Support thread for no-cry sleep plans

[beancounting]

Following on from another thread about rubbish sleepers, this is a thread for anyone trying to implement a NCSS-type plan to improve their DC's sleep, where we can share plans, provide moral support and try and keep each other on track!

Over the past week we have been working on getting 5mo DD to sleep in her own bed rather than co-sleep (which we have been doing more and more for about the last 2 months), and have been making some progress, with 3 nights spent entirely in her bed and 3 where she came into our bed after about 4am.

So I'm now thinking of moving on to the next stage, with the objective of reducing the number of times DD wakes in the night from 5 or 6 to 3 or 4 - but at the moment I BF her to sleep at night and she can't self-settle when she wakes up.

My plan for this is to use the Pantley Pull Off to gently break the BF-to-sleep association (and gradually progress to putting her down more awake) and to try spacing out night feeds a bit (I've been working on trying to get her to feed more in the day so I don't think she really needs to feed that often at night - she's now only sucking for 5 minutes or so before she nods off again), initially by rocking her back to sleep rather than just automatically feeding her.

If you've used the PPO, how long did it take to break the BF/sleep association? How did you know when to try to remove your DC from the breast? Pantley says something about the sucks becoming light and fluttery but DD seems to go straight from strong fast sucks to falling off the breast fast asleep so I keep getting the timing wrong.

And is it realistic to try and space the night feeds from 2 hourly to 3 hourly, or should I work up to that by pushing them back by say 15 minutes at a time?

Does anyone else have any plans they're working on at the moment, so we can compare notes on progress etc?

bean its good to hear yr getting the naps sorted, it must feel like such a relief to get one side of things moving forward iyswim. Hope the nights get better too.

Things going badly for us now. We've had a run of bad nights where ive had to abandon sleep training and rock/feed to sleep. First being at mums, then the horrible car journey story, and now ds has had a nasty tummy bug for 2 days poor thing...

Ive heard bad spells like this take you back to square one cos you resort to your old ways and baby gets used to that again.

And right now im losing the will to return to sleep training when ds gets better cos it definitely meant some steps backwards before we made progress. Just feel very demoralised and demotivated with the whole sleep palava. :(

bean its good to hear yr getting the naps sorted, it must feel like such a relief to get one side of things moving forward iyswim. Hope the nights get better too.

Things going badly for us now. We've had a run of bad nights where ive had to abandon sleep training and rock/feed to sleep. First being at mums, then the horrible car journey story, and now ds has had a nasty tummy bug for 2 days poor thing...

Ive heard bad spells like this take you back to square one cos you resort to your old ways and baby gets used to that again.

And right now im losing the will to return to sleep training when ds gets better cos it definitely meant some steps backwards before we made progress. Just feel very demoralised and demotivated with the whole sleep palava. :(

sorry my phone posts messages twice sometimes

Hi there,

I'm hoping someone can offer me some words of encouragement. I started working on NCSS from Sunday night with 18 week old DD as my DH persuaded me not to wait till after Christmas. NIghts have been AWFUL recently, getting up every 1.5 hours typically with 2-3 hours at the start and sometimes another reasonable stint.

Sunday night I got her down using the PPO method and she went to sleep in her cot - MASSIVE RESULT! I was delighted. The night then went much better than it had been, 4 hours at the start and 2.5 hrs in between wake ups. Massive progress I think and spend the whole of yesterday devoted to putting my plans into actions, snowed in anyway so the whole day was about sleep.

Nightmare to get her down at night using PPO - took an hour. My nipples hurt from pulling of and on - but we did it and she went to sleep in her cot. But then we have the night from hell. Up at 930, 11, 12:15, 1am, 330 then awake from 530 - 8. I was getting so frustrated with PPO I think I was trying to pull out to early and not letting her get back on if she rooted. I had a huge meltdown, punching pillows and weeping uncontrollably at 7am. Had a go at DH for making me start the new routine before I was ready, got into bed and pulled the covers over my head and refused to speak to him when he left for work (was also ignoring baby in her cot, she was only grumbling).

