Sleep Sense Support Group!

[hivechild]

Hello all!

Well, I'm about to jump on the Sleep Sense wagon with my LO. He's only a wee monkey still (coming on 7 weeks) but I'm exhausted and in dire need of sleep which I know is expected of mothers of newborns, but hey, it can't hurt to try right?

I'm not sure how successful we'll be this early on in the game, and I have a few questions I hope to ask her next Wednesday that I thought I'd ask here to see whether anyone else is dealing with the same issues or has asked similar questions.

Anyway, Ronan's exclusively breastfed at the moment. I'm trying to find time to express so hubby can take occasional feedings but it's rough when I'm tired all the time and when the monkey wants feeding what seems near constantly right now. Hopefully that will sort itself out if he's sleeping better and then we can fit that right into 'routine.'

Onward to Issues!

1. Ronan has reflux so I'm meant to be keeping him upright for about a half hour after feeds. If his awake time before he flakes is between 45 mins to 1 1/2 hours and he still sometimes takes upward toward 30-40 mins to get a full feeding in if he's really having at it, how do I fit that upright time into things? Right now I just put him over my shoulder where he inevitably falls asleep.

2. Because he's BF, he's going to be hungry through the night at this age and want feeding, but how do I tell if he's waking because he really wants a feed or if he's waking because he sucks at sleeping? I've always fed on demand but I'm definitely guilty of nursing him to sleep and letting him use me as a pacifier when I have nowhere else to be and no energy to do anything else other than stare blankly at the wall.

3. I wouldn't say he's colicky, but he does get kind of gassy at times which wakes him up. I wind/burp him as best I can so that's usually not a problem but occasionally that wakes him as well. Obviously the best thing to do there is to pick him up and wind him some more but would I then just try to put him right back to sleep again or should I try nursing him first if it's been a couple hours since he went down?

4. How do you handle growth spurts/cluster feeding when he wants to be on the boob what feels like 24/7? Do you just set the program aside for a few days until he's over it or try your best to keep up with it?

5. I know the program is big on naps in their cots/cribs/wherever but I think we all know how impractical that can be unless you never want to leave the house or schedule your out time around their naps (and with a newborn that gives me time to walk down to the corner of my street and back up again!) but what is the stance on baby wearing with slings/wraps etc? Is that pretty much in the same boat along with prams/swings/what have you?

I've only just watched the videos and am starting to read through the material so I'm not sure when we'll get started but I'm hoping sooner rather than later!

 

[polaris]

Hi Hivechild - welcome!

You are braver than me getting started so early! When my LO was that age I was literally just in survival mode - so I can't really help with any of your questions I don't think.

I had to keep Thomas upright after his feeds too as he would scream and scream if I tried to lay him down. He suffered from very bad wind and I really just tried to do whatever possible to get through it. I will be interested to hear what Dana suggests in relation to dealing with these issues as I didn't really feel able to start working on sleep properly until the wind had pretty much resolved itself. But when he was younger I didn't really realize how important sleep was and he was probably horribly over-tired without me knowing it. I didn't really work out what his cries mean until he was well over three months.

For growth spurts, I think it is probably important to try and keep up the programme as best you can - because there are just so many growth spurts in my experience! But I have to admit that I have definitely been guilty of letting things slide at times - for example yesterday I let him comfort feed and sleep on me for an hour - which he doesn't normally want to do anymore - because I just felt like he needed it - but I think I might have paid for it at bedtime as he wouldn't settle at all for 45 minutes which is unheard of at this stage.

I still don't have all naps in the cot at five months - so I think you would be doing well to manage it with a newborn! I aim to have as many naps as possible in the cot but I do want him to be able to sleep in the pram as well so I don't get too upset if he has some of his naps on the go. However, I do try to make sure that he's getting a decent stretch of sleep in the pram rather than just cat-napping for 20 minutes on the way somewhere.

Good luck - let us know how things go, I'll be really interested to see how you get on.

 

[TennisGal]

Hey HiveChild, welcome to the thread! DD is EBF also - I tend to know if she's hungry, because she'll have a really good shout that doesn't stop! When it comes to growth spurts, I always just go with the flow and allow unrestricted feeding...feeding on demand. I've always gone for feeding on demand, and as DD has got older, she has set her own pattern. Regarding wind - I'm a wind obsessive, so I always try and get a good burp up. We use Infacol, which has helped hugely.
As for naps, we're still working on those but we started SS when DD was around 5 months...so been in action just over a month

We've got a great group here, so any questions...someone will have undoubtedly had some experience!

Ladies, am joining you with the broken nights sleep - DD woke three times for a feed, and loooong feeds. I think she's having a little growth spurt. She went down fine after the feeds, but am tiiiiiiiiiired today. She's just started trying new things out during the day, so I think it's a little spurt.

