Sleep Sense Support Group!

[Poppy7]

Well done Bump...that is such an improvement! I'm so pleased you are having such positive results after a tough first day.

Well...you will never believe this...I was up ONCE all night since his only major stirring at 10.30pm!!!!!!!

Elliott stirred a few times in the night...only one I really remember was 3am but it was so brief I hardly noticed. He woke at 4am crying and it sounded like a genuine hunger call. He hadn't fed for 9 hours so I picked him up fully awake and he fed properly and well (night feeds used to be brief and sleepy). I then put him down awake with NO dummy and he chatted for about half an hour before drifting off!!!!

So I did not replace his dummy all night, he self settled without it and without me EVERY time and then after feeding he slept until 7.30am!!!!!!!

I still can't quite believe it. I feel like a new woman! We had weetabix to celebrate and lots of cuddles.

I'm going to put him down for a nap soon and am going to push my luck and try without a dummy. It's got to be worth a try as last night is proof that he can manage without it.

I wouldn't be so succesful without your help and support ladies

 

[jacs]

Well done Bump...that is such an improvement! I'm so pleased you are having such positive results after a tough first day.

Well...you will never believe this...I was up ONCE all night since his only major stirring at 10.30pm!!!!!!!

Elliott stirred a few times in the night...only one I really remember was 3am but it was so brief I hardly noticed. He woke at 4am crying and it sounded like a genuine hunger call. He hadn't fed for 9 hours so I picked him up fully awake and he fed properly and well (night feeds used to be brief and sleepy). I then put him down awake with NO dummy and he chatted for about half an hour before drifting off!!!!

So I did not replace his dummy all night, he self settled without it and without me EVERY time and then after feeding he slept until 7.30am!!!!!!!

I still can't quite believe it. I feel like a new woman! We had weetabix to celebrate and lots of cuddles.

I'm going to put him down for a nap soon and am going to push my luck and try without a dummy. It's got to be worth a try as last night is proof that he can manage without it.

I wouldn't be so succesful without your help and support ladies

Yay!
He's quickly realising he doesn't HAVE to have the dummy - he's the boss now!
You must be so proud - how did the nap go?

 

[Poppy7]

Nap number one of the day....NO DUMMY! Took 20 mins to settle but no crying just a bit of shouting and thrashing. AMAZING!!!!

Edited to add...he's stirring 10 mins in to the nap. Going to give him chance to resettle like he does at night. Fingers crossed!xx

 

[jacs]

Nap number one of the day....NO DUMMY! Took 20 mins to settle but no crying just a bit of shouting and thrashing. AMAZING!!!!

Edited to add...he's stirring 10 mins in to the nap. Going to give him chance to resettle like he does at night. Fingers crossed!xx

Don't worry too much about the stirring - he's not used to this yet. The fact is he DID go to asleep on his own, with no dummy. That means he can do it again!
Fabulous!!!!

 

[Poppy7]

Nap number one of the day....NO DUMMY! Took 20 mins to settle but no crying just a bit of shouting and thrashing. AMAZING!!!!

Edited to add...he's stirring 10 mins in to the nap. Going to give him chance to resettle like he does at night. Fingers crossed!xx

Don't worry too much about the stirring - he's not used to this yet. The fact is he DID go to asleep on his own, with no dummy. That means he can do it again!
Fabulous!!!!

Thanks Jacs. He did resettle in a matter of minutes. This is brilliant for a day time nap and even more brilliant that it's without a dummy!! Thanks.

 

[hivechild]

Poppy7, that's fantastic! It sure feels good to realize they can do it on their own, doesn't it? Of course, then you have that moment when you think about all the time spent trying everything you could think of to 'help' them!

 

[Bumpontherun]

Well done poppy. That's fantastic no dummy! What you said worries me though, when it takes Helen 20 mins that is 20 mins of hardcore screaming, nothing I do helps except picking her up and then she screams worse when I put her down. Makes me think I'm doing the wrong thing, the night results are great but not sure about naps.....

 

[TennisGal]

Poppy, great news!!

Bump, sounds like our routine...great nights, not so good naps. I basically ended up working on just one nap a day in DD's cot, and in time, she slowly but surely extended the length of that nap. Definitely takes a bit longer

 

[polo_princess]

ladies, i thought id pop in since Cattia pointed me in this direction from a thread i made in baby club

Im seriously at my wits end with my LO's sleeping, surviving on 5-6 hours of broken sleep a night for the past 16 months has taken its toll on me and i just cant cope with it anymore

I havent read the book yet, i'd like to know a little more about the whole "Sleepsense" thing before i do and how it works because i've exhausted other possibilities so dont know if this will be similar to anything we've already tried or if its something different thats worth a shot?

