Sleep Sense Support Group!

[PetiteMoi]

Cattia - thanks! She woke up again after only 30 mins though!! I've just done my 15 min stint and hubby is upstairs doing his now...again! She's just as upset again. Wondering if we will have to do this all night!! It didn't say anything about having to go through it several times in the evening....at least we weren't expecting that. I had expected her to perhaps wake after 3-4 hours but not this soon

 

[Foogirl]

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.

I only bought the basic and it offers a phone consultation so I asked if I could email instead and they were fine with that.

As for the feed, only you can answer it really. One trick is to send your husband in for the night wakings. If he does it she will immediately know there isn't any hope of a feed and might settle. The other thing to do is try a feed the first few nights and see how long she takes. But absolutely do not let her fall asleep at the boob.

Fingers crossed for tonight that it gets better. It is hard the first few nights but keep telling yourself it will get better and if you pick her up now or resort to old habits, A) you will confuse her and B) all the crying she's done will be for nowt.

 

[PetiteMoi]

yay we survived the first ss night!

It took her just over an hour to settle again when she woke up 30 mins after she first fell asleep. She then woke up a few times and cried but we stuck to the 10 minute rule and she fell back asleep on her own! When she woke at 3.30am I waited for 6-7 mins but knew that she was probably hungry so I fed her, keeping her awake at the breast. I then put her down again and it took 15 mins for her to go back to sleep She woke for the morning at 7.40am. We're now waiting for her first nap to start, probably at 9.30am. She still seems quite tired. Not a bad first night we thought!!! Fingers crossed it will keep improving...

 

[PetiteMoi]

...naps is another story it seems. We're not entirely sure about this as we're afraid we're sending her mixed messages - she didn't settle for the full hour and 10 mins so we picked her up as advised. Won't that confuse her as we don't pick her up for anything at night??? Anyway we've all had enough of the crying and can't take it during the day as well as the night so I just rocked her to sleep in her pram for her nap after feeding her again. We'll concentrate on getting the nights sorted first as otherwise she'll get confused. She can't tell the difference between day and night in her nursery so she must get confused with the nap method. I think we'll let her sleep in her pram for naps for now. Does that sound like a bad idea??

 

[polaris]

Hey everyone. Hope you all had a great Christmas and a happy new year to you all.

PetiteMoi - I did night times first with Thomas and still rocked him to sleep for all his naps in pram or bouncy chair. Once he was self-settling well for nighttimes I started working on naps which were a lot harder. I found that it didn't confuse him to have a different routine for naps and night-times. For me the most important thing was to make sure that he was getting enough sleep during the day so that he wouldn't be overtired for bedtime. So I think it would be fine to work on nighttimes for now and move on to naps after you have nights sorted.

 

[PetiteMoi]

Polaris - thanks I think that's what we'll be doing. If nothing else to keep our own sanity - I couldn't do this 24 hours, it would break me. Second night now and LO has been crying for 20 mins, let's see where this leads us! Sorry to bombard the thread by the way, it's just so nice to get your opinions and advice as you've been there. It's so hard to watch her cry, and it makes it harder that, when I put her to bed she starts off by just lying there all smiley until she realises she's been put there not to be picked up again!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!! I have a feeling I might come on here again before midnight ;-)

 

[polaris]

Polaris - thanks I think that's what we'll be doing. If nothing else to keep our own sanity - I couldn't do this 24 hours, it would break me. Second night now and LO has been crying for 20 mins, let's see where this leads us! Sorry to bombard the thread by the way, it's just so nice to get your opinions and advice as you've been there. It's so hard to watch her cry, and it makes it harder that, when I put her to bed she starts off by just lying there all smiley until she realises she's been put there not to be picked up again!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!! I have a feeling I might come on here again before midnight ;-)

How is it going? has she gone to sleep now? I hope tonight goes smoothly for you. The first two or three nights are definitely the hardest, I would bet that you will see a big improvement from then on.

Happy new year everyone! We had OH's family over for an early dinner but they've all headed out now so I'm planning on chilling out with a glass of wine and a DVD, not sure whether I'll make it to midnight though!

