Sleep Sense Support Group!

[jenny82]

Going to get babba down for a nap and come back to read as much of this thread as possible!!!

Sleep has been wonky for a few weeks now, but LO stayed at my mums last night and every time he woke, she fed him. So now he wants fed around 4am when he doesn't need it! I've started taking him back into our bed as its just the only way he'll sleep but obviously I don't want him using this as a crutch.

I need to get him back on track, so at the ready...

 

[jacs]

Going to get babba down for a nap and come back to read as much of this thread as possible!!!

Sleep has been wonky for a few weeks now, but LO stayed at my mums last night and every time he woke, she fed him. So now he wants fed around 4am when he doesn't need it! I've started taking him back into our bed as its just the only way he'll sleep but obviously I don't want him using this as a crutch.

I need to get him back on track, so at the ready...

Hi, welcome!
I feel your pain! Sleep Sense has worked brilliantly for us, and we were having a terrible time beforehand.
The main thing is to stick to your plan, as consistency is the key to it all. The past few days I've been a bit lax as Evan has teeth coming through, and now he is up through the night, when I had him sleeping through!

 

[nenee]

Hi there

well after going cold turkey with removing the dummy my dd is dummy free yippee!

Shes 7 wks old and had a dummy from day one which i was not happy about as could see it was starting to become a prop etc, but i dreaded getting rid of it.

well i just thought got to do it and the first 3 days were hard she would cry hard and try and suck the air and suck her comforter

she still does that but she self settles within minutes now.

issue i have is SHORT NAPS, she has been waking after 40 mins or so and i cant get her to go back at all even though shes swaddled etc.

im finding it hard to do the school run which is her nap time and he does not sleep well in her car seat sometimes only having 30 mins as she wakes as soon as i put her car seat in her bedroom so shes OT then,

any suggestions on cat napping etc is it usually down to not being awake long enough as i found putting her earlier does nothing.

cheers
nenee

 

[jacs]

Hi there

well after going cold turkey with removing the dummy my dd is dummy free yippee!

Shes 7 wks old and had a dummy from day one which i was not happy about as could see it was starting to become a prop etc, but i dreaded getting rid of it.

well i just thought got to do it and the first 3 days were hard she would cry hard and try and suck the air and suck her comforter

she still does that but she self settles within minutes now.

issue i have is SHORT NAPS, she has been waking after 40 mins or so and i cant get her to go back at all even though shes swaddled etc.

im finding it hard to do the school run which is her nap time and he does not sleep well in her car seat sometimes only having 30 mins as she wakes as soon as i put her car seat in her bedroom so shes OT then,

any suggestions on cat napping etc is it usually down to not being awake long enough as i found putting her earlier does nothing.

cheers
nenee

Wahey! No dummy, that's great, I know that was a big worry for you.
We also had 40min naps, on the dot, from day one. To be hones, about half Evan's naps are still 40mins, but the others are now 80mins or 2hrs (always multiples of 40!). They increased when he started learning to settle himself at night - once he could get back to sleep on his own, he decided to have longer naps!
Babies have a 45min sleep cycle, so it is normal to wake at this point, the problem is getting them to back into another one.
What have you tried so far in terms of resettling?

Nice to hear from you!

 

[nenee]

HI ya JAcs

Yes got rid of it after lots of anxiety about the thing, hasnt been easy and i felt so bad getting rid of it, but i know its for the best long term, think it would of bit me in the bum if she had it for any longer

im just trying to get her day naps right im sort of lost.

how much awake time should she have in between naps? for a 8 wk old on sat? shes been up for about 1hr 30 mins

the afternoon naps are all over the shop i have no idea where i am shes also very fussy and hungry eating every 2 hrs from 3 ish till bed and has about 3 oz each time and only short naps.

when she wakes iv tried pu pd or patting her tummy and sitting with her but she goes hysterical might be cause shes so hungry and waking for food, dont know how to get over that issue?

shes on cow and gate comfort for colicky babies so im not sure if shes hungry on it, dont know whether to go back to cow and gste 1 and see if shes ok now older and fuller on it?

shes doing well in the evenings though has a feed at 10 ish then sleeps till 3 or 4 am and up for 6 to 7 ish am so heres hoping she will sleep through soon
nenee

 

[jacs]

HI ya JAcs

Yes got rid of it after lots of anxiety about the thing, hasnt been easy and i felt so bad getting rid of it, but i know its for the best long term, think it would of bit me in the bum if she had it for any longer

im just trying to get her day naps right im sort of lost.

how much awake time should she have in between naps? for a 8 wk old on sat? shes been up for about 1hr 30 mins

the afternoon naps are all over the shop i have no idea where i am shes also very fussy and hungry eating every 2 hrs from 3 ish till bed and has about 3 oz each time and only short naps.

when she wakes iv tried pu pd or patting her tummy and sitting with her but she goes hysterical might be cause shes so hungry and waking for food, dont know how to get over that issue?

shes on cow and gate comfort for colicky babies so im not sure if shes hungry on it, dont know whether to go back to cow and gste 1 and see if shes ok now older and fuller on it?

shes doing well in the evenings though has a feed at 10 ish then sleeps till 3 or 4 am and up for 6 to 7 ish am so heres hoping she will sleep through soon
nenee

Well your nights sound fabulous for her age - we were never that good even when Evan was 5 months old! And getting her to self-settle without the dummy is also great, she's obviously a quick learner!