Just felt like a failure. All the times people have banged on about CC crying and I thought "I'm not doing that to my child" were going round my head and I felt like a fool, maybe they are right and I'm wrong. I know it's early days but it is SO HARD to remain positive when you've been up all night with a baby latching off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and ALL YOU WANT IS SLEEP! And DH can walk out the door and got to work and leave you in a mess to look after the baby.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, the point of the post is, does anyone have any words of wisdom or positive experiences they can share? I'm going to keep plugging away because in the cold light of day, I've only been doing it for 1 day and have already made progress, but I need something to hold onto in the middle of the night because it's scary horrible feeling so angry and resentful.

Hi newmum, that sounds awful, hope you're ok. Funny though, I also had a ding dong with DH last night - DS was overtired when DH got home cos I'd only been able to get him to take 2 naps, so screamed the place down when DH tried to put him to bed, then DH told me off for not keeping a lid on DS's overtiredness . And I did exactly the same as you - got into bed, pulled covers over my head and sobbed - something about sleep deprivation makes me regress to childhood!

Anyway, can't really help with PPO as DS won't feed to sleep anymore, much as I'd like to ad it's easier than rocking him. Just to reiterate what I said in an earlier post, the Pantley methods are very subtle and it's hard to imagine they will work, but I think our plan is slowly working with DS. Since we introduced bedtime routine (feed, bath, massage, PJs, feed) he settles pretty well at 7ish and is now consistently sleeping through the evening. Small thing, and he still wakes up at night, but it is so good to have our evenings back. I never thought it would work, and it didn't work the first few times, but we stuck with it and after a week or two he just got it.

The methods are subtle because we don't want loads of crying - you'vw obviously made the same decision not to leave your LO to cry, and you should feel good about that. Persistence is the key here I think. You're obviously a great mum so hang in there.

Thanks Count Bapula. It's good to hear I'm not the only one regressing to childhood! DH really doesn't have a clue how to react when I go into meltdown. I'm sure he's wondering where his wife is. It's really hard because they just don't understand how hard it is and I am super sensitive to any criticism. I would have gone mental about over tired comments - they have no idea how much work it is to get them to nap! I have spent between 1130 - now (with 45 min break while she napped) i) trying to get DD to sleep without a boob in her mouth ii) moving her to cot without waking her up iii) trying to get her back down for a longer nap once her normal 45 mins is up...... and I have actually got her back to sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Took 50 mins of nursing and shushing but she is back in her cot.

I find there is so much pressure to let the LO cry. It's all that's talked about in my baby massage group and is totally accepted as A GOOD THING and completely necessary. One of my NCT class has found a book that has worked for her that involves CC and is continually going on at me to do this book and I got the NCSS partly as a defence against her! She seems to think DD is a terrible problem child who needs to be cured, as opposed to a healthy, happy, alert little ball of loveliness who is unfortunately going through a horrible sleep regression!

It's really given me hope that the plan is working for you. I know there's no quick fix this way and it will take time, time, time patience, more patience.......

ha ha, extra sleep of 10 mins for the 50 mins pent trying to get her there. does being almost asleep on the boob for 50 mins count as napping?

I'll be joining you after Christmas, will post properly etc when the wriggler is upstairs!

Hi Newmum, I think the hardest thing about the NCSS is that progress is soooo slow which makes it's really hard to keep positive and motivated when it's barely possible to see any progress at all. And all most people suggest is to let them cry, which just feels wrong (although at 4am with about 2 hrs sleep in total it starts to seem tempting...). I also worry that CC wouldn't work either, so we'd have put ourselves and DD through a lot of stress and trauma for nothing. As you say, patience is the key but it is so hard.

But it sounds like you're doing really well to get her down with PPO on Sunday even if it all went wrong after that - it's early days yet and with us it's been a similar tale of 1 step forward and then 2 back again, but I'm trying to hang on to each tiny success as evidence that DD can a) finish the falling asleep process in her crib on her own (yes, we're still at phase 1 of the NCSS!), b) no longer needs feeding to sleep (admittedly requires rocking/holding instead but still) and doesn't need to feed every time she wakes up - even if she's only done each of those things once or twice over the past couple of weeks.

