Sleep Sense Support Group!

[history_girls]

TG!!!!!!!! Glad L izzie is on the mend. Fibby is doing the opposite and saying yes to everything even if she means no. Although we have got the shake of the head off to a T!

Will write more later - christmas buggy snuggle for niece to sew!!!

 

[PetiteMoi]

Ok, LO is asleep in her pram indoors - it sometimes works these days to drag her back and forth indoors when I know she's sleepy, although it never lasts longer than 30 mins and 30 mins is on a good day!

Maybe I'll have a minute or two to write properly on here though.

First of all, thanks for the warm welcome! This seems like a nice and friendly support thread and I look forward to getting to know you all and share problems and successes

Here's our situation:

Our 4.5 month old daughter has always been a good night sleeper but has never been able to self settle as I feed her to sleep at night and either walk her in her pram or rock her to sleep during the day. Recently she has started waking up more in the night as well, and it takes around 2 hours for me to settle her by feeding her at night which is becoming very tiresome. She has never been good at taking naps, the max she sleeps at one time is 30 mins and she needs props to do that.

I've only just bought the programme and read it through and am very impressed and eager to start! I think it's the simplicity of the theory behind it (babies need to learn how to self settle) plus the fact you need to put in a lot of hard work that makes it so successful - I've heard so many success stories and I think it makes a lot of sense!

DH is off work the week between xmas and new year so we're planning on making a start on Monday.

I'm not sure whether we should start the nap training at the same time as the night sleep training - what have you guys done? I guess we should as we need to be consistent? Or would it mean too much hard training for LO at once?

Our situation is becoming a bit unbearable now as we need to constantly carry her around in the evenings (she goes to bed with us at 9 or 10pm as I need to go to bed with her and stay with her for a couple of hours!) and she never gets enough sleep. What I hope to get out of this is 1) more sleep for LO, 2) our evenings back!! and 3) a good nights sleep (we've been spoilt with this previously but have now suffered a week of broken sleep so it's starting to get to us a bit as we're not used to it).

I'm counting down the days till Monday now, almost more than to Christmas (!!) It's painful to watch her being so sleepy and not being able to do anything about it. I'm very glad though that I just discovered she can go to sleep and stay asleep for a bit in her pram indoors - means I don't have to constantly feed her now I'm stuck indoors with flu! Obviously that will stop next week, but it's good to have something in the meantime. I don't want to start the programme earlier since I want to do it properly from the start - I don't want any of that crying to have been in vain!!!

Will stop writing now, just had to get it out of my system as it's quite unusual for me to get the time to write a lot ;-) Thanks for listening xxx

 

[history_girls]

Welcome PetiteMoi - I started ss around the age your LO is and in the long term I am so pleased I did. Any younger and should wouldn't have coped with it! We had one false start - gave up after 2 days and I really regret it. Our issue was LO would go to sleep but would wake up loads and loads and not be able to go back on her own. As they get older I think they sleep better - long nights of unbroken sleep are not to far away! My LO had a night bottle until 6 months and the night she slept through I thought she was dead. She kept stirring but gradually she could go back off on her own. the 1am, 2am sleepsense sessions are tough - I'd take some of that Christmas chocolate upstairs to help with staying awake


Great idea to start when OH is home as it really does make a difference. In the first couple of days when there is quite a bit of crying we had set time slots - 20 minutes each and then when it was our time off we went where we couldn't here the baby (the shed lol or headphones in). I always had a puzzler or something to help me cope with her being upset - I would sush and say her key phrase but to stop me crying I had to be busy. OH just could sit it out. We had a very clear bedtime routine and I think at 5 months was going to bed at 7 for 7.30pm. When I got that few hours back in the eve thast was fab. We've had about a total of 5 or 6 absolutely awful SS nights in the first few weeks - 90 minutes of crying but in the long term she goes to sleep like a dream now. Obviously we have bad nights when she is ill or whatever but it doesn't make her forget her ability to self settle.

As for naps - Christmas week - might be a nightmare? I tried to do naps at the same time but in the early days it felt like every time she was going to sleep involved crying. I think we started naps 2 or 3 weeks in as her favourite nap place was on me or in her pram. If we started around 4 1/2 months I would say naps were ok by 6 months but not brilliant until 10 months. Maybe it is a developmental thing. She has been really good at napping until this week where she has had an hour a day at most (she normally is good for a couple of hours) but she is in to everything and hates being 'left out'.