How is everyone today?

 

[Cattia]

Welcome Hivechild! I think it would be best to start with night times and then work on naps once those are sorted. When it comes to naps, we aim to have at least one a day in the cot, usually two, but she might well be out for the other one or two. Maybe at first, choose a nap when you are most likley to be in and make that the one that you try to get LO to take in the cot, then the rest can follow. I have always gone with feeding on demand when it comes to growth spurts but I may not be the best one to ask for advice since my LO has taken to waking up for feeds four times every night at the moment and she is almost 4 months

 

[polaris]

Just to add that like the others I always feed on demand for growth spurts too - what I meant by trying to stick to the programme was to still try to get him to self-settle after his feed and try not to let him feed to sleep or sleep on me.

Suzanne108 - the sleepsense 'book' is electronic, it is available to buy from the website - check out the first post of this thread for details.

 

[jacs]

Hi HC, you're organised! Don't think I'd even heard of sleep training when Evan was newborn
Make sure you keep us updated - I wonder if we would be having problems if we had started sooner, so would be really interesting to hear your experiences.

Well, keeping Evan up longer helped a bit I think. Still loud crying (he NEVER used to do that!), but not for as long.

TG - there must be something in the air affecting our LO's at the minute - what's going on?!

 

[polaris]

Hi HC, you're organised! Don't think I'd even heard of sleep training when Evan was newborn
Make sure you keep us updated - I wonder if we would be having problems if we had started sooner, so would be really interesting to hear your experiences.

Well, keeping Evan up longer helped a bit I think. Still loud crying (he NEVER used to do that!), but not for as long.

TG - there must be something in the air affecting our LO's at the minute - what's going on?!

It's a bit bizarre isn't it? That none of them are sleeping great at the moment.

I was thinking about it and wondering whether Thomas might have been more affected by the clocks changing than I thought. His wake-up time has been pretty erratic this week - ranging from shortly after 6 a.m. (which would have definitely been a night-waking before the clocks changed) to almost 9 a.m. - whereas he used to always be up sometime between 6 and 7. And he used to be very consistent in when he would get tired in the evening too - generally between 6.30 and 6.45 p.m. - whereas again he seems a bit all over the place this week - and we have had nap timing problems all week too with it being too late for an afternoon nap but no way that he would make it to bedtime. This evening I gave him a late nap at 5ish and kept him up a bit later and it worked really well, I put him down at 7.15 and he chatted to himself for 10/15 minutes and was asleep by 7.30. This would have been similar to our routine before the clocks changed when he would have had a nap at about 4 and been ready for bed at 6.30. So I think I'm going to go with a late nap at around 5ish and a slightly later bedtime for the time being.

 

[TennisGal]

I wonder if it is the clocks going back? There must be something, as nearly all our LOs are up to something

Similarly, Polaris, we've noticed DD has had different wake-up times - am wondering whether a darker curtain may help, as some mornings she's ready for a nap quite quickly!

Jacs, hope the crying is just a little phase and stops asap

 

[polaris]

I wonder if it is the clocks going back? There must be something, as nearly all our LOs are up to something

Similarly, Polaris, we've noticed DD has had different wake-up times - am wondering whether a darker curtain may help, as some mornings she's ready for a nap quite quickly!

Jacs, hope the crying is just a little phase and stops asap

I went out yesterday and bought proper black out curtains for Thomas's room - haven't put them up yet though as have to put up curtain rail so I am waiting for OH to do it as I would probably make a mess of it (he was in work all day today). I hope they might make a difference in the mornings as I find that if Thomas wakes while it is still dark then he will have a feed and go back to sleep for another few hours, whereas if he wakes an hour later when it is getting bright he will not go back to sleep and we are up for the day.

 

[jacs]

Hmmm forgot about the clocks. Evan's up early all the time at the minute - 6am most of the time, which would have been 5am before!

I'm with you on the late naps Polaris, he's having one between 5 and 5.30pm, then bedtime about an hour after he wakes.

TG - our blackout blind has been a godsend, especially for daytime naps when the sun would be bleaching in otherwise (well, apart from rainy days like today)!

 

[TennisGal]

I may invest in one - as I do think the sunshine disrupts her naps!

 

[polaris]

I may invest in one - as I do think the sunshine disrupts her naps!

And that's only going to get worse as we come into the summer - that's assuming that we do actually have a bit of sun this summer, LOL!

 

[TennisGal]

I know! We bought DD some lovely little dresses, and today she was all bundled up in raincoat. SO miserable, where is the SUN???!

Got the vitamin d drops for DD now, as there has been approx 0.00001hrs of sunshine this winter. tsk.

