Sleep Sense Support Group!

[TennisGal]

We got them in Mothercare - but pretty sure you can get them in the pharmacy, too. There are two companies that produce them - Ashtons and Nelsons. We use the latter, but pretty sure they are the same thing! They've been used since 1860...so that somehow made me think something must be working

https://www.teetha.co.uk

Just tiny sachets of white powder, but I recommend rubbing it onto LOs gums or giving it bit by bit, as I can imagine emptying it in (as they recommend) could cause a coughing fit /choking from it going down the wrong way...

I tried a bit, tastes lovely!

 

[PieMistress]

You can get cammomila granules on free prescription from the doctors? The health visitor arranged it for us and they really calm Kyle down when he's teething x

 

[polaris]

You can get cammomila granules on free prescription from the doctors? The health visitor arranged it for us and they really calm Kyle down when he's teething x

Not over here - we have to pay for GP visits and all prescriptions.
It is €50 to go to the GP here so I tend to leave it until I really have to go.

 

[history_girls]

Sorry been sooooo busy these past days.

Polaris - great news about the sleep (so jealous) and what poo about paying for the Drs!

TG - we use ashton and parsons (or cocaine as we like to call it) and it is the best we have found so far!

LO has finally done another poo today so hoping for a better night! Up at 3 - so I left her to see if she would self settle. 45 mins of baberling later she screams blue murder then up and down until 6.30. OH and I are knackerd! and he is on the 5.05 am train in the morning.... bet she wakes.

Bedtimes are great, feed is great waking early is crap. Naps are crap. hmmmm. She has totally forgotton how to nap.

OH and I think that in the middle of the night we are going to wait 5 mins then go in no matter what her mood and put her to sleep just to save our sainity.

Naps I will persevere but with sister about to pop out number 4 I'm going to have a 2 and 4 year old to look after so naps might be ad hoc this week!

Hope all are well - Polaris send some sleepy dust our way!

 

[polaris]

Sorry been sooooo busy these past days.

Polaris - great news about the sleep (so jealous) and what poo about paying for the Drs!

TG - we use ashton and parsons (or cocaine as we like to call it) and it is the best we have found so far!

LO has finally done another poo today so hoping for a better night! Up at 3 - so I left her to see if she would self settle. 45 mins of baberling later she screams blue murder then up and down until 6.30. OH and I are knackerd! and he is on the 5.05 am train in the morning.... bet she wakes.

Bedtimes are great, feed is great waking early is crap. Naps are crap. hmmmm. She has totally forgotton how to nap.

OH and I think that in the middle of the night we are going to wait 5 mins then go in no matter what her mood and put her to sleep just to save our sainity.

Naps I will persevere but with sister about to pop out number 4 I'm going to have a 2 and 4 year old to look after so naps might be ad hoc this week!

Hope all are well - Polaris send some sleepy dust our way!

Loads of sleepy dust winging its way to your DD! 3 a.m. wake-up sounds awful. Is she crying when she wakes up or is she in good form and looking to play? I think you are right that you need to do whatever possible to get her back to sleep when she wakes at that sort of time - she needs to reset her body clock and learn that 3 a.m. is definitely still sleepy time! Hope you have a better night tonight.

 

[history_girls]

Well she was in a lovely mood so we left her to play with her feet as she was happy enough! But after 45 mins she realised she was sooo tired but couldn't resettler herself. I rocked her to sleep and got 40 mins at one point. Oh managed proper sleepsense and got over an hour!

She is still crying in sleep so it might be teeth.

Tonight is going well - woke up 45 mins with a scream but settled herself!

 

[CatStorey]

Ive been using the powders too. They are great and i feel good knowing they are natural. My oh was like what on earth when he saw them! Its nice the packaging is kept so oldfashoned...lol!

Well, chloe cried for 12 mins then stopped and went to sleep. It was hard but so worth it. I stayed in the room just staring at her for ages, i was so happy she looked so peacefull now she was finally asleep I couldnt believe no lullabies, no white noise and no DUMMY!!

I just wondered what you ladies did about night feeds?
Chloe wakes so much im not sure if she is hungry or not? I usually feed her about 1am ish but both my GP and HV have both said she doesnt need this and i should stop it now. Im a little nervous.

 

[TennisGal]

HG poor little thing, sounds like her teeth are ready to make an entrance. Cocaine, lol - I always feel the need to explain to people what it is when I am giving the powders to DD. Have had a few quizzical looks!
Hope she has some sleep - aren't they funny with their obsession with their own feet?!

PM - ooh, didn't know you could get them from the GP! I'll be asking about that - they have given us free saline drops, which has been good!