It is tough but well worth it - keep in touch! My OH is away all next week so I guess BnB will be getting my undivided attention!


News in the HG household - DIVA Phoebe today. Blimey she has warn me out. She wanted a banana - I sliced one and put it on her plate oh no!!!! She wanted it in the skin to eat herself It was boot camp this afternoon and the little madam sat sulking by her toy boxes for a good 5 minutes when I wouldn't let her play with a permanent marker or pick her up when she had a paddy.

Christmas is coming

 

[Foogirl]

Petite, I would follow the program, including the naps part of it, all at once. The reason is, the better the daytime sleep, the better the nighttime sleep. Not only that, naps take a lot more cracking, so the sooner you start the better. Don't be concerned if the naps are only short at the beginning, having 3 or 4 30 minute naps is better than none at all. If you are trying to get rid of props, such as feeding to sleep (which was our problem) you will only add to the confusion for your LO if you continue using those props at nap times.

Also, what happens at the 30 minute mark with the naps? Does your LO wake up crying? If so, have you considered giving them a bit of time to go back to sleep. Waking 30/45 minutes into a nap is common, but that doesn't mean they are finished. If they won't settle, themselves, you can go back in and try to settle them back down. Nap length will increase with time though.

I would try it for a week and when you have specific questions, as you have paid for the full package, you can email a list of your issues to Sleepsense to get some answers. I found that really useful.

 

[Cattia]

:wave: how is everyone doing? Just popping in to say hi, I find it so hard to find the time to log on much these days! Hope you're all doing well and had a lovely Christmas. It was so nice this year being able to enjoy Christmas with Abigail - last year she was ten days old so I feel it relly passed me by! This evening we took Abigail out to some friends, which we don't often do. It was walking distance so we gave her a bath there and put her to sleep in the travel cot upstairs. At the end of the evening we transfered her to the pram with loads of blankets and walked her home, then transferred her to her cot - total success! She woke up and grissled for about two minutes then went straight to sleep without any milk or anything! Made me realise how far we have come with her sleeping.

 

[PetiteMoi]

Thanks for your advice and answers. Unfortunately all of us have become ill with flu/cold so have had to postpone sleep training to our great dismay! We were so looking forward to it and it would have been perfect this week when DH is off work but never mind.... LO is better now and we're recovering slowly but surely so will try to make a start tomorrow night now.

However I don't think we'll be able to go through with nap training at the same time as we still feel poorly and it feels it will be too much hard work. Those of you who did nap training later, did night sleep training still work?

As a night routine we're thinking bath - massage/moisturising - story - feed. Did you guys start doing the routine together or did you take turns etc?? I wonder if LO will get confused if we take turns...

I really want to get this started now!!!! Illnesses always seem to come just at the wrong bloody time don't they.

Also did you guys pick your LO's up like it says you can do if you want to??

 

[Foogirl]

As a night routine we're thinking bath - massage/moisturising - story - feed. Did you guys start doing the routine together or did you take turns etc?? I wonder if LO will get confused if we take turns...

I really want to get this started now!!!! Illnesses always seem to come just at the wrong bloody time don't they.

Also did you guys pick your LO's up like it says you can do if you want to??

The bedtime routine sounds ok, we did it in bits. Daddy did the bath, I did the feed as I was bfing, and daddy did the story. Now she is older, he does the bath, we get her dressed together and do her teeth, then I do the story. Sometimes we change it. It is good to encourage them to understand anyone can put them to bed.

We didn't pick Abby up very often. Only very very rarely. But whenever we did, we understood she would likely just start crying when we put her back down. I think the Pick up /Put down is generally better for those younger than 3 months or so. But the whole thing is to play it by ear. You will find what works for you and stick at it. We discovered two days in that staying in the room made her worse! If only we had known.

I understand what you are saying about naps, but I think it is worthwhile at least going through the "nap routine" and putting your LO into the cot - even if it is just for ten minutes or half an hour. If you do it at the times you would suspect they are going to nap, it means you are at least giving a hint that napping is what should happen.

One other thing to do is to start clock watching. Abby at 4 months was an "hour" baby. After an hour, she needed a nap. She stretched this to 90 minutes at about 5 or 6 months and stayed on that for ages. Look out for your LO's sleepy signs and try a nap as soon as you see them. That way you're more likely to get a 30 min at least nap.

 

[TennisGal]

Laydeeeez!