 

[polaris]

We had a better night last night - only one feed at about 2 a.m. and not a peep out of him the rest of the night. Woke up at 6.30 in great form (both of us, LOL!)

He's just gone down beautifully for nap number one. I'd say the rest of the day will be a bit all over the place though due to Easter.

Hope everyone has a happy easter - myself and OH were debating last night who would have bought our five month old baby easter eggs - oh well all the more for me, yum yum.

 

[TennisGal]

Good news, P!

We had a much better night, too - one night feed at 3am, then back to sleep until 7am. Nap one was a relative success (over an hour, just)...but, I also think the rest of the day won't be happening nap wise, too much happening!

Happy Easter, everyone.

 

[hivechild]

Thank you for the warm welcome! I know I'm either brave or nuts or both to be trying this with Ronan being so young but as Polaris said, this is me in survival mode! I can't see myself making it another 6 weeks and only reinforcing and ingraining what I now can recognize as bad habits. I don't think its fair for the wee monkey to do that to him when we are just going to have to break them later on.

Anyway, tonight was day one and I'm not sure that it will be any success.

We started at around 6:30 with his bath as step one for his routine (I've been doing that awhile) and by a bit after 7 we were ready for bed...3 hours later with 2 very dirty diapers, another feed and lots and lots of me holding my poor crying and obviously over tired son he has now been asleep for 30 minutes and I'm in my bedroom with bated breath just waiting for that first wail any minute now.

If there was any notion of routine I think that went out the window hours ago but we have started down the road now and since he's so wee I know that it won't and can't be that simple. I was hoping that our first night wouldn't be this hard or discouraging though.

Even though I was holding him to calm him it was so hard for me to have him crying like that. I honestly kept thinking I should just nurse him or let him fall asleep on my shoulder, just so he could get the sleep he needs!

We're at the 38 minute mark now. Wish me luck!

 

[polaris]

How did the rest of the night go, hivechild? It sounds like a difficult evening and hard to do it with such a little one - but as you say it will be fantastic for him to become a good sleeper from early on.

 

[jacs]

Hivechild, that doesn't sound too bad for your first night (although I know you wouldn't have been thinking that at the time)! Well done! I agree a routine is difficult when they're little, but a nice bedtime routine will be a comfort to him soon.
Our first night was awful, but was never like that again (Evan was 5 months).

Polaris, TG, sounds like things are on the up! We also have an improvement - Evan slept through until 6.30am and has just gone down for first nap with no crying at all. First time he's slept right through, and first time in over a week I've had no nap-time tears! However, yesterday he had hardly any naps, so don't know if he's just shattered!

Hope you all had a nice Easter, we had a little treasure hunt - me and OH got choc eggs, LO got a toy chicken!

 

[polaris]

Hivechild, that doesn't sound too bad for your first night (although I know you wouldn't have been thinking that at the time)! Well done! I agree a routine is difficult when they're little, but a nice bedtime routine will be a comfort to him soon.
Our first night was awful, but was never like that again (Evan was 5 months).

Polaris, TG, sounds like things are on the up! We also have an improvement - Evan slept through until 6.30am and has just gone down for first nap with no crying at all. First time he's slept right through, and first time in over a week I've had no nap-time tears! However, yesterday he had hardly any naps, so don't know if he's just shattered!

Hope you all had a nice Easter, we had a little treasure hunt - me and OH got choc eggs, LO got a toy chicken!

Jacs that is brilliant! Good for Evan! Hope things are getting back on track now for all our LOs.

We had a reasonably good night too, just one feed - although he was still awake shortly after 6 to start the day - despite my new black out curtains.

I am exhausted though - didn't sleep well last night at all - couldn't get back to sleep for ages after I fed Thomas and then I had horrible dreams that I was staying in a huge rambling mansion and couldn't remember which room I'd put Thomas to bed in and was searching the house for ages and couldn't find him. Horrible!! I couldn't find my glasses/contact lenses either in the dream so I couldn't even see properly, LOL.

 

[hivechild]

Well it's now 4:15am and he slept until 3:15am. I also slept from just after I posted that last post and as I told my husband when I woke with a start at the time, I felt like I had gotten a whole week's worth of sleep.

Anyway I got the monkey out, checked his diaper and fed him. Keeping him awake on the breast is hard! I'm not sure he got a full feed as he was getting really sleepy and I couldn't keep him from starting to doze off.

I put him back down in his crib at around 3:50. He grizzled a bit then started cooing and kicking about to himself and fingers crossed is on the verge of sleep without a melt down. He seems like he's dozed off a couple times but as of yet isn't down for the count.

This is the longest he has laid down on his own though, especially when tired without starting to cry. I'm afraid I'm jinxing myself now though!