1.5hrs sounds on the longish side, 45mins-1 hour would be about right (although there will be times when she doesn't fit that pattern). When she wakes from naps how is her mood? If she seems happy enough and alert I would get her up (if you've left her a while to see if she'll go back to sleep). If she seems tired then maybe try PUPD for a good 15mins or so.

Could you shuffle things around a bit so that she feeds before her nap routine? That way it is unlikely that when she wakes she will be hungry. She won't need a feed every nap time, just when you think she would be due one. Do you think the frequent feed could be a comfort thing? Evan did this bang on 8 weeks, and I thought I would lose my mind! He had a day when he cried if I took the bottle away from him - all day.

From then on I offered water if it had been less than 3 hrs since a feed, in order to space feeds out but up the amount he was taking, but I put him on to the next teat size (he was feeding very slowly, and I think that made him drink less, hence he needed more feeds).
The teat thing helped instantly - give it a go with one of her bottles if you think she's mega slow, put putting loads of effort into her sucking.

The school-run nap is tricky - not like you can just stay at home! If she's cranky because of a short nap, try putting her down again after about 20-30mins of low-key activities - she might feel chilled out enough for a little sleep!

It's a minefield sorting out feeds and naps, but you've come a long way!

 

[Cattia]

This thread seems to have been quiet the past few days! hope you're all doing well. Nenee, sounds like great progress, good on you for getting rid of the dummy!

We had an OK night, but still two wakings, the first at 2am, which I think is fair enough as it's seven hours after her bedtime, but the second was at 4am. Left her for ages but she would not settle so fed her, I am sure she didn't need it, although she did take a reasonable amount (although you never quite know with BF how much they are actually swallowing!)

Anyway, weaning is going well so far although only day 2! She ate a whole bowl of baby rice for lunch so hoping to move onto purees as soon as I have got me a steamer!

Toady we had our first EVER two hours nap I was up and down the stairs like a yoyo checking her so not terribly relaxing for me, but it was after swimming so I reckon she was really shattered. Let's hope this is the start of things to come....

 

[Poppy7]

Welcome nenee :wave: Well done on ditching the dummy. This was one of our props and sleep has been ssooo much better since getting rid of it. My LO also takes short, 30 minute power naps. Every so often he will nap for over an hour but his only happens a few times a week. Not sure on how to resolve this apart from the technique where you wake them 20 minutes in to their nap so that they then go on to sleep longer. This hasn't always worked for us, maybe sometimes by accident!! Good luck.xx

Cattia - we had the 2 hour problem up until a few weeks ago. In fact it got so bad he was waking every 45 minutes !! Taking away the dummy worked for us (can't remember if you use a dummy...?) if not, I don't know what to suggest. Hopefully someone else can be a bit more helpful than me

WELL....things are only getting better for us (I hope I haven't jinxed myself by saying that). Last night and the night before were amazing. Last night, for example, Elliott was asleep by 8pm. He woke at 10.30pm and I fed him (he's a hungry boy right now). He then went through until 4am!!!!! He then woke at 6am so I fed him and bought him in with me for a cuddle where we slept until just gone 8am!! He came in with me the previous morning too so I'm not going to do that tomorrow as I don't want to start a bad habit that I previously broke him of. Tonight I have managed to get bed time back to our normal time of 7pm so hopefully if he wakes at 6am tomorrow morning we shall get up then.

So, thank you ladies for being wonderful and listening to my ups and dows, Couldn't have done it without you!!xxxx

 

[Cattia]

Wow Poppy - great progress, good on you and well done Elliot! We don't use a dummy. Annoyingly, every single time I mention Abigail's sleep regression of late to any of the other mums they ALL tell me I should use a dummy! I am not going to start now after 5 months without one! I do sometimes wonder if she is using me as a dummy though. The thing is, it's not like I am feeding her to sleep, I feed her in the night, put her down awake and she will often lie quietly for ages before going off to sleep - it's just that she will scream until she is fed. Maybe she really IS hungry? But after just two hours? Last night she woke up with wind (did some massive pops!) and lie there quietly for ages,then in the end started to winge, escalated more and more until we had full on hysterics until I fed her! Surely if she'd been hungry she would have woken up crying, not started after a little while?

