March Mamas 2012 Baby Group (Closed Group)

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Aww, Glow its hell when they are older isn't it? :cry: When we had to re-enforce it with Roh (which happily only took a few nights) it was an hour or so of, "Mummy help, Mummy cuddleeeee!!!!" Gaah, i felt evil!

I'd try it with F now, but given her personality i can pretty much guarantee she'd just escalate and go on forever!! If she's happy and comfy, she goes to sleep, if not, then she shouts about it. :shrug: What can you do?
 
Hello lads

Well having cracked and had a rockin row with MrC I finally assessed things and decided to do some light sleep training. Her naps were becoming non existent and her sleep at night poorer and poorer in quality. She can go forever but it wasn't good for her and the last straw was waiting and waiting for 6:30pm downstairs with both of us crying and me waiting for MrC to come home. I'd achieved absolutely no work that day and had a sad baby on my hands. Double fail.

How's it going Loo, Laura, Lozza.....Loo do you mean this method? https://www.sleepytot.com/articles/baby-sleep-training-return-and-check

I chose this because it wasn't helping me being in the room with her. At least with this method she's not crying, I just go in when I hear her shouts start to turn over to being upset. We've also ordered a comforter to help make a slow transition from the dummy at night...though she doesn't always need it.

So, it's only been two nights and days, the days have been a little haphazard but with a meltdown, she's gone down for a nap in the morning for the first time in forever. The first night I fed her, settled her down and went back in 4 times to give her a dummy and remind her it was sleep time. This took an hour and she fell finally asleep at 8:30pm. She woke up once at 3:30am so I fed her and she fell asleep at 4:30am. She woke up at 8:10am.

Yesterday, she achieved a lunchtime and afternoon nap and settled herself about 8pm without me going back in. She woke up at 4:30am, fed for 30 minutes and then faffed about for 20 minutes. She got herself back to sleep and woke up at 8:20am.

Fingers crossed for today and tonight. I wouldn't have done this before 6 months, even though it's not really controlled crying. I dunno. I feel liberated not feeding her to sleep and knowing that MrC can take an equal role in this. We discussed it and agreed we'd both do the same thing. Glow, you have a fabulous sleeper but I think you also gave J clear parameters which have worked for you too, comes from being a more experienced mama!

Lozza, you didn't sound so thrilled about the doctors appointment on FB, was it at all helpful?
 
MsC - I suppose it was in that he said he's fine so start food, just not sure what he really did other than listen to us and listen to him with a stethoscope! We've got a follow up appt in January if necessary and I've got to drop a poo sample in so they can test he's absorbing a particular sugar. It sounds like he just needs more time for his gut to mature. I should have asked if there was anything he recommended to help in the meantime but didn't. I'll give food a few weeks and research sleep training in the meantime. He's 18lb almost so I can't rock him to sleep forever, and he can't really have every nap in the buggy!

Glad the sleep training worked for you!
 
Lozza-I'll email you my sleep training diary. But I've also included some information here.

What I'm doing is VERY similar to what MsC is doing except that I never talk. My boys are both like E, and it makes it worse for me to be in their line of sight. I find the same is true of my making noise. So I do everything in the dark and without making a peep.

I'm very matter-of-fact about giving them a paci and patting their bottom and gently laying their head down on the mattress. (They're tummy sleepers so when they wake up, their heads pop up like little meerkats. :haha:) Then I walk out of the room. I can stay in the room so long as I'm in a spot where they cannot see me at all, but that's pretty miserable for me. So, I generally go to the living room and wait it out. I go back in in intervals of maybe 3, 5, 8 minutes to re-give the paci, gently lay the head down and briefly pat the bottom (totals about 30 seconds of my being there). When I go in to do this, it doesn't seem to actually comfort them for more than a few seconds. But it does reinforce the message (I think) that it is sleep time. I have resorted to picking them up for a brief cuddle on a couple of occasions, but TBH, it only prolonged the process.

We've been at it for 3 weeks now. The first night didn't really count since I was only concerned with not feeding them, so I didn't really follow any methods except to not feed them. We had melt down crying the second night when I got serious (one spell each); melt down crying one night about a week ago (one spell for P and 3 for K but I blame a cold) and meltdown crying last night (one spell for P and 2 for K). Not bad at all. And even when there were meltdowns, they only lasted 10-15, with a single 20 minute episode. For the other nights, we've had one or two wake ups where I was able to give them the paci, lay their head down and pat their bottom, and they went immediately back to sleep or went back to sleep after playing alone in the dark for a bit.

