Sleep Sense Support Group!

[hivechild]

Well, he woke at 11:30 last night and I had told myself if he woke before 4 hours (which it was), that I was going to do my damn best not too feed him unless he was showing real signs of hunger.

We had a 45 odd minute cuddle with a little fussing from time to time but not really getting upset unless I tried to put him down. In the end he got sleepy just laying on my shoulder so I put him down and he went right to sleep until 5:30 when I fed him straight away!

I've never minded feeding him, and he always takes a decent feed, but it seems like he doesn't really need it, or at least not as often as he's been waking lately? He went straight back to sleep after his feed too. I think I need to make more of an effort through the night not to have him doze off while nursing. It's so hard, though!

 

[megewansmum]

Hivechild - you did an awesome job and what a result. I think if you continue along those signs you will soon be down to one or no night feeds. Well done you

Megan is doing great at the moment. Hopefully the whinging and whining all day long is behind us for now. She had her friends first birthday party yesterday. I was really worried that she would be frightened especially with all the strangers and her separation/stranger anxiety but she was a little star!

I think a lot of it was down to befriending their cat. She hasn't seen one before. Thankfully he was placid and didn't seem to mind being poked in the eye and having tufts of fur removed!

Although we left early due to nap clashing (still terrifies me being late down for a nap and always avoid it if possible) after driving home she was 45 mins -1hr late going down and she was fine. No fussing or crying and asleep in 5 mins. Bedtime too was great

 

[hivechild]

Thanks megewansmum! We had another night of him waking just after 11 but settling back to sleep with just some cuddling, and then last night he slept through until after 4am! Fingers crossed he's getting back on track for real this time...

That's great that Megan did fantastically at the party, and with the cat! Ronan loves our dog. He breaks into a big grin when he sees him and keeps trying to get at him. Poor doggy!

 

[history_girls]

arh ladies my run of brilliant nights has come to a crashing end tonight - and it would be when OH is out and it is me and the dog.

She was a litle bit sick so a change of bed etc... an hour ago... and she still hasn't gone down. I've tried snuggling - not having it any more, I've tried sitting with her - but she just gets up and tries to get me, so i've left and listening down the monitor. I said I'd go back in every 5 mins to see if that will work.

I've lost my confidence a little with SS as I haven't needed it for a bit - it so works but I feel like a beginner again. I forgot how hard the crying is - so huge hugs to you lot out there still doing it. Also now she can move it is even harder as she keeps crawling around and around her cot.

Well in the time I've written this it has gone quiet (ish). Maybe she knows I'm telling you guys.

Hive - sounds like a bit of progress!

oops spoke to soon didn't I - back to crying....

 

[colsy]

I don't have time to read this entire thread, so I hope you don't mind me asking a few very quick Qs. Thanks for your help and time

1. How much does the Sleep Sense thing cost if you buy it online?

2. Does anybody know how SS differs from following the No Cry Sleep Solution book (which we already have and have sort of used)?

3. Does SS really work, or is it just yet another thing to try in the utter desperate hope that it will work?

Very many thanks girls.

 

[polaris]

I don't have time to read this entire thread, so I hope you don't mind me asking a few very quick Qs. Thanks for your help and time

1. How much does the Sleep Sense thing cost if you buy it online?

2. Does anybody know how SS differs from following the No Cry Sleep Solution book (which we already have and have sort of used)?

3. Does SS really work, or is it just yet another thing to try in the utter desperate hope that it will work?

Very many thanks girls.

Hi Colsy,

1. the sleep sense programme is $47 but I think you can get it cheaper if you go through Dana Obleman (the author)'s facebook page.

2. I haven't used the No Cry Sleep Solution book so I can't compare them, but sleep sense does involve crying. If you are not comfortable with any crying then it would not be for you - however you can stay with your baby if it is helpful or if you are worried that they will feel abandoned.

3. I don't think there is anything hugely new in sleep sense than in other sleep strategies. However, I did find that it was laid out very clearly and step-by-step exactly what you should do, whereas other books are often more theoretical and not as practical. I think that maybe the most important thing in trying to solve sleep problems is that you choose an approach and are totally consistent with it. I thought the sleep sense programme helped with this as it gets you to fill in planning sheets to work out exactly how you will respond to your baby at night wakings etc. Thomas's sleep is not perfect but on the whole it is pretty good and he is not a baby who naturally slept well. This is not just due to sleep sense as I've done a lot of reading regarding his sleep but I would certainly recommend sleep sense. It does work but it's not easy and does involve some crying.

This thread is the best thing about sleepsense for me, there is always good advice on here from others who are going through the same issues. So you are very welcome to stick around!!