Just a quick one to say HAPPY CHRISTMAS!! I'll write more later on / tomorrow - just wanted to wish you much seasonal jollity, send lots of and pour you all a *very cool, HG * sherry!

 

[Cattia]

Hi all

Welcome Petitemoi! Sorry to hear you've been ill, how horrible at Christmas We started SS when Abigail was about 6 months I think, and we did nights first and then naps, which worked OK for us although I agree that if you can get her used to at least being put downin a cot at nap time, even if only for a short time, it will be a good start. Naps took us a lot longer to master than nights. Nights were fairly quick; I really used the programme to break the night feed habit as LO was feeding four times a night and I was about to go back to work. I knew she didn't need the feeds at that age, it was just a comfor thing. Within a couple of weeks she was sleeping all night and has not had a night feed since, expcet when she was really poorly with a temperature. As HG said, once they have the hang of it, they will regress from time to time with teething, illness, growth spurts etc but they have the ability to self settle and so they'll always be able to get back into it with a little encouragement.

Hope everyone else is OK, great to see you all again

 

[hivechild]

Hi all and I hope everyone's having a great time over the holidays with their families (illnesses aside)!

PetiteMoi, I had good intentions in the beginning to work on naps at the same time as night sleep but they kind of fell to the wayside, but our night sleep improved drastically in very short time and at that point because he was so young, I felt it was more important to ensure that he actually got enough napping in during the day that he would sleep well at night as well so we had lots of cuddle/co-sleeping naps early on as it was the only way he'd nap for more than one sleep cycle. Eventually we got to a point where he didn't want to nap on me anymore. We've kind of gone backward recently and he's fighting going down for naps but I don't think that's related to anything we did or didn't do early on.

I do agree that establishing a nap routine the same way that you do a bed time routine is a good thing to do though.

Cattia - I can't believe you're over the halfway mark with bubba number two already! How exciting! How are you getting on? I sometimes miss my bump but not enough to try for another one yet.

----

We had a pretty good Christmas here, although Ronan woke at 5:30am and refused to go back to sleep, he then had a half hour nap at 8:30 and woke up tired and crabby then wouldn't go down to sleep again until just after noon at Grandma's where he finally napped an hour and a half but then was up until he crashed at 6:30 so it was a long and exciting day and mummy was exhausted. As a belated Christmas present though, he then slept through until 6am the next morning and I actually got 8 1/2 hours of solid sleep for the first time in over a year. It was blissful!

Of course, we haven't had a repeat since then and he's teething again so we have random screamy wakeups and fussing to go down again.

Anyway, here's some pics of my monkey to share!

This one was after our first decent bit of snow (we've gotten a few feet since):
https://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs753.ash1/164400_477030629212_536234212_5902875_2022692_n.jpg

Checking out Bailey's Christmas pressies because the box was more interesting than his own:
https://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs772.ash1/166221_480787894212_536234212_5976348_2297199_n.jpg

Diva much? Do these beads look good on me? Do you think they're my color?
https://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/hs005.snc6/165524_480790409212_536234212_5976423_4488387_n.jpg

...and lastly, a quick little video of him reaching the top of the stairs. Climbing them is our new favorite game when mummy wants to tire him out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZU66R9AhQ

 

[PetiteMoi]

Hi again Thanks for the info on nap training, we'll probably do as some of you suggested to try to put her down for the times where napping should happen but we might not fight it out completely just yet!

As for emailing Dana some questions - I'm not sure how that works? I haven't bought the gold or platinum version, can I still email her questions? How many times?

One BIG question that DH and I have, now the big night is approaching, is that LO still feeds at night and while we think a big part of it is that she needs it as a sleep prop, she might still need a feed at night. How do we know this?? When she wakes up at night, should we try to get her to go back to sleep without a feed? What if she actually is hungry? We don't want to encourage night feeding but obviously we don't want her to be hungry and deprive her of what she needs! She will be 5 months on 2 Jan and is exclusively breastfed.

Tonight's the night! Excited and nervous about this! I've got a feeling we're in for a loooong night....

Thanks again for your help and sorry i haven't got time to answer everyone directly at the minute!!! Will hopefully have more time once sleep training is working properly ;-)

 

[hivechild]

Re: Night feeds - I have always just decided on how many hours i was comfortable letting him go for without a feed and then if he woke before then, I would try to settle him first. I also try to give it 10 mikes or so after he wakes before I nurse him.

