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?

Hi bean sorry things aren't going well. I'm thinking about re-reading the book to see if I've wandered off plan. We are having sporadic success but lots of crap nights too. Is your dd going through a developmental phase? There seems to be one every few weeks (no other babies I know seem to be affected by them though! Maybe I just use them as an excuse). Today my patience is all gone, spent an hour and 10 mins to get her to sleep just there, she stays down for half an hour and is now tired and grumpy. So fucking tedious. She was up for almost 2 hours in the middle of the night last night. Am really sick to death of shushing and patting and singing and feeding for ages and ages!!!!! My head hurts!!

I know what you mean newmum, I keep trying to convince myself it's all developmental as well, but the 7 other babies we know from NCT don't seem to be having this trouble...

I think ali that part of the napping problem was that I've become a bit lax - DD (who is just over 6 months now) is like your DS and only really naps well when being pushed around, but I'd got a bit bored of going out 3 times a day and was half-heartedly (with very limited success) trying to get her to nap indoors. Anyway, you've convinced me to go back to the pushchair method for the time being and it's going much better - yesterday she had 2 naps totalling nearly 3 hours and today has had 3, also about 3 hours in total ! Your naps sound brilliant and it's great that he will sleep when you get back in as well !

And actually the last couple of nights haven't been too bad, still up and down at least every hour in the evening but I've got away with feeding just once between midnight and 6am which is definite progress (admittedly she has woken more than that but she's settled with just a cuddle for once).

I'm wondering if part of the problem is doing the PPO too early, so that she falls asleep and then 10 minutes later realises she's still hungry and wakes up again. Last night I fed her at about 1.30am and then spent about an hour trying to resettle her before giving in and feeding again (I've counted this as one feed though!) and she went off perfectly after that.

I've also taken to putting a hot water bottle on her sheets when I pick her up so the cold doesn't wake her when I put her back , and am wondering whether to put more clothes on her at night in case she's cold (although she already wears more than the grobag advice suggests but I think she feels the cold like me).

I feel for you newmum, lengthy awakenings in the middle of the night are just horrendous, they make me want to alternately sob and scream. I've returned the book to the library but might get it out again and do a proper plan again, I'm sure writing it down helped me commit to it last time.

Good luck everyone for tonight!

Hello can I join you?

Brief summary is that my DS (6 months) has been hard to settle to sleep from the word go, and now we have a whole raft of "bad habits" which, while they used to help him sleep, now seem to be hindering his sleep.

He has to be fed / rocked to sleep and spends most of the night in bed with us, now feeding on and off. As a survival strategy I stopped looking at the clock ages ago, but I would say he wakes every couple of hours and occasionally has a longer stretch from midnight. Its starting to get me down as it has been 6 months of poor sleep! Naps are also difficult, though I can get him sleeping longer stretches by going out with the pram - so thats what I'm doing now.

Anyway, have decided to do the pantley pull off and also have him sleep on a mattress next to our bed rather than in our bed. Started last night - and gave up at 11 when he just would not let me go!! I will keep at it, I think I am definitely part of the problem as its much nicer feeding in bed, lying down, than any other way really.

Sorry for long rambling post, but will check in again to see how you are all doing - its good to share the pain and successes - hopefully!

Morning All and hello RaisingMrC

Hope you are all doing well and getting some sleep. Things seems to be looking up for us at the moment. DD went into her own room at the weekend and we also extended her bed into the 6 months + size as she was getting too big. She seems much happier in the bed and is not being disturbed by me getting back into bed after settling her. Also, and this is the most exciting bit, she has been settling in her cot from properly awake most bedtimes (not all) with me singing to her and patting, or saying my key words and patting. When this hasn't worked, she has mostly gone down in her cot but insisted on feeding for the last bit. We've had much longer stretches in the early evening and 2-3 wakings between 6pm and 5:30am (which is when she gets up!), unfortunately some of the wakings have lasted for 1-2 hours however which is not so good.

Last night was the best night I think she has ever done, even when she was sleeping quite well around 2 months - she went down at 6 from being sung to and patted, got up at 11:30 (that's 5.5 hours - sleeping through in the weird scientific sense that isn't sleeping through at all really but hey, I'm not complaining at this stage!!) then up again at 2:15am and up for the day at 5:30 am. Each time I fed her (figured she would be hungry) and wasn't too ambitious about PPO (again, I thought she was hungry) and she went straight down when put back in her cot and I went back to bed and straight back to sleep .