 

[history_girls]

Colsy - I can only answer number 3 - it really worked for us. She is brilliant at self-settling and putting herself to sleep at night. Naps are 80% good. We had an awful night last night, first in ages, but she did put herselft to sleep just before midnight and stayed down. She also put herself to sleep tonight with a cold so i think it works.

The crying for first few days is hard but in the long run it works. I never leave her to cry as a rule (i.e. if she is crying when she has been playing I always go to her etc...) but I like the fact you can stay with them and offer comfort.

Now LO is 9 months she hates me staying in the room (if you get the book this will make more sense) to comfort I now go and check every few mins whilst she whimpers - not crying - but whimpering.

Hope that helps x

Our night got better by midnight and she did SS. Phew. Hope everyone is well.

 

[polaris]

Colsy - I can only answer number 3 - it really worked for us. She is brilliant at self-settling and putting herself to sleep at night. Naps are 80% good. We had an awful night last night, first in ages, but she did put herselft to sleep just before midnight and stayed down. She also put herself to sleep tonight with a cold so i think it works.

The crying for first few days is hard but in the long run it works. I never leave her to cry as a rule (i.e. if she is crying when she has been playing I always go to her etc...) but I like the fact you can stay with them and offer comfort.

Now LO is 9 months she hates me staying in the room (if you get the book this will make more sense) to comfort I now go and check every few mins whilst she whimpers - not crying - but whimpering.

Hope that helps x

Our night got better by midnight and she did SS. Phew. Hope everyone is well.

Glad the rest of your night was better. I think there will always be bad nights where they just can't seem to settle. But that is just par for the course where babies are concerned - I am just glad that most of the time our LOs sleep well so that the bad nights are the exception.

Thomas has a really rotten cold at the moment, streaming eyes, snotty nose, high temperature last night and this morning, and he can't really feed properly because he can't breathe through his nose. The poor little pet. It hasn't affected his sleeping though, in fact he is sleeping more than usual, last night he slept through from 7 p.m. until 7.45 a.m. (!!!) and he had four hours of naps today. Seemed a good deal better this evening so I think he just needed the extra sleep to fight it off.

Hope everyone else is well.

 

[cutie4evr01]

Hi everyone - I hope you and your LOs are all sleeping well! Polaris so sorry to hear Thomas has the cold, but glad to hear he seems to be feeling better.

Colsy I would definitely recommend sleepsense - I have been very pleased with the results.

We were supposed to come home last Saturday, but as luck would have it, my sister went into labor last Friday, and she lives only 2 hours from where we were staying at the beach! So we went over to her house to stay with her boys while she and her husband were in the hospital, and stayed a couple extra days to visit. Luckily Christina slept pretty well while we were there, and it was lovely to spend some time with my sister and nephews and meet my new little niece. We finally made it home on Wednesday and Christina has slept pretty well the past 2 nights at home, except had some early wakings.

The great news to report is... for the first time ever... she took 3 naps today and did not cry for any of them!!! Now I'm certainly not going to expect this every day, but I think she's finally getting the hang of it! She has been doing bedtime wonderfully for quite some time now, but naps are still hit or miss most of the time. I'm nervous about her going back to her daycare lady's house on Monday after having been out for 2 weeks because her sleep schedule is different there (she has 2 naps there, whereas we do 3 at home, so she's gotten used to this over the past couple weeks), but all in all, her sleep has been pretty decent, even with all the changes in environments and she has settled back in very nicely at home.

Hope you are all well!

 

[history_girls]

Morning all.

Got a question if that is ok for you with older babies.

Phoebe can really move now, crawls like a pro, pulls herslf up onto her feet etc... but the side effect is she is waking in the night finding herslf on her front and then kneeling or sitting up and then not eing able to lie down again. The book sense to lie her down and leave - which I do - and it worked 3 out of 4 times last night and at 5am i popped her in with me when she tried to say this time she would get up.

Has anyone else got this prob? Any tips on teaching her how to lie down again?

Ta - happy Saturdays everyone!

 

[polaris]

Morning all.

Got a question if that is ok for you with older babies.

Phoebe can really move now, crawls like a pro, pulls herslf up onto her feet etc... but the side effect is she is waking in the night finding herslf on her front and then kneeling or sitting up and then not eing able to lie down again. The book sense to lie her down and leave - which I do - and it worked 3 out of 4 times last night and at 5am i popped her in with me when she tried to say this time she would get up.

Has anyone else got this prob? Any tips on teaching her how to lie down again?

Ta - happy Saturdays everyone!

