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What would gentle sleep training typically involve?

151 replies

Aliceandthemarchhare · 18/04/2021 13:23

I am concerned about my four month old and would appreciate some advice.

He typically sleeps from about 9 pm to 5 am and wakes up once to be fed (usually) so that’s fine.

During the day though his naps are so short that when I total it up he usually only sleeps about two hours, sometimes less. I try not to worry about it but he does get so overtired by evening it’s not much fun.

Is there a gentle way to get him to sleep a bit longer?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
BertieBotts · 19/04/2021 11:40

They will not take your baby away from you even if you are having intrusive thoughts about harming him, so please don't worry about that. This kind of thing is a lot more common than you would think. What it might trigger is a flag up for more support as it shows that you're finding things extremely stressful, which either means PND or that the baby's behaviour is out of the ordinary.

I totally understand the reticence to ask if they have not been helpful before. Would it be possible to ask to see another HV, or make a GP appointment instead? I would then emphasise "Last time, I was told to put him in a dark room, and when I do this he either stays awake or he screams and still doesn't sleep anyway". That is then clear that you don't need the kind of basic ordinary first level advice, but something moving on to the next stage.

Aliceandthemarchhare · 19/04/2021 11:50

I’d consider weaning at around five months but four months seems so young. And I don’t think he seems ready at all.

I honestly think maybe he just has a longer wake windows than some babies. The big problem is the feeding to sleep. So say he wakes up at 6 and then is hungry at 745 - but won’t sleep so then I’d have to wait until he is hungry enough again at say 9 and then he sleeps but has had a wake window that’s too long.

I don’t mind contact naps at all but it does mean when people say to put him down it’s meaningless as he’d just stay awake all day, I think.

OP posts:
HercwasanEnemyofEducation · 19/04/2021 11:55

I really think your best bet is to find a way out of feeding to sleep. It will help short and long term.

I used to do feed play sleep, as a cycle. He's feeding to sleep by then because he's totally knackered.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

LapinR0se · 19/04/2021 11:57

Hi there @Aliceandthemarchhare. I really feel for you, baby sleep is frustrating and exhausting.
You will need to work on the feeding to sleep and the (very gentle) sleep training as it is affecting your health. It's hard to do on your own, I know as I've been there twice.
I used a brilliant sleep consultant, she is expensive but worth it. Do you want her details? Otherwise I can share some of the advice with you but it does differ for each baby.

Aliceandthemarchhare · 19/04/2021 11:58

But how, if he fights it so much? I don’t know. I read the baby whisperer when he was very young and tried EASY but we failed miserably - more like E, A, E, S for ten minutes, A ... you get the picture!

OP posts:
Horehound · 19/04/2021 12:19

I was gona suggest maybe offering a tiny teaspoon of baby rice or something. That might be heavy enough he can't bring up. Didn't want to say that in case I got jumped on, you could always ask GP for their thoughts on that

LapinR0se · 19/04/2021 12:25

He is fighting it because he is overtired and cranky. The less sleep they have the less they are able to fall asleep.
You need help to get a few big chunky naps under your belt and reset him.

elizabeth2020 · 19/04/2021 12:30

My heart goes out to you OP. My son was very similar to what you have described, and it was awful: the extreme alertness, the long awake times, the relatively "long" stretch of night sleep but with short daytime naps (sometimes only a few minutes, but enough to keep him awake for another 2 hours), the constant vomiting meaning that I was constantly on edge waiting for the next explosion of half-digested milk that had taken so much effort... It was very difficult to bond with him. I felt only a mixture of hatred and pity. And anxiety because he was obviously not getting enough sleep.

It was also extremely frustrating to be given advice by people who did not have a baby like this. I wanted to punch anyone who wrote "put your child down drowsy but awake"! Drowsy? He had two modes: bug eyed alertness or completely zonked out. "A calm mum means a calm baby" was another one that made me want to scream. I would have been perfectly calm if I hadn't been besieged by a highly alert, projectile vomiting, shrieking, nap refuser all day every day, seven days a week, with the added worry of wondering whether he was doing himself developmental harm through lack of sleep.