I know what you mean about trying to do PPO too soon, it just prolongs the whole thing until you've absolutely had enough, but I find it really difficult to get the timing right.

I must confess that I'm only feeling a bit more positive today because we had a better night last night (all relative - asleep by 7, fed at 9, 11 and 1.30, rocked back to sleep at 3.30 and awake for the day at 6), and she's had two decent naps today. Yesterday I spent most of the day sobbing (as did DD) , so my optimism is fairly fragile... But I need to think that this can work because I really don't want to do CC.

I'm sorry you had a bad day yesterday beancounting, that sounds miserable. I often think that I cry more than DD. Sounds like a decent night though - 1:30 - 6 without a feed is great. Rocking to sleep at 130 am must have felt like a real result! I'm not even thinking about sleeping through the night at the moment, I'm just trying to concentrate on every little success like you say. We have made some progress (I've rabbited on at length below) but I don't know how we will ever get to sleep without a feed being part of the process!

We seemed to have made a bit of a breakthrough yesterday. I think this has happened so early because DD's feed to sleep habit is not that ingrained - at 2 months she started self settling (nothing to do with me, she just decided to do it herself), prior to that I had to dance in the sling with her to get her to sleep. She was sleeping pretty well and going straight back to sleep every time. I was happy - until we hit teething problems, boob refusal, norovirus, growth spurts, 4 month sleep regression and after all that, the feed to sleep habit was there and she wouldn't self settle any more. I think I messed it up a bit because I would leave her to fuss (not cry) a bit in her cot hoping she would resettle herself when the self settling didn't work (bad advice from MIL) and this made her a bit negative about going in her cot. Before that I was picking her up immediately at the first sign because my instinct said not to let her have bad experiences in her cot (wish I'd listened to my instinct not my MIL). Cue nightmare nights of waking every hour etc etc.

Yesterday morning, DD showed not very much interest in feeding to sleep, this totally infuriated me (after another terrible night where I stormed out of the bedroom to punch the crap out of the sofa at 230am and then collapsed weeping on the cold floor and pretty much passed out having been awake since 1am trying to settle her with about 1 hr sleep prior to that sad) so I just plopped her down on our bed and ignored her. Then I noticed she was doing what she used to do when she went to sleep herself - turning her head back and forth. I left her to it and she went to sleep herself!!!!! She did the same for both following naps - and I got her to go back to sleep for her afternoon nap using the technique in the book and she slept for 2.5 hours!!!! That has NEVER happened before - she was always resolutely a 45 minute napper. She self settled for the evening at 18:37.

19:33 Up, PPO used, 5 mins to resettle

21:30 Up, shushed back to sleep - 1 min to resettle

11:00 UP PPO, 10 mins to resettle

12:15 Up, PPO, 10 mins to resettle

4:03 Up, PPO, 15 mins to resettle (down in cot then woke and cried once)

6am Up for the day

This was AMAZING! She has never done such a good stretch after midnight (start wasn't so good but am not complaining about that). Am v refreshed this morning. Am completely expecting it all to go pear shaped again but it is soooooo encouraging to see progress so early. I think that the lovey idea is really helping, I have carried it around in my bra and made sure she holds it during nap feeds and now she puts it over her face when she is getting off to sleep in her cot and sucks it sometimes.

Sorry for uber-long post btw smile

Oops need to practise those emoticons

Wow newmum - that's fantastic! it's so good that you've had a chance to recharge your batteries a bit as well, everything seems so much better and less hard work when you've slept better!

We had another pretty bad night, or at least to start with - she woke up 30 minutes after going to bed and then 30 minutes after that, after which time she was up for nearly 2 hours (an hour of which was spent rocking her to sleep while she cried - one of the reasons I find it hard to see how CC would work for DD is that she can cry for hours when being held, never mind being left on her own). She was then awake every hour again until 1am when I'd had enough - fed her, brought her into bed with me and we slept until 5am! this is the longest sleep stretch for both of us for a good couple of months, however, it was pretty much the only sleep I had last night so I still feel rotten.