I don't know but I am dreading the day that Thomas starts pulling himself to standing in the cot. He has done it once but luckily the sleeping bag impedes him so he hasn't made a habit of it yet. Hopefully by the time he works out how to stand up in the sleeping bag, he will have figured out how to sit/lie down again too. He has no idea how to sit down from standing at the moment and he seems to have no interest in learning, he goes round ALL day pulling himself to standing and you have to be there to catch him as he will just fall over backwards when he either gets tired or decides to let go and set off across the room. I try to show him how to sit himself down but he just cries because he wants to stand up. Anyway, sorry that wasn't much help! Thomas also does the crawling in the cot thing and he used to cry until we went in and rolled him back onto his back - but he sleeps on his tummy or his side a lot of the time now so I guess he just flops down on his tummy when he's done.

 

[history_girls]

Thanks Polaris - She can sit down and lie down but not totally in her control yet. I guess I shall just have to hope she gets it soon!

 

[polaris]

Thanks Polaris - She can sit down and lie down but not totally in her control yet. I guess I shall just have to hope she gets it soon!

Anyway even when they can do something fine during the day, it doesn't mean that they will do it at night. Thomas can roll back to tummy if he wants to - but when he ended up on his tummy at night he would just scream until I turned him over - I don't think it would even occur to him that he could just roll back himself!

 

[Cattia]

Hi all,

Sorry I have not been on in a while. Been having trouble with my laptop.It is still sooooo slow! Anyway, it seems quiet on here, maybe everyone is on holiday, or maybe people are doing so great with their sleep they don't come on here any more!

Well, things are going well for us on the whole. I have not fed Abigail during the night for over two weeks now. If she wakes up and cries for more than ten minutes, I just go and sit on the chair in her room and keep saying 'it's sleep time now Abigail, night night' and she generally settles within 10-15 minutes. The only thing is that if she wakes early, like about 5.30, then she won't re-settle and then I end up feeding her, so to make sure she knows it is not a night feed we have to make it morning. Last night she went right through until 6.15 this morning! It is such a difference from a few weeks ago when I was feeding her three times a night. It's been hard but worth it, I am hoping that we will get more and more nights where she goes right through now that she knows I am not going to feed her. THe fact that she has done it a few times gives me the confidence that she can.

How is everyone else doing? Hope you are all enjoying the summer. I can't believe that I only have three weeks left of my holiday then I am back at work

 

[polaris]

It is quiet on here isn't it?

Hopefully everyone's babies are sleeping really well and that's the reason why!

Cattia - well done on dropping the night feeds. That is a huge difference from being up three or more times with her. I found the same with the 5.30 wake ups though, they are a killer, that's really the main reason I decided to keep on with the night feeds for the moment as I can't handle starting the day so early. But yay for sleeping all the way through until 6.15, I could cope with that!

Well we seem to have taken a serious few steps backwards with regards to sleep. Thomas's cold got worse and he got a horrible cough so he has been wanting to breastfeed really regularly (during the day as well) and was not taking too much solids. So I went back to feeding him several times a night. But now he seems to want me to feed him all the time to settle him, even for naps. He still has a bit of a cold but it's much better, I think he has just decided he likes it. He isn't quite feeding to sleep but not far off it. He is also starting with separation anxiety, he follows me everywhere from room to room, even if OH is playing with him he will get up and follow me if I leave the room. He has also started standing up in the cot which is a nightmare for settling him. Oh well hopefully it is just a phase and will pass!

 

[PieMistress]

Sorry haven't been on here for a while! What do I have to report? Well last Saturday night we decided no more night feeds (which were one/two a night). The previous week I had started reducing them by a minute an night so they were only 4 mins long anyway. I'm not sure if there is a difference between Dana's leave & check method over controlled crying! Anyway, Kyle woke twice and both times went back to sleep after about 40 mins. Second night he slept until 5..30am and wasn't going back to sleep but to be fair had been asleep since 6.30pm (early bed time seems to suit him). Nights 3 & 4 he woke twice but with less crying and pretty much straight back to sleep - he is wakening because he's on his tummy or at the opposite end of the cot so we just straighten him and he goes back to sleep. Night 5 tonight! It was a 5.30am wake up today but we keep it dark in his room until 6am, I can handle 5.30am to be honest if he's been asleep since 6.30pm. When he starts nursery I might try to push it a bit later but he will be having less daytime sleep i'm sure and of a poorer quality.

I took him to a settling in session at my chosen nursery on Monday and hated it. Started crying there and the whole way home basically as it just didn't feel right (despite loving it when pregnant). So, to cut a very long story short have got him in somewhere else (after much stress and tears) that gets top inspection report marks and is just a better place for him. Going back full time is going to be terrible

I hated the sleep area in the first place (there wasn't even a door just a curtained off area right next to where the toddlers play) which really made me want to find elsewhere. Some people might think that's daft but I know you guys will understand after all the hard work we have put in!!

