ended up going with Jesus Paid It All. It is a hymn that I have always liked, I already knew most of the words to it, and it had significance to me because we sang it at our wedding. I sang it a lot those first few months when Finn was fussy, and now I sing it to him before his nap and before bed...unless he requests 'Daddy's song'. Dylan sings Before the Throne of God Above to him.

Is there any advice you would give to a new mom?

P.S. Isn't this Mother and Baby print by Siret Roots so beautiful?!

A Few of My Favorite Baby Products

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Dylan and I are expecting our second child. (I am due April 2018). Naturally, I have all things baby on the brain. While I won't start planning for the nursery until we find out the gender, I have been thinking about some of my favorite baby items. There are so many items out there and so many conflicting reports about what you need and don't need. While I think so much of it depends on your baby and your lifestyle, here are a few items I highly recommend as well as some thoughts on a few 'essential items' like cribs and burp clothes.

1. Keekaroo Changing Pad—I love, love, love this changing pad. Having a boy definitely is risky business for getting peed on. This has been an amazing lifesaver because I can wipe it off easily, and for bigger messes, I can stick it in the tub to wash it off. I highly recommend it. (Ours is in the Vanilla color, but it looks like there are other colors here.)

2. Milkbarn Organic Swaddle Blankets—These blankets are so nice! They are soft and super cute. They have a bunch of different colors and prints. I like the thickness of these—great for a breezy summer day, keeping a chill away on the airplane, layering with a thicker blanket. In general I recommend having a bunch of blankets in various thicknesses. They come in handy for wrapping the baby up, playing on the ground, etc. (These pink foxes are so cute!)

3. Union 2-in-1 Convertible Crib—I personally believe a crib is a crib is a crib. Other than style, I don't think that much is different between them. This is the crib we got. It has held up very well, though I recommend getting these rail guards for when your baby starts standing up and chewing on the rails. The paint chipped on ours from Finn chewing on it, but once I added these fleece rail guards, there was no issue.

4. Peek-a-boo Panda Toy—This was such a simple, cute toy. We've had many a good time with it, and it fits easily into the diaper bag for on-the-go entertainment. Sadly they don’t seem to make it anymore, but I came across this Peek-a-boo Bear Toy, which is a nice alternative.

5. Zutano Fleece Booties—These booties are wonderful! They stay on really well and come in a variety of sizes and colors.

6. Cute Burp Cloths & Durable Burp Cloths—Buy a zillion burp clothes. It's nice to have a few cute ones to take on an outing, but do yourself a favor and get some that can get beat up. They are great to have for just about anything but especially spit up...and since they aren't anything special, you won't care if they get destroyed.

7. Twelve Hours Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old by Suzy Giordano—Although Finn did not sleep through the night by twelve weeks, I found the suggested schedules in this book and her overall approach toward sleep to be helpful. (You can see my full book review here.)

A few other thoughts—

A humidifier is a must.

A sound machine does not have to be a must. We have not used one with Finn, and he has done just fine. I think this is a personal preference you have to decide for yourself.

For a winter baby, this JJ Cole Bundle Me stroller or car seat cover is awesome. Finn was born in April, so I used it on the carseat for the last little bit of wintery weather we had here in MN. Then, I used it on our stroller in the fall when Finn was about 6 months old. I absolutely recommend it. It is so soft and cozy.

I think car seat canopies (like this) can be overrated. Our car seat had a good canopy that worked well to help Finn nap and the canopy that was supposed to hang over it never seemed to stay on right.

This is the baby tub we got when Finn was a newborn. It was nice that it worked through various stages of infanthood. I don't know if it is any better or worse than any others.

I would love to hear if you have any favorite products you recommend for baby. Let me know in the comments.

(Affiliate links are used in this post.)

Ways to Make the Weekend Feel Special

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In many ways, the weekend can feel very similar to the weekdays for me as a stay-at-home mom. The main thing that marks the days as different is that my husband is home from work. I realized a few months ago that there are a few things we can try to do to make the days feel different/special/relaxing.

Go out to breakfast—I can be a creature of habit, and when it comes to breakfast, I definitely am. We tend to rotate between a handful of restaurants, and I have a favorite dish at each. I like Redstone for their Eggs Benedict and cheesy hash browns, Good Day Cafe for the Eggs Benedict and seasoned potatoes, and Blackbird for the Colleen O'Brien. The Original Pancake House has good pancakes, but it can have a long wait. The best part about going out to breakfast is that there are no dishes to clean up!

Steal some time away to read, do a project, run some errands—Uninterrupted time to do almost anything is a welcome change. I recently finished reading through the Harry Potter series. I had never read the 5th-7th books so it was fun to re-read the first few, and by the time I got to the 7th book, I could barely put it down.

Take a super, extra long shower—See previous item if you are wondering why this one is on the list. :)

Go for a walk

Plan a fun outing—like taking Finn to the zoo or wandering around a bookstore picking out books/magazines

Watch a movie during nap time

I'm curious to know, what do you do to make the weekends fun/special/relaxing?