Anyway, I am so sorry you are going through this. I am not sure whether I missed this being mentioned somewhere in the thread, but something that made things slightly better for me was a bouncer. It might be worth a try at least if you haven’t done so (apologies if you have, and apologies if it sounds like I am suggesting this is a silver bullet -- I don't mean it like that). We had the Baby Bjorn bouncer at home but actually a 15 pound one from Tesco that we bought while travelling was also ok. With the Baby Bjorn one that I mainly used at home, it had the advantage of keeping him upright after a feed (there are several angles you can set it to), and it had a washable cover. I bought an extra cover so there was constantly one in the wash and one on the bouncer waiting to be covered in vomit (muslins on the bouncer are also your friend here). When my son was coming up for the end of his awake time (or when he was zonking out after a feed), I would put him in the bouncer and tap it with my foot. This enabled me to sit and have a drink or look at my phone, or even lie down on the bed at the same time. I used to bounce my son until he fell asleep (fighting sleep every second but about 8 times out of 10 the Baby Bjorn would win) and then after about 15 min of him being asleep I would carefully drop him back into the sleeping position angle it has (and sit with him while he slept because of the worry of it not being as safe as a flat cot mattress). The other brilliant thing about a bouncer is that (at least in our case) when he stirred at the end of his sleep cycle, I could start tapping the bouncer again with my foot and he would often go back to sleep, so that his nap was longer. This also saved my sanity when he went through a sleep regression at 5-6months and I lost even his period of good sleep at night time: keep the bouncer by the cot and put him in it when he stirs, before he has a chance to fully wake. Then try to transfer back to cot when he has drifted off again).

For what it is worth, one day my son started sucking his thumb, when he was about 12 months old, and we went from nap nightmare to nap champion instantly. So being a bad napper now at 4 months does not necessarily mean your baby will always be like that -- there may be hope. In our case, the nap champion period lasted for one blissful year until he turned 2 and then he dropped all naps. Throughout all of this he has remained an excellent night sleeper (except for the sleep regression period I mentioned).

I hope things get better for you soon.

darlingsweetpea · 19/04/2021 12:51

@Aliceandthemarchhare this may or may not be helpful but I'd recommend Mother Rucker sling hire. The owner Lysanne is trained in some parenting things and slings had PND and I find reading her posts about how she parents so reassuring and down to earth. It maybe that you contact her for a chat, she has bright red hair and is so down to earth. It seems like you need support with your own MH first. If this isn't helpful, just skim by.

FudgeSundae · 19/04/2021 13:32

Sounds like he has a poor sleep association with feeding and can’t link his daytime sleep cycles. I think the only way to break sleep associations is by creating new ones instead (dummy, white noise etc) and hoping they take, or breaking them with crying. Crying is horrible to do but most studies agree it does work for improving sleep and continues to work long term.
Mumsnet is very anti sleep training but I agree that it doesn’t sound like he’s getting enough sleep.

PeacefulInTheDeep · 19/04/2021 21:52

Oh OP I really feel for you, your despair at the situation comes across so clearly in your posts.

My DD was awful at the same age, and I can sympathise with you; I remember feeling that I'd made a terrible mistake in having another baby and that I'd ruined all of our lives. My DH and I both remember saying to each other that we understood how people ended up shaking their babies. It was such a hard time.

The 4 month sleep regression hit my DD hard. She would only nap for 30 minutes at a time, and was so overtired by the end of the day that she'd snap awake 30 minutes after bedtime and scream the house down for an hour and a half. She was hard to settle after night feeds too. As she got more overtired, her nap durations got shorter and shorter, until she was sleeping for less than 20 minutes at a time.