As he's gotten older the time between feeds has stretched longer. When you're ready and comfortable with stopping all night feeds then you go from there. I know all of us here have had different cut off points and tolerances re: night feeds. I'm personally a softy and will still nurse him if he wakes before up time in the morning. At this point, I am probably going to wait until he's around 1 before i switch to offering water at night instead if he's eaten and nursed well during the day. I think you learn to be able to tell when they're genuinely needing it too, versus wanting it for comfort, but again back to me being a softy, I don't mind giving my baby boy comfort, I just try to make sure he's still awake when he goes back into his cot.

 

[PetiteMoi]

Just doing it now and she's screaming her little head off We're taking turns, 15 mins at a time, just left my first 15 min shift. As I put her down after the bedtime routine she just lay there smiling at first, bless her, which was even worse as I thought perhaps she's not even sleepy enough?! Then after a few minutes she started whinging and then it turned into a full blown cry. She's coughing and spluttering. This is truly awful!!!!! I try to pat her and stroke her, repeating our phrase 'it's sleepytime darling' but it doesn't seem to help one iota. Is it worth doing that still I wonder...

 

[hivechild]

It's so hard in the beginning. I did pick up/put down with Ronan because I couldn't bear to let him cry when he got upset. It really sucked for the first week or so and there was so much trial and error trying to figure out timing with the routine and putting him down and whether he was tired enough or too tired and...and...it was difficult not to get overwhelmed to be honest.

I know that I can't talk to Ronan once he's trying to unwind though or he gets all distracted and wound up. Sometimes it helps for me to keep a hand on him and other times if I touch him or try to pat or soothe him it just makes it worse. Sometimes picking him up gets him more riled up, and other times it calms him right down. I'm probably not being much help right now, but I guess that ultimately what I'm trying to say is that you should try to be as consistent as possible, but trust your instincts and really pay attention to the cues and feedback you get from your LO.

Stay strong. I hope that she calms and settles soon.

 

[PetiteMoi]

Thanks Hivechild! I think that if we pick her up she will calm pretty soon but as soon as we put her down she'll start again so probably best not to, but it takes all the willpower in the world not to pick her up and cuddle her!!!! Soon my turn again...she's still screaming. Hopefully she'll calm down soon And hopefully we're not damaging her for life!!!!!! I feel soooo bad

 

[hivechild]

The poor little munchkin. As I said, do what feels right to you.

Ronan definitely cried after being put down again but he would be calm for a little bit. I would hold and cuddle and rock him until he was really drowsy and almost asleep, then put him down and say it was sleepy time, good night. There was a lot of picking up and putting down but then the last time like a switch I put him down, he did a half whinge and then just passed out and slept like a rock.

After the first couple weeks, I could put him down wide awake and he'd just roll around and chatter to himself until he was ready to fall asleep.

 

[PetiteMoi]

hivechild - perhaps we should be picking her up But we can't do it now all of a sudden as it will confuse her so we'll continue the way we're doing -just stroking her every so often. She seems to be close to giving in to sleep now so fingers crossed. Poor little sausage. She's quiet at the minute...so at least not screaming non stop! It's been 45 mins now...

 

[Cattia]

Petite - the first week is the hardest - well done and hang in there. As Hive said, just do what you feel comfortable with. I found it very hard but I kept telling myself that it would be much harder getting her to sleep on her own when she's two or three and can get in and out of bed on her own!

Abigail screamed for 45 minutes tonight She hardly ever does that now, the only thing I can think it was is her teeth as she seems to have some new ones coming through. In the end DH got her to sleep by sitting outside her door and saying 'sleep time Abigail' for 20 minutes, then he crept away and she was quiet!

 

[PetiteMoi]

She fell asleep on DH's shift! It took 1 hour pretty much exactly! Soooo pleased. We'll see how long it lasts - when did your LO's wake up once they'd fallen asleep on the first night?

Cattia - thanks, we'll hang in there!! Sounds hard to get set backs like that, but glad your LO managed to go to sleep in the end...How long have you been SS for?

 

[Cattia]

Welldone Petite! That's the hardest part over! We have been doing SS for about 6 months, but to be honest we don't have to do it much any more as Abigail self settles almost all the time. It's just when she is ill or has teeth coming through we have to go back to it! It is one of the best decisions I made. I think without it I would still be up three or four times every night. I never minded getting up in the night as I was breastfeeding, but once I was back at work it started to get impossible as I just couldn't manage with all that broken sleep.