 

[PetiteMoi]

Polaris - she felll asleep after 35 mins and has been asleep since! I don't really want to say anything though as she's bound to wake up soon....... DH and I just had the most quiet NYE dinner ever downstairs (ready to eat stuff from ASDA haha) and are now quietly watching the telly. We'll see if we manage to stay up till midnight - we'd probably be better off trying to catch some sleep in preparation for whatever might be to come later! Are you home alone with your little son at the moment? Is he still a good sleeper? x

 

[polaris]

Yes, just me and Thomas at home now and he's fast asleep. He is really a great sleeper now although he does still have a tendency to get up very early (sometimes 5.30, too early!!). But he sleeps through from 7 pm, he still takes two good naps a day too. The best thing is that he is so happy to go into his cot when he's tired. In the evening, as soon as I say it is time for his bath he toddles off into the bathroom and stands by the bath waiting for me to get it ready, no bedtime battles here! Sleep sense was really good for us, the programme is so simple but it really does work. Fingers crossed that your LO stays asleep until 2011 now!!

 

[hivechild]

It sounds like a great improvement over last night, PetiteMoi! Hopefully she sleeps a good long chunk of sleep now!

Polaris, your evening sounds like mine is going to be, although mine will also include baked brie! Oh and i was telling my hubby that since they say that what you're doing at the stroke of midnight will be an indication of the year ahead, that I wanted to be snuggled up in bed fast asleep!

Happy New Year to all of you!

 

[Foogirl]

...naps is another story it seems. We're not entirely sure about this as we're afraid we're sending her mixed messages - she didn't settle for the full hour and 10 mins so we picked her up as advised. Won't that confuse her as we don't pick her up for anything at night??? Anyway we've all had enough of the crying and can't take it during the day as well as the night so I just rocked her to sleep in her pram for her nap after feeding her again. We'll concentrate on getting the nights sorted first as otherwise she'll get confused. She can't tell the difference between day and night in her nursery so she must get confused with the nap method. I think we'll let her sleep in her pram for naps for now. Does that sound like a bad idea??

I wouldn't worry as the day / night thing will come with time. She won't get confused with the change of "routine" and it will help the day/night transition. I always used to make sure she got changed from jammas to day clothes in the morning to help her see the difference, even if "day clothes" were another sleepsuit!

But I would certainly recommend napping in the pram. If I were to change one thing in the method, it would be daytime naps in the cot. Unfortunately we got to the point (and still are really) where Abby only really naps well in her cot. She will in the pram or in the car if she is really tired, but no other times and it really can be a pain in the arse if you are out and about.

Maybe go half way and put the pram in the nursery? Try to avoid rocking it to get her to sleep as that may be confusing. Use the same techniques, but in the pram rather than in the cot.

 

[PetiteMoi]

Polaris - hope you had a nice evening in the end! sounds like you've got it down to a T with Thomas (excuse the 'pun' with the letters haha) with bedtime!

hivechild - we were in bed by 10.30pm last night so like you say, starting the year as we intend to continue it, sleeping

Foogirl - thanks for the nap advice with the pram - probably won't be having the pram in the nursey as it's upstairs and our backs are already killing us but will definitely try to get her to nap in it as well as the cot when we start the nap training. For now we're concentrating on nights only. Otherwise she'll be crying 24/7 and it won't be good for any of us...at least we can concentrate fully on night training now.

Third night, she's been crying for 25 minutes. Doesn't look like it'll improve on last night - did the crying get shorter and shorter each night for you guys? I was sort of expecting it to as it was reduced so much yesterday from the night before... She doesn't sound as mad though I must admit, more like the sort of cry that means she wants to go to sleep but is fighting it. So we'll see.!

Last night she slept through, woke up a couple of times and cried but fell back asleep within the magic 10 min mark. Fed her when she woke at 2.30am and then she went down without a fight, I was so impressed!

 

[Arcanegirl]

Id say the crying does reduce from the 3rd night, but doesnt always reduce from nights 1-3 if that makes sense?

We have the same situation as Foogirl, Alex doesnt really nap well anywhere other than his cot anymore now.

 

[Cattia]

Well done Petite, sounds as though things are going well even if it doesn't feel like it! I think it can take a good couple of weeks for the new routine to get established so hang in there. We did nights before naps and I used to take her out in the pram to get her to nap until we had the nights sorted out, then we worked on one nap at a time, starting with the morning one. Not sure that is the official advice though, it was just that she was always more settled for that one than the others so it seemed a good place to start.

We are having a few nap issues of our own again now. I am not sure whether Abigail is ready to drop her morning nap. She's been in a good routine with two naps for ages, but now she sometimes doesn't settle for the morning one. Sometimes we skip it and she's OK although tired by lunch, but then if she gets too tired, she will only sleep for half an hour in the afternoon, which means she has only had half an hour all day! Usually she will sleep for about an hour and a half to two hours in the afternoon, so I am not sure what to do. I suppose if I keep putting her down for the morning nap and she keeps reflsing to take it then I will know she wants to drop it.Sometimes if she sleeps too late in the morning then she won't take an afternoon nap until later, then it is getting too close to tea. It seems a lot of babies drop their morning nap at about this age so I think we are going through that transition phase. Would be interested to know what others think!