I'm now wondering whether to co-sleep for a few nights to top up the sleep tanks (assuming that she is now happy to go longer than 2 hours without waking as long as she's in our bed) and then work on getting her to do the same in her own bed in a few days, or whether that will just be going backwards and undo everything we've done so far to get her back in her own bed (or have I already done that by giving in so early last night??) - any thoughts?

Interesting that you say she turns her head from side to side when she self-settles, DD does that too when she's tired, I wonder if I left her for a bit whether she would go off on her own? If she's in the right frame of mind she will now fall asleep in her pushchair on her own (and if in the wrong frame she does go off eventually after some pushing, singing and crying) - I'm just not brave enough to try at night in case it cocks everything up even more... Plus I know she knows she can sleep in her pushchair because she does when we're out and about, perhaps I need to fix wheels to the crib and take her out in it!

Hi Beancounting, for us recently, any night with 4 hours sleep in it is a good one! I'd really concentrate on the fact that that is the longest sleep stretch in a couple of months - that is real progress!

It's a tricky one re co-sleeping for a while. To be honest, at that time of night I would do anything for some sleep and would probably let her into our bed - but not sure if that means it's the right answer . What does Pantley say about that? We didn't properly co-sleep with DD (she is in a cot next to me) so I haven't read much about the stuff about moving them into a cot from co-sleeping. Maybe try having a time limit on how long you can cope with the constant get ups before bring her into bed and do lots of quiet playing in her cot during the day so keep up the positive reinforcement that the cot is a GOOD PLACE.

I discovered DD's ability to self settle by accident, I put her in the moses one day, she was pretty chilled out and relaxed but not asleep, so I could go and hang up washing in the next room. The washing machine was going at the same time. Lo and behold, when I came back from hanging up the washing, she was asleep! I couldn't believe it, this was the first time she'd gone to sleep without being in the sling. I'd try putting her down somewhere she is really comfortable (your bed?) during the day and sit with her, ignoring her, if she is in that mood and see what happens? DD turns her head to one side, lifts her legs up, turns to the other and repeats this until her eyes start to glaze over, then they start slowing shutting, then eventually after much rolling and eyes almost closing she goes to sleep. And at the same time, you could do lots of playing with her in the cot so that she is really comfortable there so if/when she will fall asleep in your bed you can then try her in her cot. I have been plucking DD out of the cot the minute she makes any protest so that we avoid negative associations.

I have been following up the PPO by putting her in the cot, if she wakes up but is still calm, I lean over the cot shushing and smiling at her, she smiles back and rolls around and eventually goes to sleep. If she startles and opens her eyes, I make sure she can see me and shush and smile and she drops back off (hopefully). If she gets stressed at any point I scoop her out and cuddle/feed her again and start PPO again.

Oh - another thing that I think is working for us is baby massage an hour before bed time. DD is much more chilled out after a massage (lucky girl, I wish I got a massage every night before bed).

Hope some of that is helpful and you get some progress. I'm expecting 2 steps back soon, so trying not to get too excited, but it is very encouraging.

I'd like to join too, my baby is 12 weeks, she wakes every 3-4 hours (to be honest I wake her if she doesn't wake me because she is under weight) my problem is late, late bedtimes (23:00-00:30) then sleeping late (08:00-09:30) and absence of a bedtime routine.

Basically I need to institute a routine, bring the time much earlier without causing her to wake more than she does now, which I realise is not bad at all and I don't wont to ruin it! I'm trying some of the ideas this week but so far its not going brilliantly

Hi all. We've had some successes lately which I thought I'd share. Firstly I managed to extend one of DS's naps by using Pantley's technique of resettling between sleep cycles. I went in just before he usually wakes (about 40 mins) and put my hand on his tummy. About 5 mins later he stirred and opened his eyes, then went back to sleep again. The nap ended up lasting 2 hours and 20 mins! Longest nap he's had since he was a couple of weeks old. Unfortunately though, that technique only worked once. But must keep trying.