Her napping has mostly been better too (with some notable exceptions) most days she will have at least one long nap of 1.5 hours and two shorter ones of 45 mins.

Hopefully it will continue! I always say that though, then come on the next day after a terrible night .

Is anyone else trying the key words and music? I've been trying to create the association for about a month, didn't think it was making much difference but recently I noticed her eyes would definitely start shutting if I said them or sang my song, but it has never actually got her to go to sleep until this week.

Have a good weekend all

Hi all, just wondered if I could pop over quickly. DS, nearly 7 months is about to move to own room. We have been co sleeping ish. He starts off in his crib anyhow! He did something last night that makes me wonder. He woke up at 1 and wouldn't settle so I picked up and as I went to lay him in our bed he had arranged his head already to meet the mattress- does that make sense? I now wonder if it's the firm mattress he wants rather than the thin sponge one of his crib. He used to sleep on a memory foam wedge until about 2/3 weeks ago.
What do you think?
He still wakes up in bed with me though.
Am hoping he sleeps more in his own room. I am forever hopeful!
Any thought? Tia

Wow, newmum - what a success story! Well done ! We've had a succession of rubbish nights since I last posted and I still haven't got round to doing a new sleep plan. So what do you think was the key? the combination of key words etc and PPO? I've sung the same song to DD for months now with no effect, but haven't really come up with any key words that we use every time so perhaps I should put that in my sleep plan.

Hi pipplin - did DS sleep better on the memory foam thing? I hadn't thought about the mattress but the one in DD's crib is pretty thin and I can't imagine it's that comfy...

Hello RaisingMrC - sounds a familiar tale! hope you have more luck tonight, I know what you mean about feeding lying down - I wish I wasn't so lazy!

Hi Bean,

I think it's been a combination of everything coming together, but the key has definitely been her getting off to sleep from being awake in her cot. The last week has seen a massive improvement. The key bits have been (I think):

-Bedtime at the same time every day, so that when I then tried the key words and singing in her cot, her body clock was working with me and she was ready to go to sleep

-PPO at every nap, bedtime and night time waking

-Spending time in her cot being sung to and using the key words before bed, even if eventually she got fed up and needed to be fed to do the final bit of getting to sleep. I got quite strict and would only feed her if she started properly crying (she did a lot of protesting initially but I could see her settling, then realising what she was doing and protesting, then settling, then protesting etc to begin with but it always used to end up with crying and a feed at the end).

• Using the key words when she was going to sleep whilst feeding, that established the association

-Singing the same song on way to bed for naps and bedtime - also whilst in the car when going to sleep

• Extending her bed so she had more room and going into her own room so she wasn't disturbed by us.

Since I last posted there have been a couple of occasions where I couldn't settle her at night, came through to tell my husband and then realised all was quiet- got back in bed and woke up several hours later! She had gone to sleep herself!

Last night was amazing - she went off to sleep from singing at 6pm, I then realised she'd pooed and had to change her, back to sleep from singing (no more feeding) at 6:23pm. Up at 10:45 for a feed (settled in 15 mins) then slept till 6am!!!!!! I woke up at 3:30, 4:45, 5:20 wondering what was going on and if she was OK of course. I feel really proud of her and really proud of myself for doing it without resorting to leaving her to cry. A month ago I was literally at my wits end and I did not think it was possible she could ever sleep so well. I know she won't necessarily do this all the time, but since she has started going to sleep in her cot from singing, her sleep has consistently been so much better, I really feel hopeful that we have got where we need to be.

Hopefully this is helpful (if a bit of an essay) and will give a bit of inspiration! It has been bloody hard and you need so much patience to go this route. I think it's taken just over a month of to really see major improvements.

Good luck with the new sleep plan!

Hi newmum, that really is brilliant - I'm so impressed !

Unfortunately I think we've given up on the NCSS, I feel really awful about this but the last two nights we've tried to resettle DD without picking her up, just with singing (that same bloody song I've been singing for months with no effect!) and stroking her head, and there have been lots of tears (on all sides).

It wasn't intentional, it was just on Saturday night she'd been up 5 or 6 times before we went to bed and then again just past midnight, when after an hour of picking her up (she'd fall asleep straightaway but then wake up and cry when I put her down again) I couldn't take it any more and just lay on the bed with the crib right next to me, stroking her head and singing to her. It took over an hour and a half of her crying and occasionally properly screaming until she fell asleep, and was really horrible.