 

[history_girls]

After a really crap day it is so nice to come home and read success stories with sleep! Well done Poppy and Bump! And good on your LOs - they are getting there. I hope it is better still tonight.

Our LO slept through completery until 5.40 when she flately refused to accept it was still nighttime and everyone had to be up!

OH interview went well and he should here on Friday or Monday.

Crapness - Work have only paid me SMP rather than my full wages (I cheekily went back on 1st April the start of a 2 and a half week hols to get a full months money). I could have cried! We have to pay CM in advance and without being paid can't do that for May or the mortgage. Grrrr. School are supposed to be sorting to hopefully get full money on friday. they are so useless.

Sleepy dust to everyone (unless you work for east sussex county council and are in charge of paying me where upon I hope you get none!!) don't mean it really......

 

[TennisGal]

Polo Princess, welcome! You must be very tired... Basically, the principles of SS are about teaching LOs to self-settle. Does involve some crying, but you sit with your LO through the whole thing...calming, comforting - so they never feel alone. I don't think the routine is particularly new or ground breaking, but what I liked was that it gave step by step guidance i.e. days 1-3 etc. We knew what we had to do, but somehow didn't do it! SS gave more practical, as well as theoretical, guidance which is what was required!

Main ideas are consistency and routine. The first night, when LO is protesting loudly in the cot is definitely the hardest...but it's amazing how quickly it works! Our DD did get upset...but more angry, than upset...because she couldn't work out how to get herself to sleep (without it being on me or DH!)

That's a bit garbled from me...if you've got any specific questions, please do ask!!

HG HOW annoying about the pay. Do you know what, I almost always expect screw ups to happen, because when they don't...I am pleasantly surprised! I've been trying to get a refund on a dress (internet) for ages now. I said to DH, when it didn't fit well, that I knew the refunding process would go wrong. And it did. I should have just gone into town!

Fingers crossed that Mr HG gets some good news.

Phoebe and DD seem to both be enjoying the sunny mornings...so funny, once DD has made eye contact, she's full of 'GET UP, I SAW YOU' noises

 

[Poppy7]

Well done poppy. That's fantastic no dummy! What you said worries me though, when it takes Helen 20 mins that is 20 mins of hardcore screaming, nothing I do helps except picking her up and then she screams worse when I put her down. Makes me think I'm doing the wrong thing, the night results are great but not sure about naps.....

Naps are really tough! This morning I "got lucky". I know that his first nap of the day is always the easiest and best one to be able to settle him. I tried to do the same for the second nap of the day....I had 20 minutes of talking, shouting followed by 10 minutes of crying. I basically gave him 30 minutes of trying (which I thought was a fair chance). He didn't settle and was getting worse so I gave him the dummy. It then took another 5 minutes for him to calm down and go to sleep. He only lasted half an hour but this is typical of a nap and what we need to work on.

BTW....Elliott hates pick up, put down. It really frustrates him and makes him worse. Can you try shusshing and talking to her. I often hold Elliott's hand or put my hand on his stomach or stroke his hair. This works better for us.

I tried to put him to bed with no dummy. We have our bedtime routine off to a tee so thought I may be able to get away with it. Elliott wasn't having any of it though. I really didn't want to stress him before bedtime so gave him his dummy and he was gone in about 5 minutes. I feel for the minute I can tweak SS to suit us. I just get worried that he will really on the dummy too much to resettle at night and Iw ill be getting up to put a dummy bac in rather than feed him....I do not want this. However, if last night is anything to go by hopefully we will be okay (HUGE FINGERS CROSSED!!).

Polo Princess you must be exhausted. I have only had nearly 6 months of excessive night waking. It is definitely worth a try. I said I would never do CC or CIO but it makes me feel better that you are encouraged to stay with LO and help them get through it. I figured £30 wasn't a great deal of money and I have already spent this on other sleep books that have been useless. We are already seeing results in 2 days. The first night was awful but last night was fantastic. Definitely worth a try for you.xx

A question for Sleep Senser's (if that's a word lol!.) I am always with Elliott if he cries when trying to settle. However, at times he just grumbles and grizzles (in an angry way) but not crying and I let him get on with it. Is this wrong? Should I stay with him? I just find that if i am there when he's like that I make things worse. I just don't want him to feel like he's abandoned. Even when he's not crying. Any thoughts would be great.

History Girls Sorry to hear you have had a bad day. That crap about your wages. I take my hat off to you working and looking after LO. I can imagine why sleep is important to you! I hope you have a good night tonight.xxxx

 

[Cattia]

Hi all, Bumpontherun, naps are hard, I would not worry about them too much until you have the nights sorted, one step at a time.