Well anyway, here's hoping for a better night tonight.

 

[jacs]

This thread seems to have been quiet the past few days! hope you're all doing well. Nenee, sounds like great progress, good on you for getting rid of the dummy!

We had an OK night, but still two wakings, the first at 2am, which I think is fair enough as it's seven hours after her bedtime, but the second was at 4am. Left her for ages but she would not settle so fed her, I am sure she didn't need it, although she did take a reasonable amount (although you never quite know with BF how much they are actually swallowing!)

Anyway, weaning is going well so far although only day 2! She ate a whole bowl of baby rice for lunch so hoping to move onto purees as soon as I have got me a steamer!

Toady we had our first EVER two hours nap I was up and down the stairs like a yoyo checking her so not terribly relaxing for me, but it was after swimming so I reckon she was really shattered. Let's hope this is the start of things to come....

Hmm, can you take her swimming in the dead of night - it obviously does the trick! We are the same - I tried to resettle Evan at 2am last night and he went beserk - fed him and he was out like a light

The weaning sounds great! She's done brilliantly for day 2 - looks like you've got a good feeder there!

Poppy - what a transformation! How does it feel to have some sleep?! I still haven't tried the wake to sleep method yet, naps seem to be getting better, although our nights are getting worse.

Well, I'm a little bit sunburnt today, so summer has officially begun! Found a packet of sunflower seeds in the garage and thought I'd plant a few to cover the fence a bit. Well, I couldn't bring myself to waste anything so I have planted 53 sunflowers - just hoping they don't all come up!

 

[Poppy7]

Cattia, you are absolutely right not to introduce a dummy now. DON'T DO IT lol!! It may "help" things temporarily for you but int he long run I think it would make things far worse. When Elliott cries I give him a few minutes so see if he will resettle but lately when he wakes up he truely is hungry. Sounds like you are certainly giving your little lady chance to resettle. Maybe she is hungry....is she just snacking at night maybe? Elliott was waking up for the boob and only that would resettle him. When I stopped that he became more reliant on his dummy, when I took that away...ta da!! Things are waaay better. I hope tonight is better for you.

Thanks Jacs. I don't know what to do with all this sleep!! I often still wake up when the rest of the house is sleeping as I'm not used to it I've been to afraid to try the wake to sleep method properly for naps. I think sometimes though when I'vemade a loud noise when he''s asleep by accident (dropping something etc) it's happened to make him stir and he then goes on for longer. I never wake a sleeping baby though so that's why I haven't tried the method! Sorry to hear your nights are getting worse. Here's to hoping they pick up for you.xx I'm also in to gardening right now!! I've started growing some vegetables!! I went to the charity shop the other day and bought two gardening books....look out Alan Titchmarsh lol!xx

 

[history_girls]

Ofsted have gone thank goodness! and I'm on a course in London tomorrow so get to avoid the feedback too!

Well LO has a rotton cold again and has been a little whatsit for the childminder all day, who was so relieved when she dropped her off. So we had a nice bath together and she went to bed early. She keeps coughing away down the monitor but haven't been up yet. So all good.

Hello and welcome new people!
Neenee- we are on cow and gate comfort (still stage 1) and i kept trying to go to normal milk or something else to help with her lack of poo etc... but the only milk she is truly happy on is her comfort. She will be on that until ready for cows milk. So I would stick with it - at least until you get her sleep sorted. even at 7 months my LO can only do between 2 - 3 hours awake at a time. I think it was 90 mins at 8 weeks. Good luck with sleepsense - it has really helped us.

Jacs - I so laughed out loud at your sunflowers! part of me hopes that everyone of them grows! It would make me smile anyway. OH thought I was going loppy laughing at the laptop.

Poppy - glad nights are good, we are on fairly good nights but with one big scream!

I did think of a question I wanted to ask about sleep but totally forgot! Completely shattered today after the inspection. really resenting work today and just wish I was still at home -especially now LO has another cold i hate my mortgage I miss day time tv and going to the supermarket!

never mind - only week and a half until half term. Chin up.

Sleepy dust!

 

[Poppy7]

Glad ot hear that's the end of ofsted for you HG Sorry to hear about your LO. Elliott seems to have a never ending cycle of colds and viruses right now!!

Well, I think I did jinx myself....bed at 7pm and already got a bit of shouting settled with a feed at 8.30-9pm....

 

[TennisGal]

Ladies!

Our internet went kaput, but back online! Hope you are all well? Just a short one, as I can hear someone stirring

DD is teething like crazy, I can actually see the tooth now (whitish part) and she's napping well...but crying in her sleep Awful, poor love. SO, rules have been bent and she's in with us from about 5am.