I still have 2 challenges: getting them to sleep past 5 and weaning them from their pacifier dependence. They don't always wake up at 5, but it happens more often than it should. I think I just have to treat that like any other nighttime waking (even though we have to get them up at 6:00 or 6:30). As for the pacis.... ugh. I'm not opposed to pacis at all. If it gives them comfort and makes them feel secure, then that's what matters. But if they become a nighttime crutch (that only I can give them), then it's a problem.

Maybe next week, we'll start trying to shift away from nighttime pacifiers. I've had to do everything in stages since it's difficult to do this with two babies at once. They are sharing a room again, and they've proven that they can more or less sleep through each other's screaming. So, I think the time is right. It will probably mean we have some more nights of crying, but hopefully it will only last a few nights. We'll still use pacis for naps though.
 
I find it amazing how they can sleep through each others crying! Sounds like its going well WT. :) I found a dummy became a nightmare for a couple of months and then got easier again when Roh could reach about and pop it back in himself. I just left 3 around the cot for him to grab. He has one still and i hear him suck it a few minutes when he wakes in the night. He only asks for it if he has a tantrum he is struggling to calm down from. I think we'll start weaning him off it in the next few months though. I feel like i should have done it sooner though as he's very attached to them as a comfort aid. I think i'll wean both of them off their dummies at the same time, and be done with it!
 
Lozza - hopefully it's nothing serious (in his poo!) and just a gut maturing thing :winkwink:

MrsC - sounds like you've made great progress in just a couple of days and that's brilliant, small steps and all that. I think 6 months is a lovely but frustrating age as it's generally full of teething and frustrations ie; sitting up, trying to move around more but possibly unable to so it's a testing time.

Emera - Emily used to make herself physically sick and used to choke herself she cried so hard. She then went through a period of completely undressing herself in the cot and throwing all her clothes and nappy across the room. She was only about 15 months when all this happened and it was draining. Then DD1 used to 'help' her climb out of the cot by stacking books against it!!! NIGHTMARE!!!
So maybe due to episodes like this I have been tougher this time around but also very lucky with a laid back baby.

WT - sounds like you are making progress too with the boys, hope it continues :hugs:

Well think J might be getting a cold so maybe it's my turn for sleepless nights :haha: lot's of coughing and sneezing and generally being off his milk today. Blaming my neighbour her brought her 2 year old round the other day who insisted on kissing him constantly when he had a snotty nose :roll:
 
Ugh glow, colds are not good. Hope J deals with it better than Z is with his current one!

Took us nearly 3 hours to finally get him down tonight :cry:
 
It's good to hear about other people's sleep training. We have had a tough day with it.

Last night she went down to sleep without a murmur. She needed the dummy again at 11, but she slept through until 6.40.
Then today she had 3 naps which took 35, 45 and 1h5m for her to settle. She only napped for 1 hr, 30mins and 40 mins. Crazy.
We are following the 'let her cry for an extra minute each time' thing. So we let her cry for 1 min, then 2, 3 etc. it's so hard during the day as she is NOT getting it. But I don't feel like we can give in after 1 day.
She went down tonight first time without a single winge again.

I feel drained, but I know we need to do something for the daytime naps. The dummy is becoming a massive problem for us. She doesn't sleep with it, but she can't fall asleep without it in her mouth. So if she gets upset she won't settle until I go back in and pop it in her mouth. Gah.

Sorry if this post is me me me. Really sorry. X
 
I'm sorry that you've had such a difficult sleeping day Loo.

Sleep training here seems to have gone well today. Yesterday it took an hour to get her to sleep in the evening. This morning was 15 minutes for her nap. We were out for the rest of the day so she napped in the carseat and in a shopping trolley seat! This evening she stopped crying after 4 minutes on her own. I went in and she wasn't asleep, she was just staring at the wall and hugging her sleep bunny. I went in 10 minutes later and she was fast asleep without a peep. For the record, that is the first time in her life that she's done that. I'm hoping that she sleeps well tonight too.