Poppy, you've done so well! I started with the morning naps as they were the easiest and always went out with the pushchair for afteroon ones, which is the same as the dummy really, a 'sleep prop' as Dana would say! It is only really now that we are able to get afternoon naps in the cot, and even then it depends on the day. I hope you have another really good night, I think you have to do SS at your own pace and only go as fast as you are comfortable with. You'll soon start to see patterns and work out what does and doesn't work.

We had good naps all day today Let's hope we get an OK night. LO decided that the day started at 5.50 this morning, although she was down for her first nap by 8.30 so I got a little extra sleep

Hope you're all having a good evening so far...

 

[polo_princess]

Does someone mind explaining to me what it is exactley that i need to buy because ive seen books for around £10 but then other places saying £30 upwards? Is it just the book, or is there other stuff too?

Sorry for being a pain in the butt

 

[Bumpontherun]

Poppy, great news!!

Bump, sounds like our routine...great nights, not so good naps. I basically ended up working on just one nap a day in DD's cot, and in time, she slowly but surely extended the length of that nap. Definitely takes a bit longer

Thanks TennisGal, I am going to give it a week and if it is still as stressful I think I might cut back to one SS nap a day too. I am just scared of putting her to sleep the old way as I might be strengthening the sleep/suck association (I've read too many sleep books!!)

I have majorly messed up today. Had 2 SS naps and one in pram. Morning nap took 24 mins to settle and was awful but she slept for 50mins. Lunchtime I let her get way more tired and she settled in 9 mins, not really screaming either just grumbling and the odd sob Then only slept 30 mins Anyway, felt she didn't really give me sleepy signals until it was too close to bedtime to let her nap. I ended up putting her to bed early at 7 when she was really tired. Problem was she kept trying to fall asleep on the boob so I feel that she didn't take a great feed. She fell asleep after 4 mins of moaning but then woke up 30mins later OH got her back to sleep in 20 mins. I think if she wakes up again then I will feed her straight off. I don't think she'll sleep through as she's not had enough food, I'm cross with myself for messing up but excited that she was able to settle so quickly. Will do it right tomorrow.,

HG - so annoying about pay - I work for the NHS and my pay is messed up all the time. I'm really surprised my mat pay hasn't been messed up so far.

Poppy - sounds like you are doing so well, good luck for tonight.

Polo Princess - SS is working well for me so far but it's not a miracle cure. I have really struggled over the last few days. Mainly because DD doesn't seem to find my presence comforting at all

Thanks to everyone else for support, it is so great having you guys to talk to.

 

[history_girls]

Right eating jamiee dodgers, shouting at waterloo road for being nothing like a school and ready to update properly!

Bump - 4 mins of moaning! That is great not bad at all. The feeding is a bit of a problem but I thought that when she dropped the night feed altogether that she wouldn't go through but she did. Two feeds won't be bad if she settles quickly afterwards.

Poppy - you can choose to stay or go with the grumberling. We have just started to go when she starts groaning and it seems to work. I can't leave her when there are tears I have to stay!

Hi Polo_princess! Give sleepsense a try you have nothing to loose. I think the eldest LO we have in here at the mo is 1 so it should help with your LO (who is gorgeous by the way!)

To end my day with a smile - LO had spag bol for tea and as usual painted her highchair table. Then lay her face in it, turned and blew raspberries into it for ten minutes with absolute concentration. She was completely orange by the end! Dirty little thing!

 

[Poppy7]

Right eating jamiee dodgers, shouting at waterloo road for being nothing like a school and ready to update properly!

Poppy - you can choose to stay or go with the grumberling. We have just started to go when she starts groaning and it seems to work. I can't leave her when there are tears I have to stay!


To end my day with a smile - LO had spag bol for tea and as usual painted her highchair table. Then lay her face in it, turned and blew raspberries into it for ten minutes with absolute concentration. She was completely orange by the end! Dirty little thing!

Don't worry I would never leave him when he's crying. It's just often he will grumble and shout a lot but if I'm there he tends to cry. For example earlier he was just shouting and as soon as I walked in the room he started crying and I made things worse when he may have self settled (wanted to be picked up etc). So just wondered what you ladies do. TBH often I'll sit in his room on my iPod whilst he grumbles but if he chats and grizzles for a while I will keep a close check on the monitor.

Your LO sounds like she is having great fun with her food ha ha!! Elliott has started blowing raspberries!! Some days he will do loads and the next it will be like he forgot he could do them and can't figure out how to do them right!!