 

[PetiteMoi]

Cattia, thanks. It's so nice to get your support on here. It took about 35 mins again tonight, but her cry definitely changed and she didn't fight sleep as much. All of a sudden she just put her head to one side and closed her eyes and fell asleep! It's a bit of a miracle isn't it, we never thought she would manage to go to sleep on her own like this. We're still very much on edge though, just waiting to hear her start crying... Must be the pessimists in us I guess that we'll be able to start relaxing once she's slept through a few nights in a row?!

Definitely sounds like you've come to a bit of a new phase with the naps - i have no personal advice to give but it sounds like you're in between phases where she sometimes needs it and sometimes doesn't! Perhaps keep trying until she no longer gets overtired at lunch? It's a whole science this isn't it!!!

 

[Arcanegirl]

Cattia, it does sound like youre heading into that transition. I would keep her up longer untill shes tired, offer lunch earlier or split it into snacks, one before the nap and one after.

 

[Foogirl]

Foogirl - thanks for the nap advice with the pram - probably won't be having the pram in the nursey as it's upstairs and our backs are already killing us but will definitely try to get her to nap in it as well as the cot when we start the nap training. For now we're concentrating on nights only. Otherwise she'll be crying 24/7 and it won't be good for any of us...at least we can concentrate fully on night training now.

Third night, she's been crying for 25 minutes. Doesn't look like it'll improve on last night - did the crying get shorter and shorter each night for you guys? I was sort of expecting it to as it was reduced so much yesterday from the night before... She doesn't sound as mad though I must admit, more like the sort of cry that means she wants to go to sleep but is fighting it. So we'll see.!

Last night she slept through, woke up a couple of times and cried but fell back asleep within the magic 10 min mark. Fed her when she woke at 2.30am and then she went down without a fight, I was so impressed!

It sounds like you're on the right track. If she has been able to go back to sleep when waking in the night, she's getting the hang of it. Expect some protest for a wee while yet, but as you say, the angry "my world is ending" stuff should be all but past now.

Well done for getting this far, it is really difficult to stick with it the first couple of weeks, but it is so worth it for her in the end. A rested baby is a happy baby!

 

[PetiteMoi]

Foogirl - thanks! I'm really happy with the way it's going - so far. Don't want to count my chickens..! But DH and I were both sooo ready for this - it's been so hard to see our LO being so tired the whole time and not being able to do anything about it. It really feels like we've given her the 'gift of sleep' like Dana Obleman keeps saying. Fingers crossed it continues this way now...Did you struggle for the first few weeks? Did it get easier and easier though?

 

[Foogirl]

Foogirl - thanks! I'm really happy with the way it's going - so far. Don't want to count my chickens..! But DH and I were both sooo ready for this - it's been so hard to see our LO being so tired the whole time and not being able to do anything about it. It really feels like we've given her the 'gift of sleep' like Dana Obleman keeps saying. Fingers crossed it continues this way now...Did you struggle for the first few weeks? Did it get easier and easier though?

We struggled for the first week and were just getting to grips with it the second week, then we went on holiday and it got a little worse (our own faults, she does suggest waiting if you've a holiday planned!) But once home, she settled back into it and for about two weeks, only cried for 5 minutes before she fell asleep. Naps took about a month to crack and that really was the hardest for me, as I was having to deal with the crying, on my own, 3 or 4 times a day whilst Mr Foo was at work. But during that time, the nighttimes most definitely did get better - and not only because I was getting a full nights sleep. We also had our evenings back as she was going to bed much earlier, and that was fantastic.

And the months and months of full nights, and good naps with a rested happy baby were well worth it. Hence me recommending this to anyone who ever asks about how to get their baby to sleep!

 

[history_girls]

PetiteMoi - Well done on getting through three nights - how has today gone? The hardest bit is done all you need (she says) is to keep it up!

Cattia - Between 12 months and 13 1/2 months Fibby dropped her morning nap but it wasn't very consistant for ages. Only in the last 3 weeks have we had one nap a day and her sleep at night upped by an hour! We've been on hols so getting up at 8am is a luxury and she is having between 60 - 90 mins at about 1pm before bed at 6.30pm. With work this week she will have to be up at 7am so hopefully her afternoon nap will extend rather than add a morning one.

Happy new year everyone!!!