However, she then slept until 6.15am which is probably one of the longest stretches for a while. So last night we did the same thing, DH settled her in the evening which took an hour but then she was asleep until 11.30 which is totally unprecedented. I then fed her (we'd agreed to feed her no more than every 4 hours but actually once she'd eventually settled she did much longer than that) and settled her without crying but we had to do it all again at 2ish which was really hard again. But then she slept again till 6ish.

We both feel very unsure about whether this is the right thing to do as it's so far from how we'd wanted to do it, and we're not even convinced it will work so not really sure how long to give it before giving in (and no doubt confusing poor DD even more). So I'm very impressed with what you've managed to achieve newmum, I just wish I'd had your patience .

Oh Bean, don't feel bad. You're not leaving her to cry, you're staying with her and singing to her and stroking her. She knows you are there. There's not a great deal of difference between what you are doing and what I did, it's just your DD is taking longer to settle, which is probably a lot to do with luck. I was quite strict about her being in her cot and wouldn't take her out unless she started really crying - which meant there was quite a bit of grumbling and shouting first, so not that dissimilar to you. I know exactly what you mean about the singing the same bloody song! I hear it in my head all the time. I think the key is for them to fall asleep in their cot - and it sounds like things are starting to work out for you as well - I'm really pleased .

If you really feel she/you need a break you can always stop and try again next time. I felt that the time she spent getting sleepy in her cot was worth it, because it got her used to it, even if she did still need feeding to get to sleep in the end.

Good luck and let me know how you get on

Oh and Bean, there is a section in the NCSS for mothers who are totally at the end of their rope and nothing else works. It suggests EXACTLY the method you have been using. So you are still doing the NCSS .

thank you so much newmum, that makes me feel better! I'd forgotten about the bit at the end of the book so that is reassuring.

Last night wasn't quite as bad actually, she fell asleep just before 7 (while feeding really, we still haven't cracked the PPO properly, though she wasn't fully asleep when I put her down) and was quite restless for 20 minutes or so (I stayed with her until she was properly asleep as I think she stirs herself if she thinks we've left her before she's ready ), and then heard nothing until 9.15 when DH had to go and resettle her.

It took about 40 minutes but wasn't as bad as the previous nights, much more grumbling than crying and I only heard her a few times from downstairs (watching Silent Witness with my fingers in my ears chanting "la la la"!). And then she woke again at midnight and 4am, and I fed her both times as it was within our "4 hour rule"; she was still awake after the 4am feed but went back into her crib ok and fell asleep after 45 mins of patting/singing.

She then woke again at 6am and I didn't really know what to do, it seemed a bit close to getting up time to try to get her to resettle herself so I ended up bringing her into our bed and feeding her again for 5 minutes, and then she fidgetted for a bit and fell asleep for another couple of hours. Hopefully that hasn't confused her totally, I know consistency is the key and I'm a bit rubbish at that when my mind is fuddled by lack of sleep.

She seems quite cheery today so I'm less panicky about having traumatised her, but having said that we didn't leave her to cry as much last night because she managed to go longer between feeds of her own accord. Which is a good thing, hopefully it will last!

Hope you had another good night!

Glad you're feeling better! I felt really when I saw your post. Sounds like things are improving pretty rapidly! Re the consistency - I always bring DD into bed with me when she gets up at 6am and then we have a co-sleeping nap around 730am. She sleeps the rest of the night in the cot with no issues at all.

We had a not so completely brilliant night on Monday but still pretty good - got up 9pm, 10:30pm and 2:30 am, wouldn't settle after 30 mins so I left her (she was happy, just not asleep) and she went back to sleep on her own until 6am. Then last night she slept through again! Down at 6pm, up at 11 for 15 minute feed and up again at 6:10am. I was wondering whether to go and check on her when she got up. We are both in a great mood today and went in to visit work to talk about going back (not going back till August but have to get her name down for nursery so need my part time days agreed).

Sorry, I've not had a chance to read this whole thread but I'm desperate for a bit of advice/encouragement!

We have been doing the NCSS for a couple of weeks now and earlier in the week we had 3 fantastic nights of sleep. I thought we'd cracked it but then the last 2 nights have been horrendous Is this normal? Will he go back to sleeping better again? Or do I need to try something else?