Cattia - Fab news on the sleeping and night feeds!!

Polaris - There are lots of phases at the moment! It feels like we only get a handful of 'normal' days before something else comes along. I think Kyle is happy sleeping on his tummy but gets confused if he wakes up which is why he cries!

I had a nightmare yesterday as we had to queue for 2hrs to get him registered with swimming lessons and he only napped for 30 mins on the way there as I knew there would be a queue so by the time we got home we way way overdue his PM nap and hadn't had lunch. I ended up BF him to get him calm and sleepy otherwise the afternoon and bedtime would have been awful.

I'm getting really sad about cutting down my BF I'm really hanging onto them but know I will have to do something asap as back to work in 2 weeks!!

Hope everybody else is well and enjoying the summer!! xx

 

[hivechild]

It has been quiet in here. I hope it's because most people have been having great sleep from their LO's and not because they're exhausted and too weary to post!

Ronan had a terrible couple of days recently. He was waking randomly at night and then during the day he fought going down for naps, didn't nap long, got himself exhausted and overtired. He was such a little terror that he actually threw a major wobbler and started screamy crying because the dog dared to get up and move out of his line of sight. He stopped and started squealing happily as soon as I moved him so he could watch the dog (who was sleeping! ) again.

I'm loath to say that I hope it's done with as he was better yesterday & last night, and he settled himself like a champ for his morning nap earlier (and is still asleep going on almost an hour). I was getting worried as he has had a hard time settling for naps and I was doing a lot of shh/patting, and with his night wakings when he wasn't hungry/I didn't want to feed him back to sleep I was having to do the same thing along with some cuddles but he seems to be getting back on track, until the next phase!

Polaris, I swear I always find myself repeating 'It's just a phase...it'll pass' to myself.

PieMistress - I hope you have success with cutting out the night feeds. I know as much as I'll like the extra sleep, I'll miss those middle of the night snuggly feeds in the dark when he's so focused, cuddly and there's nothing distracting him.

Cattia - It seems like things are going well with Abigail going without feeding through the night. I can't believe your summer break is half over already though. Time is flying!

Anyway, we're off this afternoon to our breastfeeding support group at the hospital Ronan was born in. In celebration of World Breastfeeding Week, I baked 8 dozen cupcakes last night, half of which I'm taking with me to give to the lactation consultants and the nurses there as a big thank you for all of the support they gave me in the beginning.

The other half of the cupcakes are being distributed amongst neighbors. My backside sure doesn't need them!

 

[TennisGal]

PM Hope all is well...and great that you've got a nursery you're comfortable with. What date are you back? Just think how much fun Kyle will have making new friends - and all the fun he'll have with his lovely Mummy also!

Cattia - great news on the night feeds!! That's FAB!

HC - Glad to hear things are back on track, and can you send me a cyber cupcake?!

P - we're in the same boat. DD has an ear infection, and I've been up since 4am and several times through the night. Poor little loves, I hate it when they are ill - they just don't know what's going on, do they?

Well, ladies, we had a lovely holiday! Was very restful and great fun - we were out and about everyday. Weather was fab - so introduced DD to paddling (she was a bit unsure of the sea!) I was also so chuffed at how she ate - mini portions of what we had, and a few treats along the way

Very excitingly - she's now saying 'hello' (it sounds like howah) which is very cute! She's struggling with her ear infection - so sleep is out of the window at the moment - and is still teething! Bless her, when these teeth arrive, I'm calling a tooth party!! I was so sure one was about to pop through, and actually thought it had (was whooping on her behalf, it must be so painful), but it seemed to stay stationary!

Am v tired today, as is she, so plenty of lounging and cuddling...maybe a little foray into the garden for some fresh air.

Hugs to all

 

[pinkclaire]

Hello ladies I hope you don't mind me barging in. I'm looking for some help. I'm at my wits end with James trying to get him to sleep and I'm thinking about trying the sleepsense. Would you guys recommend it? Xx

 

[Cattia]

TG! Lovely to see you! Glad you had a great holiday. How exciting that DD is talking! You must be so chuffed Bad news about the ear infection. I hate it when they are ill, you just can't make them feel better can you.

pinkclaire, yes I would recommend SS. It does involve some crying so you have to be prepared for that if you want to use the programme, but it is different from CC as you can stay with them. I found that it works really well if you stick to it.The more flexible I was the more problems I had but then you can only do what you're comfortable with. Abigail was not a terrible sleeper but not great either and she now goes through the night a lot of the time, I also don't have to feed her to re-settle her any more. There are some people on here whose babies were terrible sleepers and they had some quite dramatic results. This thread is fab as it provides loads of friendly support.