If there is one thing (and actually there are many things) that constantly are changing within the first year of baby’s life is it sleep patterns.

That is why it isn’t uncommon to hear the mother of a baby under a year old exclaim, “Just when we get a great routine going, something changes.”

Yep, welcome to life with an infant!

In my opinion, knowledge is power, when it comes to these changes. I wish I had the knowledge I do now about a babies sleep needs during the first year before I became Little Bug’s Mama. (But I guess that’s what oldest kids are – a guinea pig for Mama to learn from!)

I dislike change. A lot. Which is probably why I’ve lived in the same city for all but 22 months of my life. It’s probably why I chose to live at home and go to college instead of packing up and going somewhere out of city/state. And it is most likely the biggest factor in my frustrations during Little Bug’s first year of life. I was most certainly the Mama who said that statement: “Just when we get a great routine going, something changes.”

For me, knowing what to expect, takes away a lot of the frustration I feel when change happens. Unfortunately, in life we don’t always know what to expect.

However, with baby’s sleeping patterns during the first year of life, thanks to Babywise, we can know, to a certain degree (because no baby is a complete textbook baby!), what to expect.

And to me that brings much peace and comfort!

So what are the changes you can expect with baby’s sleep patterns over the first year?

I plan to answer that question and many more in posts to come. As I said a couple weeks ago, I want to record the knowledge I have learned about Babywise over this past year for two main reasons: 1) So I will have this information easily accessible when it comes time for baby #2 and 2) So I can help educate reader’s who are interested in learning just what Babywise is all about. (Unfortunately, Babywise has a bad reputation. I’ve done Babywise with Little Bug since she was 3 months old and Little Bug has never cried for no reason in her crib until she was blue in the face and puking her guts out – which is what the anti-Babywise people want you to believe Babywise is all about! I hope to paint a more accurate picture of Babywise. Oh, and by the way, I’m not doing these posts to start a debate. Honestly, I don’t have time to debate Babywise, so any comments that come in to debate will be ignored. Just thought I’d make that clear from the get-go!)

First up will be a post about how my viewpoint of Babywise has changed over the past year. Future topics will include Regulating Eating/Sleeping, the Eat/Wake/Sleep cycle, growth spurts, the dreamfeed, Waketime and it’s effect on naps and the average sleep needs of the typical baby – all of which have played a huge role in Little Bug’s growth and development over the past 15 months.

I am sure more posts will come to mind as well as I think of all I have learned and do not want to forget!

All of these posts will be labeled “On Becoming Babywise”, which is the name of the first book in the Babywise series, and then labeled with a more specific label too, such as “dream feed”.

And don’t worry… if you are not interested in Babywise this blog isn’t becoming a “Babywise Blog” (there already is one!). I’ll be posting these Babywise posts periodically as I have time to write them. (There may be more coming at first because I already have several posts drafted.)

Ok – that’s all!

- Elaine