The only way she would sleep any longer was in the carrier. We decided to attempt to "repay her sleep debt" by having her take one long nap of 2hrs+ in the carrier every day, figuring it might also help to set her body clock to expect a long nap in the middle of the day. While it didn't solve everything, things were more manageable after a week or so, and we were able to hold on until she was a bit older before sleep training. She's now 1 and sleeps beautifully.

I just wanted to offer some reassurance that you're not doing anything wrong, and that things will get better. Keep trying things until you find a way to help your DS sleep longer. As feeding to sleep is causing difficulties, perhaps add some new sleep associations alongside feeding, so that in time you can reduce the reliance on the feed aspect.

It's hell, but hang in there, you're doing great

BertieBotts · 19/04/2021 22:13

See I don't think it's very helpful to label a feed to sleep association as a "poor" sleep association.

It can cause problems, like as the OP says if you have to wait for the next full feed time, but it's not a bad thing to feed to sleep in general. It works fine for lots of babies. I don't think it helps to latch onto that (pardon the pun) and insist that is THE problem (which it might not be) or even just a problem in addition to the actual problem OP has.

Is he breastfed or bottle fed? As I tended to find with my babies that they will easily accept a breastfeed in between allotted "feed times" particularly if they are tired or something happened like they hurt or scared themselves. They wouldn't necessarily take on loads of milk (not that you can really tell though I suppose?) but they would suckle for the comfort and therefore get sleepy.

If formula feeding and this would be inappropriate would a dummy and recreating a feeding position help at all?

Or is it that he is only falling asleep towards the end of a longer feed and when he's not hungry he doesn't want to stay latched that long?

I believe earlier weaning is often advised for reflux, but I'd obviously want to speak to a HCP about this before going ahead with it especially if you don't feel he is ready for weaning yet.

Horehound · 19/04/2021 22:56

Early weaning can lead to later in life ibs and other issues I believe.. I'd certainly not wean at 4months. Maybe 5.5 but deffo not 4

BertieBotts · 20/04/2021 06:36

Under 16 weeks yes, not under 6 months.

And also why I said to consult a medical professional rather than just barging ahead.

Aliceandthemarchhare · 20/04/2021 08:25

God, what a horrible week.

Yesterday he actually slept for ages although it was in the car which isn’t ideal. Then he had a short nap on me exactly two hours after waking up (couldn’t believe it) and was still fast asleep at ten to nine and slept until 3.

Of course now he’s been awake since half six and I’m trying to gently wind him down!

Thanks everyone honestly, last week was so hard.

OP posts:
Horehound · 20/04/2021 08:39

That's good he slept a bit more yesterday!
Flowers it is such a hard job being a mum. You're doing great.

Aliceandthemarchhare · 20/04/2021 08:59

Well, I think it was an anomaly as he has been up since 620 and showing no signs of going to sleep but we’ll see ... Blush

OP posts:
Horehound · 20/04/2021 09:19

I'd try taking him out in pram now. You could even roll up a blanket and put it under the mattress for the carrycot to raise his head up and see how that works?

Yellowbeansontoast · 20/04/2021 16:51

Hi, I haven't read the whole thread but seeing we have a similar age baby (mine just turned 5m), I thought I'd share what we do in case you find any of it helpful! We were also struggling with those short naps (ours are 40mins on the dot), but slowly getting there and last two weeks have been much better🤞

