Any Gina Forders? I have some questions

[roslily]

Ok, despite my best efforts at AP etc, I am giving Gina ford a go as I am losing the will to live and have started doing quite dangerous things due to lack of sleep (the other night, half asleep i took a pillow into ds,s room and put it under his head and left. I found it at 5am!)

Anyway, I am following her routine for 3-4 months (my ds is 16 weeks). The lunchtime nap is abit of a battle as he keeps waking, but I resettle using pupd, or face stroking.

He wakes every hour between 3 and 7am. I do leave him a few mins to see if he will resettle himself, but he doesn't. he will settle if I give him dummy, pick him up put down.

Should I continue doing this? Or is there something else I should try a la GF?

This isn'y growth spurt, he has been doing this for a long time now, and I have tried offering bottle, but he is not interested.

Could you say a but more about what's going on? Does he sleep from a reasonable bed time til 3? Do you feed him at 3 but he still doesn't go back to sleep properly?

I'm not sure, but I do think it will be a bit hard going from AP to GF at 16 weeks - have you tried taking him into bed with you when he wakes at 3 so that you both get some sleep?

well really my parenting has been a bit confused from beginning. We were co-sleeping, but it wasn't helping and I was getting terrible back/neck pain.

He generally sleeps well between 7pm and 3am. I feed him at around 10.30pm. Occasionally he has gone until 4am!!!

He goes back tp sleep quickly at 3am, but then wakes at least every hour after that. He settles quickly at each waking, but it is killing me getting up all the time.

I want to do what is best for him, but I am worried about my own mental state (have PND and am on ADs) due to lack of sleep, and doing dangerous things like the pillow thing.

I think AP style is wonderful, but it is killing me through lack of sleep.

Oh and if anyone has any other solutions other than GF, greatly received. But I can't go on like this.

He was so much hapier yesterday during day after having some decent daytime sleep. I just need to sort out the night sleep.

Do you feed him again at 3?

Yes I feed him at 3 as he is hungry. he usuallydrains the bottle.

Sounds like you're doing very well under very trying circumstances! Very brave of you to post about GF on this website, she seems to raise quite strong emotions in some people. I hope those that don't have anything positive to say can just ignore this thread....

What do you think the problem is? I find your instincts are usually right! For instance, if you think that he is waking and not able to settle back to sleep because he needs you there to 'help' him, then maybe work slowly on getting him to self-settle.

What's the routine for the rest of the day? I did GF for DD1 and used the GF website for advice, and it always helped to have a full routine - ie awake 7am, fed X amount 7.30 or whatever. Then its easier to see if maybe your baby is overtired or hungry. You need to bear in mind that the routines are guides only, and your baby might need a lot more or less sleep or feeds than suggested. For example, DD1 was a sleep monster and we didn't move on from the very early routines until she was nearly a year old! DD2 (still doing GF but much more relaxed about it) is the opposite (unfortunately!). However, they have both still slept reasonably well at night.

Without knowing the rest of the day, difficult to say - but one thing you could try, which always helped to improve the nights for us in the early weeks, is to keep the baby up for a little longer at the 10.30pm feed - ie wake at perhaps 10pm, feed, and then awake until another feed at 11pm, then down by say 11.15pm.

And also, how long have you been trying GF for? Can take a good couple of weeks to change routines from one style to another...

GF really doesn't work for everyone. Not all babies will fit into her routines, however hard you try.

I used Elizabeth Pantley "The No Cry Sleep Solution", which worked for me.

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so you feed at 3am, he settles with a dummy and then wakes hourly after that? The problem could be the dummy itself if he wakes when it comes out. I had to take ds's dummy away at 5 1/2 months as he was waking multiple times looking for it in the night. I took it away for naps first as it is easier not to give in during the day!!

Co sleeping didn't work for me and DS either, we just kept waking each other up. Once he was in the moses basket by my bed, it was much easier.

I agree, can we hear more about his whole pattern of sleeping and waking over 24 hours, as that can be key, not just the nights. Also, if he is draining the bottle when you feed him, could he be wanting a little more?
Lack of sleep makes you do weird things, I agree. But it sounds like you are doing a good job under extreme pressure, so give yourself a pat on the back.

I have no experience of GF really, but my baby liked a routine in general and seemed to take to it amazingly (although we are still chained to the house once or twice a day as he will only nap in his darkened room! He's 16 months); some babies just will not. You have to try to find out which kind you have, I guess Good luck...

I honestly have no idea why i did it, i have a vague memory of doing it, but not why. When i went in at 5am and saw my pillow (i went back to bed with no pillow) under his head i was confused and then mortified.

When i get exhausted i have vert weird dreams and sometimes sleep talk and halucinate, so i wonder if it is connected.