Will be back for a proper catch up later - wanted to give big to all, and welcome back to nenee.

ps - the house is immaculate...when DD naps now, instead of catching up on here, I've been tidying!

 

[nenee]

Hi ya

What do i do about snacking? she keeps waking in the afternoon naps as wants to eat every 1 1/2 to 2 hrs then doesnt take a full feed?

she also wakes early from a nap then not due for hrs for a feed but her next nap is due before her next feed, and if i feed her she hasnt been fed long im so confused.....

Do you find you lo wants more awake time in the afternoon?

it snot easy trying to get them to sleep well is it? but i always think back to the hard work i put in with my ds and hes the best sleeper ever so its all worth it.

nenee x

 

[Poppy7]

Hi TG :wave: I should do housework really I hope the teething doesn't go on for too long. We bend the rules at times too. Sometimes you have to.

Well last night I thinkni did jinx myself lol! After the 1st waking at 8.30pm Elliott woke again at 1am and 4am. I suppose this isn't too bad but he has come down with another cold and I think he's teething. Naps today have been brilliant so far (there I go jinxing myself again!). Let's see what tonight brings.

Nenee...not sure what to do about snacking. How old is your LO? I also find afternoon naps more difficult. Today however his 1st and 2nd nap have gone very well. I think naps get harder as they day goes on.xx

 

[Poppy7]

Elliott was amazing today. He went down perfectly for his morning nap. Ge also settled beautifully for his 2nd nap and slept for 2 hours and 20 minutes!!!!!! We then went to a soft play area and he napped in the car afterwards. He went down like a pro at bedtime like he usually does and hasn't woken up...yet... What a good boy considering he's full of cold I will update on our night on the morning (sleepy dust to you all).xx

 

[cutie4evr01]

So glad to hear everyone seems to be having decent sleep lately (aside from last night for Elliot, but it's understandable if he's not feeling well).

Nenee, my LO definitely wants more awake time in the afternoon - we have to work very hard to get in her last nap (and sometimes give up and skip it).

We actually have been having a couple bad nights. Both of the last two nights she cried/screamed for 20 minutes before bed, even with my reassurance, so I ended up rocking her to sleep. I know this is really bad, but she had been going down so well for bedtime before that, so I felt like maybe she wasn't feeling well. Two nights ago she woke twice for feeds, which I can handle, but last night she woke loads! I thought she wasn't feeling well because she threw up most of her bedtime feed. She's always brings up quite a bit, but this was definitely way more than normal. So she went to bed at 6:30 and then was awake at 8! We left her whining for a while, but it soon escalated, so I gave in and fed her since I figured she may be hungry after sicking up the previous feed. Then she woke again at 11:30, 1:30, 3, and 4:30! We left her for a while at each of those, but only at the 3:00 waking did she settle herself back to sleep - all the other 3 it escalated into frantic crying, so I fed her. She wasn't sick after any of them, so I'm wondering if it was a growth spurt? Luckily she went back to sleep with no fuss after all of those wakings. So far tonight has been much better - she went to sleep on her own with only 4 minutes of crying and a bit of talking to herself. Fingers crossed she won't be waking 5 times tonight! I'll update in the morning.

 

[nenee]

Had a fantastic day yesterday!!!

My7 wk old DD had 2 2 hr naps then a 1 1/2 nap then went to bed at 6.30 pm like a dream no fuswsing just snuggled up to her comforter and slept till 4.30 am!! fed her and she went back to sleep although she wasb wide awake.

Getting rid of that dummy is the best thing iv ever done.

I had a email of a friend with a ds whose similar age and she had a terrible day up and down the stairs re plugging the dummy and she even sleeps by the side of him holding the dummy in all night

will see if todays the same because they do like to test us

nenee

 

[jacs]

Cutie - poor you, you must have been shattered! Hope last night was better, I know Evan has nights that don't fit the pattern. Like you, I just go with it, SS or not. The one thing I would watch for, is that after 2 nights of being out of our routine a bit, it's hard to get him back on track (can take up to a week!). Your LO may not be like this though!

nenee - Wow! What a difference, bet you can't quite believe it! She's so young, how clever of her to pick it up so fast. You're right, I'm sure Evan tests us all the time - just stick to your routines as rigidly as possible, and I'm sure things will continue to be fab!

Well, we are still in the land of one night feed (although he made it to 4.30am today). I'm sure it's not a spurt, Evan just seems to be in the habit now, since we have been going to him more while he is teething.
We have tried resettling, but he goes crazy - we walk straight out the room whenever he goes to bed, so us being there shushing him must be just confusing for him. That doesn't leave us any options apart from leaving him, but he really goes wild.
Aaargh, I've heard of 4-month sleep regression, I reckon there's a 7-month one as well!!