I think she's learning to transition from one sleep cycle to the next without me!

[SarahBear]

Woohoo! At night, I nurse her to sleep. When she transitions from one sleep cycle to the next, she has pretty much always needed me there. If she's not sleeping great to start, she'll wake up and then go back to sleep after quite some time with help from me. If she's sleeping well she'll feel me or latch on and drift back to sleep. Then different nights she needs varying degrees of help staying asleep. Sometimes I need to be next to her the whole time she sleeps. I often times lay on my belly with one side against her and the computer in front of me and then hang out online until I'm ready for bed. Well, the last few nights she hasn't needed to sleep as close. And last night she needed very little assistance in staying asleep. And just now, she transitioned from one sleep cycle to the next. She even felt around a tad, and didn't need any physical contact and was able to stay asleep! Maybe this means that if I'm visiting someone after her "bedtime," I won't have to keep running back into the bedroom... Or if I want popcorn I can make some (stove top in a pot) without having to run in to her half way through... This glimpse of freedom is looking good! Although I'm fully aware there's a sleep regression around the corner...

 

[Aimee4311]

Yay! hopefully she keeps it up!

 

[missk1989]

Sounds great! It sometimes helps my lo is I take my top off and leave it next to him so when he reaches out he can feel and smell me.

 

[kettle28]

Freedom!!! It was great when lo started sleeping further away in bed for a couple of hours, yay!

 

[colsy]

Can I ask whether you actually did anything to reach this point? I am very keen to reduce our night awakenings - or at least our night nursings. I don't need STTN, just maybe more than 2 hours in any one go

 

[SarahBear]

Can I ask whether you actually did anything to reach this point? I am very keen to reduce our night awakenings - or at least our night nursings. I don't need STTN, just maybe more than 2 hours in any one go

I always nurse her to sleep on our bed (bed-sharing) but I try to unlatch her before she falls asleep completely. If she starts searching for it again, I put it back. I don't put it back at the first sign of searching because I want to see if she will settle. If I put it back though, I respond within seconds though because it doesn't take long to see that she's going to wake up more instead of fall asleep. I also try to move away slowly. Again, I go back if she needs me and move when I can. Basically, I don't want to be glued to her, but I also want to be responsive to her. I try to find a balance and she's learning to sleep on her own. So basically all I've done is set up a secure and responsive sleep environment while also gradually moving in the direction of independent sleep by withdrawing at a pace determined by Violet.

 

[SarahBear]

Sounds great! It sometimes helps my lo is I take my top off and leave it next to him so when he reaches out he can feel and smell me.

This used to work...

 

[SarahBear]

She's getting so good at sleeping without me that when she nursed to sleep this evening, she turned away from me completely when she was done!

So I guess that means she didn't nurse to sleep completely, but she hasn't been doing that lately anyway. She's been nursing to where she's really relaxed and then falls asleep on her own.