A few days ago I really hit the wall with all the jiggling and rocking to sleep. It was doing my back in and I felt it was setting me up for months of the same. So one night I just went cold turkey. I swaddled him as usual but then just held him and shushed while standing completely still. He was asleep in minutes! Since then I've hardly had to rock him at all.

The biggest improvement has been tonight though. We put DS down to bed in his new cot for the first time. Since he's been so good at going to sleep lately I thought I'd risk trying to putting him down awake. He was still, but had his eyes wide open when I laid him down after a bit of a cuddle and a shh. Then I sang to him and put my hand on his tum, and he fell asleep before my very eyes! Not only that, he then slept from 7.30am 'til 1.30am (he usually dies 3 to 3.5 hrs tops). Not sure why he slept so long. Maybe cot mattress is more comfy than his Moses basket or maybe it's because he fell asleep in his cot rather than in my arms. Probably just a fluke. Either way, it's a Christmas miracle!

Usually does 3.5hrs tops. V unfortunate typo there

thats such good news count bapula!! How often was yr ds waking before this?

We're still on hold with the sleep training as we're getting over our various bugs and being away from home too.

Ive realised ds has got about 2 months left in his hammock. Am completely and utterly dreading the transition to the cot. The hammock makes rocking to sleep so easy (or easier than any other method)

am contemplating what our plan of action should be next, go back to the prevoous plan, or get the cot out now and start doind PUPD, or even sth else...

Am also thinking about whether sleep consultants are worth a try, but dont where or how to find a NCSS/non CC one....

He would usually go down at 7ish, wake 10/10.30, back down by midnight, then wake between 3 and 4 and again between 6 and 7. Think that's pretty good going and frequency of waking wasn't that much of an issue, it was more the drama of getting him to drop off un the first place!

At the height of his insomnia I spoke to a sleep consultant called Andrea Grace. She was lovely and chatted to me for 20 mins no strings attached. She felt DS was too young for her to help (he was 9 weeks at the time) but gave me a couple of good tips and generally set my mind at rest. She specialises in gentle/no cry methods so might be worth a try.

Just found this thread and could someone explain what PPO is? It may be the solution for my problem as baby seems to have developed a sleep association at night because of co-sleeping and BF in bed. Thanks

Well done Bapula, it's reassuring to hear success stories. I think we've fallen off the wagon a bit with Christmas and visiting relatives etc, and now we're back at home I think we're all coming down with a bit of a cold. Last night I couldn't be bothered with the PPO at bedtime and I really think it made her harder to settle later on so must persevere!

I did think we were making some progress in terms of reducing the number of feeds in the night (I was trying to rock her back to sleep unless it had been 3 hours since her last feed, and a couple of nights managed to get her down to 2 feeds during the night. The only thing is it was taking a really long time to settle her with rocking alone, or she'd settle quickly but then wake again 15 minutes later. Then last night I couldn't settle her at all with just rocking so ended up feeding her and that took ages as well, I don't know if she's not feeling 100% or if it's another backward step.

She does seem to be starting to get the hang of falling asleep without me doing anything as long as she's in bed next to me, I can't decide if that's another sleep association I don't want to encourage or if it's a step on the road to eventually settling herself in her own bed! It's so tempting to co-sleep for a couple of nights to try and get a bit more sleep but I don't want to set things back even further. Thanks for your comments Newmum, Pantley suggests having a time limit after which you bring her into her bed so we've been loosely doing that (the time limit tends to creep forward depending on the kind of night we're having!).

Hi sedgie - how do you get your LO off to sleep at the moment? what ideas are you trying for a routine?

Muslimah, if you've got 2 months left then do you think you have time to give your previous methods another go and then move on to PUPD in the cot if it doesn't work?

Hi Candinha, I'm sure someone else will explain it better than me but PPO stands for the Pantley Pull Off, which is basically when you're feeding your baby and their sucks start to become more light and fluttery, then you use your finger to break the suction and gently detach them. If they startle and root for the breast again, then you put a finger under their chin to hold their mouth closed; if that doesn't work then you latch them on again and try to detach again a few moments later. And again and again until they give up rooting and fall asleep. The idea is that they get used to falling asleep without having a nipple in their mouth!