I know what you mean when you say it is draining. We've followed the ferber method which was the one that I had previously decided that there was no way I was going to do as I felt that there were much nicer ways of doing things but for me, it helped my sanity and I know that I couldn't cope with having to be in the room with her when she cried and I couldn't deal with sleep training like the pick up, put down method as I was(am) so tired that I seem to have lost my sense of patience. I think if I'd done this sooner I wouldn't have had to take such extreme measures. I'm sure that the other sleeping training methods would work for us too but this worked because it was quick and if it works as well in the future as it has worked today then I will be very happy.

I also dealt a little more with my guilt today by making a point of giving her a kiss and cuddle and telling her that I love her before I put her to bed. I've never been able to do that before because I was always trying to transfer her into the cot so carefully that she didn't wake up! It was nice because she snuggled into my neck and we had a lovely snuggly, snoozy cuddle. <3

x
 
3 hours to get down, during which time I fed him 3 times. He lasted an hour and woke up screaming. He's had calpol and nurofen tonight already so it can't have been his teeth. It's just taken me almost an hour of screaming, fall asleep, transfer to cot, wake up and repeat to get him back down. Unfortunately he's on his side and I think if he rolls to his front he'll hit his head on the side which will probably wake him :dohh: they need to make cots wider!
 
*runs to research ferber*

Loo - we're all me me me here, that's why BnB is still here I think! Xx
 
We all need to be all me, me, me sometimes! That's why the mamas are great!
 
I like hearing about all the sleep training. It will be great to come back and read in a few weeks when we start. Sounds like it is going pretty well for the most part.
We had D's 6 month appointment and shots today. She is 16 lbs and 28 inches, the Dr. laughed because the nurse put 100% for the height percentile. So she's still really tall and grows out of her car seat in an inch. She may have actually slept from 8pm - 2 am last night, she didn't wake me up until then anyways. She then woke up at 4,5,6,7 for awhile each time, we just hung out in bed sleeping off and on until 8. So not bad really. I'm hoping tonight goes okay after her shots, she was pretty grumpy after the 4 month ones.
 
Glow, toddlers are a total biohazard. Fact. Also other hazards too, currently Roh keeps giving F stickers which naturally she eats :dohh:

As F has been getting steadily worse at going down in the evening i decided i wasn't going to get her up again this evening and make her stay in her cot. Errgh, nightmare. 2 hours of wailing. I went in to settle her down every time she started getting properly distressed, but then the last time i went in she wouldn't calm down and then did a massive vomcano everywhere. Had to strip her and the bed, change everything, and ended up rubbing her back until she went to sleep. :rolleyes: Think i'm going to have to tailor my approach with her.
 
Emera and Lozza, I'm so sorry that you had a bad night so far. Vomcanos and 3 hour put downs are not fun. :hugs:

Laura, I'm so pleased that things seem to be settling down. It's heartbreaking, but like I said before, sometimes these things need to be tried :hugs:

Sillysmiles, progress!! I hope D settled after her shots? And yes, I hope in a few weeks we can look back on all this training and say it was worth it! x
 
Oh lads big huge massive :hugs: you WILL get there with these babies...tough times. I think you're all amazing. 3hr put downs and vomcanos in bed? Hideous. :hug: and Glow - your girls sounded like a right handful!! I feel very lucky (and am certain it's all luck and nothing to do with parenting etc) that N is as snoozy as he is. We are still dream feeding and its not infallible but it def helped us coincide his long stretch of sleep with mine. Daytime naps are much more variable. But I'm ok with that. Night time sleep is so precious lads for you and the babies so please don't feel terrible about gently encouraging it.
I am awake with GIANT leaky boobs after a foody day. Ouch.
Xxx
 
Waula, ouch!

I'm pretty sure the reason F has got worse at going to bed is my fault, as I've been getting her up if she doesn't settle immediately. Not really a great message to send her. So yeah, need to clamp down. She's definitely going to be a 'cry until I'm sick' sort of baby though, better settle her on a towel for now! She did sleep very well last night though, so that's a good sign.
 
Ouch Waula! But great news that he's obviously taking plenty of food! xx

Emera, D cried so much she vommed yesterday. Heart breaking. Good tip about the towel though.

1st nap today she went down 1st time, no grumbling. Only a 30 min nap, but progress!
 
Oh my gosh! 3 naps today, all without a single grumble! Crazy. Ok, so they were short (30-40 mins each), and I'm a bit nervous that Al put her down for all of them, and that he's turned into some freaky baby whisperer, but still!

There could be something in this sleep training...
 
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