-have a nap time routine and do it before he's overtired. I keep him up 2-2.5h max, often less. If it's any longer than that, he really struggles and might then skip the nap altogether (which isn't good). For ours, we change nappy, put sleep sack on, put in cot, read a story, white noise on and blackouts. We were using a dummy but got rid of it a month or so ago.
-do the nap time routine even if he's not sleepy/doesn't look like he will go to sleep.
-leave him for a few mins to see if he'll go to sleep (he cries or whines sometimes, but more often than not will stop within 5 mins and go to sleep)
-if he doesn't go to sleep in 10 mins on his own, we go in and try anything we can think of to get him down. Rocking, bouncing, singing, babywearing, feeding, dummy, etc. If nothing works and it's been over half hour we just give up and start a new wake window.
-we've been repeating this religiously since he was about 2 months. Sometimes he falls asleep independently, sometimes not. But we've tried 🤷
-when all his naps are short (

zaffa · 21/04/2021 19:26

@Aliceandthemarchhare

Cows milk allergy? Don’t think so. I think he is just unhappy and unsettled. Won’t be put down,m. Failure to bond.
This is as far as I have gotten in the thread but this reminded me about DD in the first few months. All her naps were co sleeping on me in the darkened bedroom with a sleep aid (Ollie the Owl) but she had undiagnosed CMPA until seven ish months because she didn't display usual symptoms but one of the biggest symptoms was reflux and not being able to settle or go down. It was to do with the pressure in her tummy when she moved from lying tummy down on me to on her back in a basket.

It's very hard those early months. I just used to spend a lot of time doing nothing with her sleeping on me and also rocking. A lot of rocking.

Aliceandthemarchhare · 21/04/2021 20:13

I was having an exceptionally low day Monday - very tired and stressed and (I need to stress I know this isn’t DS fault) fed up of bloody reflux!

He’s slept much better today. I have noticed that he’ll often have a couple of bad days then ‘catch up.’ So I guess over a week he has the right amount of sleep?

OP posts:
De88 · 21/04/2021 21:44

Will he go back into his cot at 5am, if you treated that like a night feed?

How about a long pram walk, hood all the way down at the times he needs to nap just to get him into the habit of the timings before you go back to putting him in the cot at those times?

At 4 months mine could only manage to stay awake for about 2 hours at a time maximum with a gradually longer stretch before bedtime, so if up at 7ish, it'd be a short nap (45mins) 9ish, then 11:30-12ish a long nap at least 1.5-2 hours. They might wake up midway but then go back to sleep. Then 3-4ish would be a short nap again, about 45mins. Then back to bed at 7-7:30ish until the morning. I've got 3 and they've all followed this pattern of their own accord, gradually dropping naps as they've got older.

Aliceandthemarchhare · 21/04/2021 21:45

I think the pram walks are definitely the way forwards ... although he’s slept loads today and is still up now! Sorry for such emotional posts earlier but I was so tired and upset with him and me. It’s stupid to be stressed over him not napping but when he won’t stop crying it really upsets me.

OP posts:
De88 · 21/04/2021 21:59

The crying has an evolutionary purpose, it is meant to get a response from you otherwise we humans wouldn't have gotten very far. I know you know this and doesn't make the crying bother you less, just knowing that it is designed to push your mothering buttons helped me remember that baby never meant to drive so close to the edge on purpose:-) It's not stupid to feel stressed about napping, though you will definitely look back one day and reassure yourself that it was.

I've always found that the more they sleep, the more they sleep and mine never looked tired when they were overtired- quite the opposite. Like me when I promise myself an early night and am ready for bed at 9pm, but I manage to stay awake and then struggle to sleep gone midnight...

Have you thought about bringing bedtime forwards? If not, how about 20mins at a time every few days while you carry on treating that first morning wake up as a night feed, and see how he gets on- you can always stop then if it doesn't work for you?

If you do treat that early feed as a night one you'll probably find him taking less milk at the first proper morning one but keep offering anyway, he will eventually even it out and take enough during the day to keep him going through the night

Horehound · 21/04/2021 22:24

The crying is so stressful to listen to.

I think your right about the bad stretched and catching up on sleep. And remember I said about my boy having reflux and we noticed say at 6 months it had gotten much better then a month or two later it got bad again and it was always when he had a growth spurt.
So just know that it will slowly start to get better and better and there will be longer times in-between bad patches.
You're doing great and it's good you came here just to get it all off your chest.