Questions regarding gradual retreat

[itskristen]

Hi mums,

I am doing gradual retreat with my 6 month old daughter and am on night 9. I'm still on the first stage of having my hand on her with no end in site. I read on another thread that shushing, singing or talking to the baby is a bad idea..is this true? I've been doing all of those things because her crying is horrific. She's getting better when I initially put her down, crying between 3-15 minutes, but she still wakes 4-6 times a night. Sometimes I can shush her back down pretty easily, other times she's crying terribly for 30 minutes. I still feed her 1-2 times a night, which I don't mind at all. When I do feed her, I put her back down awake (unless she's too fast for me!) and it usually goes OK. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!!

[rubyslippers]

she is quite young for gradual retreat isn't she?

it is not a bad idea to sing or shush - most babies need help getting to sleep

i would always rule hunger out - when does she feed at night? early on or late?

what time is she going to bed? does she nap well?

[Habbibu]

"I read on another thread that shushing, singing or talking to the baby is a bad idea."

Nonsense - once she's happy with being sung to sleep, say, then you just do a bit less, and a bit less - it is a very gradual process.

She is a wee bit young, I think - a few months makes quite a difference. Cuddling or rocking to sleep at this stage won't cause future problems.

[cbmum]

I did 1 night of gradual retreat but then DD came down with a cold so had to stop. I've started putting her down to sleep awake at the start of the night and she's cracked that after a few days so I figure tiny achievements are worth celebrating. We had a really bad weekend a fortnight ago where DD woke 4-6 times per night for about a week, then for no known reason she swapped back to waking twice for food, then again at 5ish when she comes into her light faze of sleep. I found that talking to her quietly for a few moments before putting her back to bed had better results. Might be worth a try.

[iwantitnow]

It took us nearly a month for gradual retreat to work at around 6/7 months old. However she got ill at 11 months for a month and tried gradual retreat again and didn't get anywhere. Did a very limited form of control crying at 12 months - go in 5,10.15 minutes but never let her cry for more than 30 minutes ever and then would feed her to sleep after 30 mins- this worked in 2 nights and now at 2.4 years old she still sleeps very well.

Gradual retreat does take a long time to eventally leave the room but IMO its a good technique before they are one

[Habbibu]

Depends on the child, I guess - we had to redo it 18 months, and it worked very well again for dd.

[itskristen]

That's interesting; I didn't know that she might be too young for gradual retreat, but I have seen that many people are doing it with older children. It makes sense, but I also know others who say it's appropriate. I honestly can't decide. I never really planned on making it "out of the room". I'm perfectly happy staying at her bedside and waiting until she goes to sleep. It's the crying beforehand and the nightwakings that are killing me. If she woke 2-3 times a night, I wouldn't mind feeding or rocking her right back to sleep. But when you're up at least 5-6 times each night because she sincerely has no idea how to fall back asleep, it's just not sustainable.
Her naps aren't that great, but not horrible. She takes one nap either in her crib or on me, and the other ones are usually "on the road" in a baby carrier. I know, not stellar, but she does sleep.

[itskristen]

Oh, and I forgot to add, I try to feed her only twice a night because I can tell when I put her on that she's not that hungry most of the time. She tends to get very distracted during the day and will not nurse for longer stretches unless she's tired, though, so I do not want to night wean. Ideally I like to feed her between 11-12 at night and once again at 3 or 4. She wakes up pretty consistently at 7am and goes down at 6:30-7pm.

[Habbibu]

Ok, how about making what you're doing at the start a bit more active - so you could rub or pat her in bed, while singing a song or telling a story - when she's happy with that, reduce it to patting and shh-ing, etc etc, then hand on and shh, then just hand on, etc? This is what we did with dd, waiting until she was very relaxed with each stage until going on to the next one. There was very little crying involved at all, and each stage seemed slightly shorter than the last - it all got very quick towards the end.

We didn't do GR during night wakings until she'd really cracked it at bedtime.

We did find having a rdio with earphones and a booklight very helpful - also the person not "on duty" brought tea/wine...

Have you looked at Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution? That has a very flexible approach to GR that worked really well for us (though we didn't do all the sleep charts malarkey).