I find the timing quite hard to get right though - too early and you seem to prolong the overall feeding session with lots of latching on and off; too late and I suspect DD's already asleep by the time I get her off!

Thanks beancounting I can see how it can be tricky to get in just right especially at night when you are both sooo tired. I think I have been kinda of doing that anyway without knowing it was called PPO, but he still seems to have a terrible sleep association with the breast. Already 4 months and still demanding feeds every 2 1/2 to 3 hours at night and will often just suck for a few minutes and fall asleep!

Great to see this thread, getting ready to implement PPO with 7 mth DD - probably starting in a couple of weeks. She is currently sitting on my knee eating a Christmas card, having gone into meltdown at the sight of her cot. Will have a proper read of all your posts later.

HI All,

Great to hear about your successes CountBapula. I've found that sometimes breakthroughs do come when you just can't take any more and stop doing what you've been doing to get them to sleep because you can't take it anymore, and lo and behold, they go to sleep with you doing nothing! Unfortunately, this is normally a one off for us . I might try using the hand on tummy technique, usually a whip her out and feed her again, which works (on occasion) but then I need to get her back into her cot and as she goes into REM sleep when she's resettled that can be very tricky without waking her.

Beancounting 2 feeds a night sounds excellent! But I'm sure all the rocking was a lot of hard work. I'm not at the stage of even attempting anything like that.

We have had a mixed bag of a first 8 days, with some really good days and nights and some bloody awful ones. Yesterday was interesting - textbook day, managed to extend one of her naps to 2.5 hours (third time this has happened since I started using NCSS 8 days ago) and no problem getting down for other naps, managed 4 hours of sleep during the day. Then, we have the worst night EVER, with her up between 9:40 - 11:30 and 2:40 - 4:30 with hourly gaps in between. V discouraging, especially after such a good day and of course today we are all very tired and grumpy and I have totally failed to get her down for her nap so she has gone out in the buggy with her Dad.

Looking back (and trying to be positive after such a shitty night), there have been some definite improvements:

• she will often go down in her cot drowsy, open her eyes and go to sleep
• extended naps 3 times to 2+ hours
• some self settling (happened twice during the day and a few times at night, one time I rubbed her tummy quite fast which got her off to sleep without a feed.
• She is getting attached to little bear and will sometimes suck him when she startles going down in the cot and go to sleep.

-Sometimes (mostly if I give up and put her in her cot and storm off to take a break after she's rooted for the millionth time) I find that she goes to sleep on her own sucking her thumb.

• a good run of nights where we "only" got up 2/3 times between 11-6
• Bed at 6pm every night (give or take 10 mins either way)
• a couple of occasions where she has removed herself from the boob and gone to sleep(!)
• sleeping for 4+ hours twice

Having written that down it looks a lot more positive than I feel in my sleep deprived state! I've found the Christmas period has messed things up as well, Beancounting, things haven't been as good since the holidays started with visitors, dinners etc. And next week we have to go to the in-laws to stay and no doubt she will be awful and I will have to listen to no end of crap about leaving her to cry and getting my life back and all the good work I've done will be lost and we'll be back to square one again. Am dreading it.

This thread is great - it's really hard following this solution, although I do have faith that it will make a significant difference eventually and it's great to share experiences/vent and hopefully eventually hear that we are all getting some sleep!

bean i think thats probably the best solution right now. I think because we.re back to square one its been difficult to see the wood for the trees right now! But readin countbapula and newmum's stories are motivation to start again.

counti looked up andrea grace, she seems really good. A bit pricey so i think ill try things out on our own again and if we dont make progress then maybe ill go down that route. Or maybe ill need a sleep consultant whe we do the dreaded transition to cot!! I think i may lose my sanity at that point. My dh ppinted out the other day that ds' problem is he simply doesnt know how to go to sleep. If hes tired he just doesnt know what to do! He knows something's wrong but he just doesnt understand that if he just went to sleep hed be ok! So instead we have tears. bean is right what she said early on in this thread, ncss isnt strictly no crying-its just lesss crying...