Has anyone successfully followed the No-Cry Sleep Solution?

[happylittlevegemite]

Looking for some advice from anyone who has mastered the no-cry sleep solution. I have been trying it with 9 m.o. DD and phase one has gone well, putting down when almost asleep then shushing and patting to sleep.

Now I'm trying to move on to phase two, putting down when drowsy but not as asleep as before. I'm having trouble with it as she becomes fully alert when I put her down and she sits up and starts playing, pulling herself up on the side of the cot, and crawling around.

The book says to pick her up and start again if she gets upset, but she's not getting upset - she's just not going to sleep. I always end up reverting back to phase one and I can't seem to progress with it.

Can you please offer any advice to help me move forward?

I haven't used that method but I have been known to warm sheets up with a hot water bottle so the coolness of the sheets doesn't wake them And remove it as I lay them down when younger.

If she's awake and happy in her cot, I'd leave her? Only go in if she's upset tbh.

Perhaps the timings are wrong on when to put her for naps or bed and she's not tired enough? Mine had naps at 10.30am and a short one at 3pm and then bedtime at 6.30 or 7pm latest at this age and that worked well for both.

yes i agree.. just leave her if she is happy.
tend to her if she starts to cry or anything, but if she is just crawling around then leave her and she may just settle down by herself

How are things going happy?

Thanks for your suggestions Teaandcakeplease and thisisyesterday. I haven't had an opportunity to try it out yet as we've been out the last couple of days and she's been napping on car trips.

I think that it mostly hadn't occurred to me to leave her to it as she gets upset when I leave the room if she's playing in the lounge :). I will give it a go though, happy to try anything - I think that I sometimes underestimate her.

I think that the timings of the naps are ok - once she's asleep she'll usually have 2 hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon but will keep an eye on it.

Thanks again for your help!

I'm not sure what the No-Cry Sleep Solution is because it's been a while. What worked for me was the "disappearing chair" - if your child cries at bedtime, you sit as far away as you can from them to stop their crying. For me, this meant initially having some physical contact with my baby. Then you gradually move the chair away from the cot to the door, until the chair is outside the door. This you do over several days or weeks, depends on the kid.

I didn't quite understand this until I tried it: when I got to the stage when my chair was just outside the room but my feet were still sticking into the room, I could then take my shoes off, my child sees my shoes, thinks I'm still there, and I can go off and do my stuff. It gives them a sense that mum is just behind the door.

I used that for 2 years, and still sometimes do, in the sense that I'll sit outside my children's room, leave my shoes in view, and then sneak downstairs.

We're at home today so I tried it out... I rocked her in the chair until she closed her eyes, counted to 30 and then put her in the cot. She woke up predictably, sat up and started playing. I tried walking out of the room but she got upset so I went and sat in the rocking chair with my eyes closed and I ignored her. She played for about 20 mins before getting upset. I picked her up, rocked her until her eyes closed, counted to 30 and we had a repeat of the above. Picked her up, rocked her until her eyes closed but this time I counted to 60 before putting her down. She still woke up but closed her eyes again and let me pat and shush her until she went to sleep. All up it took just over an hour.

Does that sound like it was the right thing to do? I guess she's got to learn to associate the cot with going to sleep rather than me rocking her.

There - did you try it when your DC's were around the same age? Were there tears when you sat just touching them, and did they try to play or just eventually went to sleep? I'm open to trying different things :).

Oh bugger it, she's just woken up after 10 minutes, I guess I'm off to do it all again!

I used PUPD to sleep train mine tbh and that worked well, took 3 days of being totally consistent and they'd cracked it.

I did it when dd2 (dd1 was born to sleep) was aroung 9 to 12 months, can't remember exactly when. She's just a kid who needs physical closeness, so just being there with her is enough for her. The problem is kids are all so different - whenever dd1 went through bad sleeping periods, me being in the room just distracted her, even if I was not interacting with her. With dd1 in fact, I think she must have been 3 or 4 years old before I saw her fall asleep. She seems to find it near impossible to fall asleep if someone is in the room with her. With dd2 it was different, because she just wants someone with her all the time. The idea with the disappearing chair though I think is that you start off as close to them so they don't cry - for some kids that's physical contact, for other just being in the room in okay. But obviously as you say no interaction. For my dd2 that was okay, but it did mean some evenings I was sitting in there for an hour - not good! But a real incentive to get as near to the door as possible so you can get a book out and read with the landing light on.