 

[Cattia]

HG - I loved the bit where he walked into the classroom and said to the other teachers IN FRONT of the kids that he had chemicals missing from his class!! Like that would happen! It's probably the way nurses feel when they watch Casualty.

Poppy, I wouldn't worry about bedtime not quite going to plan, it's all a case of trial and error. If you know she didn't take a great feed then I think it would be the right decision to feed her when she wakes up. My nap strategy is the make sure that we get the lastnap of the day AT ALL COSTS! Even if I have to take the pram out in the hammering rain, I think if she doesn't have a nap somewhere between 4pm and 5pm then bedtimes are a meltdown. We have recently had a few of these naps with her settling in her cot, which is a great improvement, but it takes time, so I would focus on one step at a time. Who knows, she might surprise you and sleep until the early hours

 

[Foogirl]

I'm no teacher but I'd say giving the keys to the chemicals cupboard to a teenager and leaving the room is asking for trouble.

And bawling out your son in front of his friends seems a bit off too!

Anyway, back to it. Just doing a quick update before I go off to bed.

I forget who asked specifics so apologise for a general post!

On leaving them alone when they are fussing. Absolutely fine. The sleepsense programme actually gives you both options and you can do whichever you are comfortable with. Abby hated us being in the room, it prolonged the agony. We'd give her 5 minutes (or listen for an escalation) and if requred go back in and settle her back down. Someone mentioned their presence seemed not to be calming. Try leaving the room and seeing what happened. We did this on the second night out of frustration and it worked a treat!

Naps The hardest part of the whole thing. I do understand going at your own pace for your own child as all babies are different. I found that just persevering with it, got us there in the end, after about 3 weeks. If you revert to dummies or naps on you or walks in the pram too often, there is a mixed message. Consistency does pay off. If a nap isn't working after about 20 minutes, get them up and try again later. "Later" might be half an hour, or it might be ten minutes, but it did work for us to take a break from trying to get her down for a nap.

Watch for tired signs One of the things that always mucked up the naps for us was missing her tired signs. Putting her down too early or too late really made a difference as to whether a nap would work. We tended not to work to set nap times, and go with when she was tired, she'd go down for a nap. With Abby, pulling at the face and ears - to practically gouging her eyes out comes first. Then there are the whinges, then the yawns. By the time we hit yawns, we've gone too far!

Watch the clock Most babies seem to go through cycles of about 90 minutes or so. But certainly there will be a point where they start to get tired, and it will usually be the same length of time every time. Abby is still on 90 minutes (oh how I pray for a 2 hour baby!) Keep an eye on how long they are going before becoming tired and start winding down for the nap. It is much harder for them to go from 100mph to 0. If Abby is engrossed in something, she often doesn't realise she's tired until she is knackered! Then the trouble starts.

Use the resources Don't forget, if you've purchased the programme there are a bunch of resources on the website and you should have access to a 1 to 1 consultation by phone. I asked if I could do it via email because of time difference and cost and they said fine. I fired off a couple of emails of questions about the problems I was having and they answered fairly quickly and comprehensively. There are also FAQ's and video answers to questions too. She's got a facebook page as well where she answers questions.

Hopefully that helps!

Polo_PrincessIf you buy the £30 programme, you get the book and a workbook thing as well as access to the website where there are video uploads of her explaining the steps and answering questions and stuff. You also have the opportunity to contact them for help if you need it.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. We did sleepsense at 4 months and within a week, Abby was sleeping through the night, going down with very little protest. Within a month she went down without a peep and naps were almost sorted. After 6 weeks we had nighttimes and naps sorted and here we are at 1 year and she is a great little sleeper. Her naps are starting to go a bit skewiff at the moment, but only in terms of length. I'm putting it down to her starting to need much less sleep so we're playing about with that.

You have to be willing to commit to doing the hard graft though and should be aware it isn't a "no cry" solution (which I don't believe exists) but it isn't CC or CIO. You will be breaking your LO of a habit and that will never come easy but after all these months, you do deserve a good night's sleep!

 

[hivechild]

Poppy, I rarely stay in the room anymore once I've given Ronan a few minutes because quite often if he's on the edge as to whether he will grizzle and then settle or escalate into full crying my being there will set him off. I think it's harder for him because he can smell me/my milk and he wants to settle on the boob rather than do it himself. If he escalates into crying and I know he's fed and full I often have my husband settle him while I stay out of the way.

Bumpontherun, I hope the rest of the night goes/went ok for you. I really make an effort at all costs to make sure Ronan gets in a good nap in the afternoon, especially if he didn't nap great the rest of the day as it seems to make all the difference in the world to how he will settle to sleep for the night. If he is overtired, there is guaranteed to be tears and crying.