Polaris - we're thinking of a holiday in Ireland later this year Hope Thomas settled well

DD surprised me tonight, she was wide awake at bed-time, chatting, grabbing my hair etc...so thought she wouldn't go to sleep, but thumb in - straight to sleep! Amazed!

 

[history_girls]

I feed! she drains an 8oz bottle so I'm guessing she needs it and her weight gain recently hasn't been huge so i'm thinking she needs it. Also the first wake of the night tends to be after a really decent stretch of sleep so i think it is hunger.

HV coming tomorrow for 4 month check up so i guess she will say the same. I am too
scared to try and give up feed until we sort early morning waking!

Lovely when they drop off! mine doesn#t cry anymore but last two days has fallen asleep from nursing chair to cot - two seconds flat!

 

[TennisGal]

Hi Cat - great settling!! Regarding night feeds, if DD wakes up - we tend to give it a few minutes to gauge her 'grumble'...if she gets angry and v.loud, means she is hungry...so she has a feed, and goes straight back to sleep. She definitely gets louder and more annoyed when she is hungry...if she's just woken up, she tends to just make a little bit of noise and then settles back down.

She pretty much has one feed during the night, although it has now started to be v.early morning.

 

[polaris]

Hi Cat - great settling!! Regarding night feeds, if DD wakes up - we tend to give it a few minutes to gauge her 'grumble'...if she gets angry and v.loud, means she is hungry...so she has a feed, and goes straight back to sleep. She definitely gets louder and more annoyed when she is hungry...if she's just woken up, she tends to just make a little bit of noise and then settles back down.

She pretty much has one feed during the night, although it has now started to be v.early morning.

I do pretty much the same as this. Thomas also generally has one night feed but the time varies a lot.

When I first started the programme, Thomas was feeding every two hours through the night and often more like every hour from 5 a.m. onwards. I was so exhausted. I knew he wasn't really hungry because he wasn't taking a proper feed, just a few sucks and then comfort sucking and back to sleep, and also he was going longer than two hours between feeds during the day. What really made the difference for us was not allowing him to use night feeds to soothe himself back to sleep when he woke during the night. So I would leave him for a few minutes to see if he could settle himself back to sleep (he was able to settle at bedtime at that stage), and I stopped allowing him to doze during his bedtime feed and made sure that he was awake and feeding properly when I fed him during the night so I wasn't feeding him back to sleep. It seemed counter-intuitive when all I wanted was for him to go back to sleep quickly but making sure that he was awake for his night feeds meant that (a) he took a full feed rather than just a few sucks and (b) he was only looking for feeds when he was hungry rather than looking for a feed every time he woke up to get him back to sleep.

When I first started I set myself small goals - like that I wouldn't feed him if it had been less than three hours since his last feed - so if he woke after two hours my plan was to leave him for a bit to see if he would self-settle and if not to try to settle him back to sleep without feeding him. I was planning to gradually try and extend the time between feeds, so that once he was going three hours then next I wouldn't feed him for four hours, etc. But actually once I stopped feeding him back to sleep and started giving him the opportunity to self-settle, he just stopped waking up all the time and was very quickly going nine or ten hours before waking for a feed! I was so amazed at how quickly it happened - hope that you have success too!

Well done on bedtime - twelve minutes seems like such a long time when you are watching them trying to settle but it is such a good feeling when you see them finally get themselves to sleep. There will be ups and downs but you are on the road to better sleeping!!

 

[CatStorey]

Thanks x

Just really in a muddle as to whether or not to feed her. I think i will try leaving her for a few mins then and try and gauge her cry.

My only worry is because she wakes so much she might get comfused as sometimes she gets food othertimes she doesnt. So she might just wake and cry just incase i give her food. Do you think thats possible? Has anyone found this? Or am i being silly!!

 

[polaris]

Thanks x

Just really in a muddle as to whether or not to feed her. I think i will try leaving her for a few mins then and try and gauge her cry.

My only worry is because she wakes so much she might get comfused as sometimes she gets food othertimes she doesnt. So she might just wake and cry just incase i give her food. Do you think thats possible? Has anyone found this? Or am i being silly!!

It's not being silly at all. I was worried about this starting out as well but I wasn't ready to drop night feeds completely. Probably our LOs don't physically need night feeds anymore but I still feel like 12 hours is a long time to go without a feed.

