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.

I'm a little confused now. He sleeps well from 7pm until 3am, and yet you are so tired that you don't know what you are doing - why? Go to bed at 9, which still gives you a reasonable evening, and you can sleep for 6 hours undisturbed. Problem solved without having to leave a tiny baby who relies on you for comfort and support to cry by himself .

She feeds him at 10.30, CantSleep.

Could you get your DP/DH to do the 10.30pm feed so you can go to bed earlier?

re: the night waking - is he getting too much sleep in the day - perhaps drop the late afternoon sleep?

try to settle him without picking him up eg dummy and a stroke.

roslily can you post your baby's weight and how much milk he is taking at all of his feeds, not just some of them ? Also do you put him down sleepy but still awake ?
GF does say that if a baby is not getting enough milk between 6am and 11pm, then they will wake up more in the night !

"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 think mine had dropped the 4pm sleep by 16 weeks. It's the first to go.

I think maybe that's what I'd do - drop that and not wake him for the 10.30pm, let him wake me.

If, like my DCs, he wakes you at 3am or 4am, feeds and goes back to sleep, you'll have had a big block of sleep from say 10pm onwards and you'll feel like a new woman.

My DCs all woke for a 4am-ish feed for over a year and it never bothered me, in fact I rather missed those feeds when they stopped. If you'd told me I'd feel that way when DS1 was a couple of weeks old (before discovering GF) I do believe I would have laughed in your face. Before gunning you down in a sleep-deprived frenzy.

he doesn't always go until 3am, but when he does it is much better. Some nights he wakes up every hour and a half!

He has a 7oz bottle at every feed, he mostly takes at least 6oz. So technically he gets enough food. He weighs 7kg.

Maybe I just need more sleep, dunno. When I go back to work in March I will have to work in evenings when he is in bed (I am a teacher)

I often go to bed at around 9pm, but it often takes me an hour/two to get to sleep- I have always been a bad sleeper ( think that is where he gets it from!) I want him to be a good sleeper, as my mum always rocked me, patted me, shared a bed with me and I am convinced this is why I am such a bad sleeper now.

I appreciate all the advice, I mostly feel like I have no idea what I am doing with this parentig lark

Is he taking 7oz in the middle of the night ?

Mostly yes, he takes at least 5-6oz at 2-3am

Oh parenting is jolly hard roslily, so don't feel bad for finding it so. Sympathies on the struggling to get to sleep thing. I suffered terribly with that when dd was little, and occasionally now, but I am more relaxed now that I'm more experienced (2 dc and expecting no 3).

GF often recommends that if a baby is unsettled in the night that for several nights, wake the baby fully and offer as much of their feed as they will take at 10pm, then have them awake fully for an hour. At 11/11.15pm offer then a top-up feed then settle them, making sure that they are well tucked in. She says that giving them a split feed and having them awake longer can sometimes break the pattern of being awake a lot in the night.

Has your baby kicked his covers off when you go to him in the night, as she says this is another reason for being unsettled in the night.

Someone else mentioned that he may need a bit more to drink than the recommended amount for his weight. Are you sure he taking 37oz over a 24 hour period ?

I would also look at cutting back his daytime sleep, as it may also be a cause of his night waking.

Finally, I agree what a lot of the other posters have said, you are doing really well, all you have to do crack is the 3am to 7am waking.

I iwll try the split feed and making sure he is warm enough.

Thanks for all the support.

'have started doing quite dangerous things due to lack of sleep'

O fgs, - get some more sleep then! Sorry to be impatient but why exactly aren't you getting enough sleep. I know it is going to be broken sleep, but there is no excuse for not getting enough, - and no, housework or feeding your dp is not more important than meeting your baby's needs!

Okay, - I'm sorry. That was harsh.

The OP did ask if there was an alternative way so I'll try to be a bit more constructive.

Go to bed with your baby at 7pm, get up at 7am. Somewhere in all that you'll get 8 hours sleep!

Sorry, - just read your post about him sleeping from 7-3am!

Do you realise that is 8 hours consecutive sleep? Put him to bed when you go to bed and it's sorted.

Can't believe anyone would move from AP to GF when their baby is sleeping for 8 hours at a time!

Maybe he only NEEDS 8 hours overnight!

And also, - why are you puting him in a different room at 16 weeks when all the guidelines say to stay with you until 6 months?

No he sleeps from 7pm until around 10.30-11pm. If I don't wake him to feed he will wake himself around this time. He has never slept for more than 4 hours at a time.

I take what you are saying. I put him to bed, then have my dinner, have bath and sort stuff for next day. I then try and go to bed by 9pm, but as I explained it often takes me a couple of hours to get to sleep.

He won't go to bed when I go to bed. he has always conked out at around 7pm, nothing I have imposed there.

I will go to bed earlier. Sometimes I like some me time, as I spend my whole day holding/entertaining/singing to him and it is nice to have a bath alone and read my book for half an hour so I feel like a human again and not just some machine whose only use in life is to swing a baby around.

he is too big for his crib and there isn't enough room in our room for his cot.

roslily I deserved the sharp end of your tongue for my posts. Due credit to you for your restraint.

What would you suggest then for a baby that won't sleep in a sling, won't sleep in car or pram (he screams) and so gradually through day gets himself more and more tired until he is hysterical? I have tried co-sleeping with him for naps, but he screams.

I have been to GP numerous times but they are useless, they don't care cos "babies cry"

He is happier when he sleeps enough, but he won't do it on his own. I have tried a seing, vinrating bouncy chair, swaddling, co-ssleeping, two types of sling, pram, pushchair, two different types of car seats.

I love him to bits, but some days I don't even get any lunch as he is so hysterical and only calm when being held face down and swung (i calculated that I spend at least 3 hours a day doing this on average!)

On the days where I manage to get him to sleep he is smiley and lovely and actually makes me feel like I might keep going!

Is DC in a growbag? We found them to be wonderful as DS did not kick the covers off. Also a really dark room seemed to help.

we put DS into his own room after a week. I could not rest as I found myself looking into the cot all the time.

Don't give up on a routine as it means you get your evenings back you are doing so well

DD1 was in her own room by 16 weeks. She was bloody loud in her sleep and I wasn't able to sleep .

I sometime get impatient with these kinds of threads because parenting is very hard, especially in the first months, but they are often made far harder by cultural expectations, perceptions and myths and the unreasonable pressures mothers find themselves in to conform to some kind of ideal. When you become a mother you can lose your identity and your control over your life and that is on top of immense responsibility.

It is very hard to go with the flow because that means putting up with the loss of control for even longer. Not only is your baby unpredictable, but so are your opportunities to get your house straight and your life in order, but your baby is very new into the world, and doesn't know these things, and it won't be for long.

Me-time can happen, but perhaps not always at the same time each day. It will begin to form a pattern over time, and you'll see that even without a routine, there will be things you can do to nudge your baby to sleep/feed at certain times. If I want to call a friend for example, I just feed dd, whether she is asking or not. Seems to work.

hth

We also had to put DS in his own room at 17 weeks. He had grown out of his moses basket by then and there isn't room for the cot in our bedroom. We all sleep a bit better now. His room is very close to ours though (a very small house) and we have a monitor with a breathing sensor.

Roslily, you are really doing great. And I also have a screamer who doesn't sleep easily, some days I carry him pretty much all the time, just to stop him from screaming - I know how exhausting this is.