Ok, his day-

We get up around 6.30-7am, feed (7oz)
8:45, take him to room for nappy change and wind down
9am nap for 45mins
10-10.30am feed- he is in process of spreading out feeds from 3 to 4 hours on his own.
11.45 wind down again, nap by 12. Now he finds it hard to sleep during day, so when he wakes after about 40mins, i settle him quickly without lifting him up- he happily goes back to sleep, just needs some help.

2:15 up and feed
5:45 naked time
6.15 bath
6:30 bottle
7pm bed. He goes down really well a 7, always has.

10:30 wake (although often he will be waking himself as i go in) nappy change, feed.

I have been swaddling him, even before GF as he finds his hands far too distracting to sleep!

If you've only just started doing gf it will take a while to settle into it, it won't work miracles over night but it's bliss when it starts to work. Night waking is still normal at that age.

I didn't do the pillow thing on purpose! I would never give him a pillow!

Ok, will hold out for a bit longer.

Clearly you didn't do the pillow thing on purpose - we all do strange things when we are tired. I used to rip the covers off my bed several times a night, convinced DS1 was suffocating somewhere underneath - he was fast asleep in his moses basket!

I think you are doing really well with a 16 week old baby. He sounds like he is finding his own routine, and the 3am thing will gradually extend to later and later. As Princess said, you really must go to bed at the same time as him and try to catch up a bit, and also during the day (if possible). A few days of that will make you feel so much better, and this phase will be short-lived when you look back on it.

Good luck!

I have the same thing with dd. She sleeps pretty well until about 3 when she feeds but is then unsettled every hour or so until 6 or 7am.

At the moment I think it's because she has a cold and is not breathing well.

Have you tried putting him to sleep on his tummy?

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Sorry, he has a 45min nap at about 4pm.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Not tried his tummy, but he isn't keen on being on his tummy in day so not sure he would like to sleep like that.

Is he swaddled at all?

(Not too sure why I am attempting to help - mine is 9 weeks (I think... she may have been stuck at 9 weeks for a while now ) and does the same 3-7 thing, I tend to latch her on and fall asleep poor thing is forcefed all night!)

Is he warm enough?

I don't want to encourage you to over-heat him but both my youngest DCs have had to be a bit warmer than the guidelines. Neither of them would ever have slept at 18 degrees with only two layers of blanket. The early hours are the coldest time IME.

All my three were GF, YES LADIES, I am a fan!!

What I didn't do with mine was a) wake them at 7 (wake a baby sleeping in past 7? Are you insane?) and b) do the late 10.30pm feed ( DC1 would never go back to sleep then and it was past my bedtime anyway. I used to let them wake me in the night for a feed and that worked very well for us).

Could you give a bigger feed at 7pm, leave the 10.30pm one and let him wake you?

Alternately, have you got blackout blinds etc? Are there any other factors that could be waking him?

Hi roslily - the routine sounds pretty good. I would just make sure that you don't hold out until 7pm to put him to bed if he's tired before then - both of mine have always gone down by 6.30 or 6.45 (in fact my 2 year old still sleeps 6.45pm to 8am - but she is a bit unusual!).

Could he be a very hungry baby? Might be worth trying a top up before the lunchtime nap to see if he sleeps better through that. I've always found that the quality of the lunchtime nap and how well they sleep at night go hand in hand - improve one and the other tends to get better too (probably because they then don't get overtired I suppose). I've also always found that the answer to most problems (with small babies with no sleep associations) is almost always hunger, so worth trying to get more feeds in the daytime if possible - eg a top up before lunchtime nap and/or splitting 6pm feed to a pre/post bath feed. Do you think he would take more milk?

Also agree with the above, need to make sure that cold isn't an issue. Probably a bit too old to start swaddling at 16 weeks though

Agree with balloonslayer as well that you need to tweak the routines to suit you. So if a 10.30pm feed works with your evening, then great. If not, then do try skipping it and see what happens (again, over a period of a few days/a week rather than just one night - it will take a while to see the effect of any change). DD2 is not such great sleeper (she's massive and very hungry), and we tried skipping the 10.30 feed, but it didn't work as well (she woke up for a feed about 2am, then again 4 or 5am, but wanted to start the day then ), so we went back to the 10.30pm feed, even though I go to bed at 8.30pm since I've had DD2 .

So lots of different things you could try...just stick to changing one thing at a time

I'm a routine based maternity nurse. Although adapt routine to baby and family needs/wants. Could you for a week or two drop the dream feed?

One of my charges, probably when he was about 6 weeks I found the dream feed was leading to disturbed sleep, eg he was waking from 4/5am. So dropped the dream feed and he gradually moved the feed from 2amish to 7amish - so by 12 weeks he was sleeping 7pm-7am.

With any change in routine it will take at least a week closer to two to see a change and that is only if you keep things as consistent as you can.

Sounds like you're doing well and I hope you're enjoying the time with him - he really is at one of the best ages.