Gina Ford - starting at 7 months?!

[broodylicious]

Is there anyone out there who has started the Gina ford routine quite a way down the line? My dd is 7 months and we are having an absolute nightmare when it comes to sleep - ie she doesn't do it for long then will only settle on us - so my cousin suggested trying Gina Ford's methods.

Anyone help me? Pleeeeease?

From a v v v sleep deprived, anxious, blue mummy!

Im afraid the only thing I'd do with a GF book is burn it

I have heard the baby whisperer website is good?

I cant comment on GF because I never used her. However, my dd was a monkey to get to sleep at 7 months too. She had outgrown the stage where I could lay her down and put my hand on her tummy until she closed her eyes. Instead, as soon as I lay her down she would scream and stand back up again. I did the following:

1. Kept to the same routine. Bath followed by quiet play downstairs with lots of cuddles and stories. At 6.30, I took dd to her room, got her into the grow bag and she had her milk.
2. Lay her down in the cot, snuggle her up, gave her a kiss and then left the room.
3. DD would stand up and cry. I stood outside and timed one minte.
4. After one minute I went back in, layed her down, kissed her again and went outside. Again, I timed one minute.
5. Repeat step 4 for about an hour. Eventually dd gave in and went to sleep.

I did the above for two nights. After two nights she cried for 5 minutes for about 3 days and then after that she just lay down and went to sleep. We had slight regressions during teething or illness, or sometimes when dd just decided that she was going to test the boundaries, but that was very rare and quickly corrected when we stuck to the routine. Now that she is 15 months she asks for her milk as soon as she is tired, and when she has had enough she says 'cot, nanights mummy' and points at her bed. She goes down without a peep. In the early days I never picked her back up again unless she hadn't taken much milk, at which point I offered her the bottle again and winded her before putting her back down. I only ever stood outside of the room for one minute, I never progressed to longer time periods. One minute, then I lay her back down and repeated the process. I didnt talk to her except to shush, but I always kissed her before I left the room.
Before I did this I tried the shush pat method, and gradual withdrawal because I really didnt want to leave her to cry at all, but if I stayed in the room she became even more agitated and would almost always end up being sick. By retreating from the room for a minute and then going back in and laying her down she quickly learned that it was time to go to sleep and mummy would be outside.

Im currently 1 day into doing the controlled crying technique, due to me selfishly wantin snuggles my dd doesnt know how to fall asleep in her own bed.
And after a week of her having a stomach bug and waking in the night with me putting her in mum and dads bed feeling sorry for her she has began to think its normal to come in our bed at 2am.
So with my dd2 5 weeks away from being born controlled crying was the only option for us.
Im doing it with nap time aswell day 1 nap took 40 mins of screaming and sobbing with me going in every 10 minutes to lie her down, she slept like normal for 2 hours. Bed time we could do due to being at a bombfire and her falling asleep in the car on way home bt the 2am wake took a whole 1 hour 30 minuter of screaming etc then she slept for another 5 hours.
It works and hopefully it will get less and less as the days go on but its tough. My dd is 11months old, I wish I had done this befor she could stand be much easier.

No - but we went to the other extreme and started co sleeping at 5 months and that worked for us. We'd always put dd in her cot for the first part of the night, then from the first wake up she'd sleep with me on a mattress on the floor - we all got much more sleep. When dd was about 11 mo a few things happened, she started sleeping longer stretches, started self settling and started being happier in her cot, so we stopped co sleeping then (apart from when she's been poorly). So it wasn't a permanent thing, just the comfort she needed at the time.

I think how we'll gf woul work at this stage might depend on your parenting style - anything that's a big change might be hard for both of you. Plenty of people swear by controlled crying , wasn't for us though as we've kind of done the attachment parenting thing. I feel for you though, can remember the nights of being woken up 5 times and that feeling of being about to cry yourself as baby wakes and cries just as you put them in the cot...

The No Cry Sleep Solution is supposed to be better for this age I think. GF was only a maternity nurse and her direct experience goes up to babies of three weeks. Is it just at night or naptimes too that you're experiencing this? It sounds like classic separation anxiety which would be entirely age-appropriate and will pass.

zu I would agree separation anxiety/an age thing but the nighttime charade has been going on for 16 weeks now. It started with the dreaded 4 month sleep regressio and basically she went for 13 weeks waking every 30/40 minutes and taking the same to get back down again. Totally exhausting and actually causing me to be on the brink of pnd we now have 5/6 get ups a night but still ends up with DH taking her downstairs at 2/3am to lay on his chest.

We have bought both the no cry ss and no cry nap solution books so we will be trying their approach I think - I didn't realise when posting this that GF is a cry it out-er which is not a method we want to even try.

I think that GF would be tough to start at that age unless your DD already sleeps until 7am and settles easily for her morning nap (GF advocates a short morning nap so at that age by the time they have settled you may need to immediately wake them up!)

What is your daughter's current typical sleep pattern? How do you currently settle her? Night time sleep is easier to sort than naps. Though try to get naps during the day as they will help nighttime sleep. What are your feelings on crying with/without you there? That is going to determine the strategies available to a large extent.

Typical pattern - bath, feed to sleep, she goes down within an hour, she was sleeping for 2-2 1/2 hours then but in the last three nights, she's only gone half an hour (could've been fireworks but not convinced), then it'll take anything up to an hour to get her back into bed. Feeding is last resort at this stage (about 10pm) because I know she isn't hungry but if she's screaming and gives her comfort, I can't turn away from her. She will then be down for half an hour to an hour when she will wake, cry and want to be held. As soon as she hits the mattress, it's crying again. We hold on trying to get her back to sleep with rocking. Usually when it reaches midnight we've all had enough and DH takes her downstairs where miraculously she will fall asleep on his chest for three hours. He then tries to put her in her bed but she's having none so I feed (say 3/330) and she will usually fall asleep and I can put her down in her cot. The last few nights she's only then gone on to have half an hour to an hour in her bed before waking and being taken downstairs again til 6 (when DH has to get up to go to work). It is completely exhausting and as I say I'm now at the end of my very desperate tether