I have to say though that to my surprise I haven't found it to be a problem - it is pretty clear now when he is waking from hunger and when he is just waking for some other reason. When he does wake for a feed, he cries much louder and more constant, he definitely does seem to be genuinely hungry and will take both boobs, whereas when he wakes up when he's not hungry he tends to resettle himself within two or three minutes (although sometimes he grizzles for a bit longer on and off but not full-blown hungry crying). Over the past week Thomas had gone back to two night feeds for three nights after having been only feeding once a night for two weeks - I think he was having a growth spurt - I was really reluctant to go back to feeding him twice in case it became a habit - but last night he went almost 12 hours without a feed - so I think they will do it when they are ready. I think once they learn that they can get themselves back to sleep without your help when they wake at night, then they will try to do that unless they are too hungry to sleep (or unless they are sick/in pain I guess). I do believe that babies want to sleep well, sometimes they just need a bit of help.

If you are happy to stop the night feed completely, then I guess you could just try to resettle her without feeding - she might sleep through a bit quicker that way - but if it was me I would be nervous about whether she still needed the feed or not?

 

[CatStorey]

Thank you so so much! You make sense and really help me to think clearly. Im sure once she has learned to self settle, unless she is hungry she will go back to sleep herself.

I dont think Chloe is quite ready to drop the feed completly so i will see how she is when she wakes and carry on with one feed a night.

Well, im off to bed now. Quite nervous about the rest of the night!

I hope you and your lo's all sleep well tonight x

 

[TennisGal]

I agree with Polaris - I tend to go with the 'if in doubt, feed'...however, once settled in the sleep routine, you do become more aware of what the noises are...we know the 'get up, I'm ready for a feed NOW' grumble! I feel quite happy with her having a night feed, she's BF'd, and I know that digests quite quickly...it's just more organised now, as previously I'd offer her food everytime she woke up!

Hope the rest of the night goes well, let us know!

 

[history_girls]

well i think phoebe is out to make me a hypocrit!

LAst night not a peep until 3.45!!! left her talking to her feet (again) until 4.15 when she said she wanted milk, only to be very half hearted and take only 3/4 of what she normally drains at 11! Think I could have skipped it last night.

Took until 5.05 to go back to sleep (but sleepsense way so feeling rather proud)!

Hope all had good nights -Cat did you feed?

Well naps won't happen in any organised fashion today. My sister had her baby last night (two hour labour!) and little Izabella popped out at 5lb and into specail baby care as she pooed yesterday! All ok, think they are just being cautious.

So from 11am until 4pm I've got a 2 year old and 4 year old (just set lots of fireman sam to record on sky plus), a HV visiting, a kiddiecare delivery and a asda delivery! Might get first nap of the day done but defo not mid morning or afternoon.

gonna have a grumpy baby!

 

[polaris]

well i think phoebe is out to make me a hypocrit!

LAst night not a peep until 3.45!!! left her talking to her feet (again) until 4.15 when she said she wanted milk, only to be very half hearted and take only 3/4 of what she normally drains at 11! Think I could have skipped it last night.

Took until 5.05 to go back to sleep (but sleepsense way so feeling rather proud)!

Hope all had good nights -Cat did you feed?

Well naps won't happen in any organised fashion today. My sister had her baby last night (two hour labour!) and little Izabella popped out at 5lb and into specail baby care as she pooed yesterday! All ok, think they are just being cautious.

So from 11am until 4pm I've got a 2 year old and 4 year old (just set lots of fireman sam to record on sky plus), a HV visiting, a kiddiecare delivery and a asda delivery! Might get first nap of the day done but defo not mid morning or afternoon.

gonna have a grumpy baby!

Glad you had a somewhat better night - and well done getting her resettled eventually the sleepsense way!

Huge congratulations to your sister - hope little Izabella is out of special care soon. Sounds like a busy day for you though!!

 

[TennisGal]

Aw, congrats to you sister and welcome to little Izabella! Hope she's home very soon. A short labour - but a good one, I hope! Sounds like you've got your hands (very) full today, so definitely time to stock up on a ripple for later on ;-)

Also good news on Phoebe sleeping! Brilliant!!

Hope everyone else had a good night - DD slept through until 5am, had a feed, then went back to sleep until 7am. We'll try naps again today.

ps-your HV visits? Mine stopped that ages ago I am SO cross with them at the moment, TWICE I've been to their office and no one has been in. Argh!

 

[history_girls]

well it is the 3 month check - LO is 5 months!! and it will be about weaning but we are going to do blw so prob not much use but a good oppotunity to discuss poo! Prob be told no night feed !! might try that tonight and be brave! haven't seen a hv at home since 8 week check (6 week one late)

TG - brilliant sleep for you! only hour up is progress for Phoebs.

Oh Polaris - thanks for the sleepy dust - think it worked!!

 

[TennisGal]

Ah, I take it back! Am just so cross with my HV at the moment!! Team ALL contradict each other with advice, so am phoning GP for a good ole rant today.

When are you starting weaning? So exciting, isn't it!

Right, DD has been in her cot for 20 mins...but I can hear hamster sounds on the monitor