Supernanny sleep technique, advice?

[lola0109]

Hi all,

DD1 is 21 months old. DD2 is 8 weeks.

DD1 has been in her own bed since she was 16 months and generally sleeps well once she is asleep. The problem is getting her to sleep.

We caused the problem ourselves by sitting with her whilst she fell asleep but after a while we would be sitting with her for an hour every night, which wasn't a problem. But now we have DD2 and in the last 4 weeks it has went to 2+ hours a night if she has a nap and 1 hour of tantrums (overtired) if she hasn't. We can't keep doing this with DD2 as DP does a lot of nightshifts and I am BF'ing DD2 and she feeds hourly at night.

So we have decided to attempt the supernanny technique, leaving the room and returning her to bed until she realises that she'd be as well just going to sleep.

Can anyone offer any advice? Did you do this with your dcs? Did it work? How did you explain it to them beforehand or did you just start it? Do you return her to bed when she leaves the room or when she leaves the bed? DD would just get up and play with toys if I left the room. I have removed what I can from the room but can't fit anymore elsewhere and she would just start taking her clothes and shoes (typical girl) out to play with if there are no toys about.

Also we plan on moving DD2 into the same room when she is 6 months so we will be buying DD1 a new bed and converting her cot bed back to cot for DD2. Should we wait till we have a new bed (can't afford it at the moment) before trying this?

I want it to work and we have tried so many different things before but not been fully committed. This time we need to get the sleep issue sorted!

TIA for any advice.

My dcs are a similar age to yours, my ds is 2.5 and my dd is 6months. Ds did go through a period of being very unsettled after dd came along, which is understandable. We ended up putting him to bed, sit with him for 5 minutes then tell him that we had to go do something (dishes, bottles etc) reassuring him that we were only downstairs if he needed us. There were tears, tears and more tears, but it only took a few nights of reassurance and not getting sucked into staying in the room (which is all too easy when you just NEED them to sleep! )

We have now moved dd is with him and he is great. She goes down first and he is very quiet when going to bed. We still sit with him for 5/10 minutes, then he will drop off by himself.

I would make sure the room is completely dark with blackout blinds, or something over the windows, so she can see nothing that will stimulate her.

Also, getting DS a bed before we moved dd into his cot worked for us as he didn't feel like he was being pushed out to make room for the new arrival.

Not sure if that helps at all, but sitck with it because it will be worth it! Good luck

Have you thoughts about the possibility that your DD1 might be showing signs of giving up the nap? My DS1 was showing signs of dropping a nap at around 2, which was early and we tried a few days without a nap and it was a nightmare! But he was faffing about at nap and bedtimes... So we reverted back to letting him have a nap but really not forcing the issue too much i.e. put him in his cot and getting him up after 45 minutes if he hasn't slept and more often than not, he would fall asleep and also pushing bedtime back just a little... Now he is 2.4 and we have given up on the nap and he drops off really easily at bedtime. Some days, he still gets really tired and I will give him some quiet time (lie on sofa and watch TV) and he still naps on the odd days he is in nursery. I think in a couple of months, he would have fully dropped the nap.

Thanks for the replies. sleeplessnight its reassuring hearing that you've done this. It's just sticking to it I suppose. DP has been up there for an hour already but she's been poorly due to teething so we decided to wait till she is a bit better before trying to enforce it.

angel she is definitely giving up the nap, she doesn't bother most days but some days she just really needs it, for instance if we go swimming. But thats the days it takes over 2 hours to get her to sleep at night!