....For the past 3 days, anyway.

This is not really a brag post as much as it is an offering of hope for the tired parents out there.

Back story: My boy has always be a shitty sleeper, 1/2 hour naps(unhappy when waking up), but between 4 and 6 months he started sleping 8-10 hours through the night. But, as most of us know, as soon as you figure your kiddo out they change... and he did.

At ~6 months we had to stop swaddling him (he was waking and struggling to get out, etc), he was teething pretty hardcore and we started solids, and normal sleep regressions (Too much at once i guess). He started waking up every hour, sometimes 2x an hour. It was horrible. Our time was consumed with getting him back to sleep and finding ways to keep him asleep.

*As a side note, we are against crying-it-out (not against fussing a bit though) and we had already gotten him to sleep through the night a few months ago so we felt it was just looking to make all the pieces fit again. *

Fast forward 3 months to now and this is what we've got going on:

• We managed to cut down his naps to two 1-3 hr naps. Awesome and he now goes down easy. Good naps, for us, is key.
• Co-sleep and take turns co-sleeping. He sleeps in our bed. Granted it's not the ideal sleep arrangement but my wife sleeps on the couch until he wakes up for 1 feeding(which is usually right when I get up to go to work) and stays with him. This allows us to get longer blocks of sleep.
• Feed him a lot before bed, but not too close to sleepy time. Feeding before bed is a no brainer, but when to feed him is important.
• Lots of activity. He's a busy kid so we give him lots to do.
• Short bedtime routine: Feed, change, little story, maybe some guitar, nurse or rock to sleep < 1 hour

Over time, It slowly got better and better until 3 days ago, it happened. WHAM! 8 hours of solid sleep. So far so good.

Be diligent with what you want and good luck everyone!