Bit of background - he's 9 months old and has never slept well. Most nights he is up between 2 and 10 times and is often awake for an hour or more at a time. He's not necessarily upset at these times but if I leave him he wails. We ditched the dummy at the same time as starting NCSS and once he'd got used to that his sleep did improve. Oh, and I've got a 3 year old aswell who thankfully has always slept very well but he's being woken up by his baby brother and so is super grouchy - just what I need!

So, any advice would be fantastic as I am on my knees today

Newmum it's so fantastic to hear about the success that you're having! Well done to you and your DD :)

bean it sounds to me as if you're making real progress as well :) Don't be hard on yourself for letting your DD cry for a while - you're staying with her and trying to comfort her so she knows she's not alone. I'm quite sure she won't be traumatised at all.

ziggy I can't give you any specific advice, but I can say that with our DS (a bit younger than yours) we seem to have some good nights and some bad nights. I would encourage you to do the sleep logs every 10 days as suggested by the book. I've been doing this and it does help you to see the progress that you're making, even if it's slow!

As for us, I must admit that our plan has gone out of the window for the time being! We had some horrendous nights last week and early this week. In addition to the sleep deprivation I had a cold and a couple of mornings I felt so rubbish that I ended up co-sleeping with DS when he had his morning nap (and as a consequence his morning nap was 2 hours each time rather than 45 minutes!) Then on Weds eve our heating broke down (due to be fixed tomorrow, fingers crossed!) and it's been so cold in our bedroom that we've been co-sleeping just to make sure that DS doesn't freeze. He's had to sleep in the pram downstairs in the evenings and the bedtime routine has gone out of the window because there's no way I can bathe him in our freezing cold bathroom! On the bright side, a couple of nights of co-sleeping have been bliss - hardly any waking and no crying at all maybe I'll just resign myself to co-sleeping indefinitely and have done with it . No... I promise myself that we'll get back on track as soon as we have heat again - I'm spurred on by the success of you others :)

Hi ziggy, no advice but what u r describing sounds totally normal. We had some big success early on, then some terrible nights! It's taken over a month for us to get to see serious improvements but we still have the odd bad night. It's really hard to feel like you're getting anywhere to begin with, you just have to focus on every small improvement and have faith that it will come together in the end!

Dd has now slept through 11-6 three times since last sunday and once in the 5 hours plus sense (last night did 6-10, 1030-330, 340-6am which is still really good. Things have only started being consistently much better since I have been able to get her to go to sleep in her cot (not feeding to sleep) in the past week or so.

Newmum that's really wonderful! 11-6 leaves you feeling so good, doesn't it..?

We have heating again as of yesterday morning - phew! So, bedtime routine is back :) Last night I was mega-sleepy and completely failed to keep track of when DS woke. He definitely woke me 2 or 3 times between 11.30pm and 7.30am though! No crying, thankfully, just feeding then back to sleep (at least once I fell asleep with him on my lap... oops). I'm less tired today so will make more of an effort to stay awake and do the PPO. I also put DS into his own room for 2 of his naps today - the first time he's slept in there. I'm hoping to get him used to it in preparation for moving him in there at night in a few weeks' time.

Hope everyone has had a good weekend and gets a decent night's sleep tonight. :)

Hey I'm baack! After much deliberation, I've decided to wean DS from the breast. He's 9 months old and now has 8 teeth and him suckling at night is killing my poor nipples!
He's also started crawling so it's time to get him out of our bed and into a cot/his own mattress on the floor. He's already fallen out of the bed after waking from an afternoon nap. :-(
Fingers crossed that the changes will have him sleeping a little better!

Is anyone still doing this? We're on day 2 of NCSS and I'm about this close to just letting her (DD, 5 months) cry it out. Extenuating circumstances, however - she's been very needy for a week anyways, possibly due to beginning rolling

my 4 month old son,will not settle or sleep in his cot.he falls asleep on me but when i put him he his cot he starta crying.so i end up with him sleeping on me,this has been going on for the past month,and i dont know what to do?? can anyone help please

InvaderZim after doing NCSS but getting desperate through lack of sleep, we tried letting DS cry (whilst sitting beside him, stroking/singing/taking him to sleep) and after 5 nights, he was still waking up at least twice so we decided to give up the torture!

Try reading Nighttime Parenting by Sears- that gave me so much more confidence in my parenting style and helped me accept the way things are.

lesley1982 do you co-sleep? Have you considered an alternative to the cot (e.g. mattress on the floor)? We're currently in the process of trying to figure out where our crawling (and falling) baby can sleep. Have just about given up on the cot!!