Putting them down awake - help!

[scriptbunny]

Hello,

I keep reading that it is a big help with night wakings if you can teach your baby to put himself to sleep in the cot, rather than putting him him down asleep. I've never had any luck putting my 6mo DS down awake, but desperation is making me think perhaps I need to try in a really consistent way. He's currently waking every hour to two hours during the night until I take him into bed with me around 3am. So,
a) Have people found that this is a good skill for LOs to learn? Does it actually help with the rest of their sleep, or is this one of those myths?
b) What sort of technique works best? I can put up with a bit of moaning and crying, but not CIO or acute desperation. So, I was thinking put him down, he starts complaining, I shh-pat, he starts crying hard, I pick him up and put him back down when he's calm - repeat until the sun comes up... Does that sound right? I seem to remember reading somewhere that it is confusing for them to be picked up, but the one time I tried leaving him in his cot to cry while I held his hand he just got hysterical and wide awake and cried for an hour, at which point I picked him up and fed him to sleep in tears (mine, not his).

Any ideas?

Thanks,

SB

I'm in exactly the same boat with my dd who is also 6mo, I'm hoing for someone to give me a magic solution! she will also wake up frequently until she's in my bed and even then will wake up a few time through the night and I just feed her back to sleep because I'm just too tired to do anything else! what I've resorted to at the mo is playing a soothing song while having a little cwtch and then putting dd down when she's almost asleep and then gentle patting until she's asleep. Im not in the right frame of mind to do any cc so will wait until I'm at my wits end. Having had a little look around the sleep board the last few weeks a few

touch screens!! a few weeks ppl suggested staying with dd for 20min after she fell asleep cos this is how l

grrr! How l

aaarrrgghh! how long it takes them to fall into a deep sleep and then reduce the time over a period of days! I guess it depends on how desperate you are as to what route you take.

Finally got there, sorry for messing up your post!

My nearly 5 month old DS responded well to Jo Tantum's 'spaced soothing' technique. You put your LO in their cot at nap time (best to start in the day), kiss and settle them, say 'sleepy time now' or your own chosen sleep cue words, and firmly leave. If they protest/quack/grizzle/cry a bit, leave them for one minute and then go and settle them so they are still awake but calm (in the cot if possible, replace dummy, stroke brow/down nose gently, reassure). Say your sleep cue phrase in a soft neutral voice and leave. And repeat until they have fallen asleep. Always leave before they have nodded off so they experience falling asleep on their own.

The advice is to leave them for increasing increments of time, up to five minutes. I don't want to extend it though so only ever leave him for a minute or less sometimes. Lots of mums seem to naturally give their babies a minute to see if they're winding down, this method gives me permission to try that (am a very soft touch!). It isn't a very long time, isn't long enough for your baby to get really distressed.

So it's like a miniature CC, only the advice is if your LO gets genuinely upset you stop the spaced soothing and go to them immediately. And try again when they are calm. Also, she says to make sure to check for wind or hunger beforehand.

So I feel it's quite a clear gentle way of responding to your baby, but giving them a bit of space too.

It made a big difference to DS, he was much more confident in his cot and more well rested in the day. Also he would occasionally self-settle after one 45 min sleep cycle and nap for an hour and a half, which he couldn't before.

It's all gone to pot now though, because he has a terrible cold, the poor little beauty, so am back having to feed him to sleep for naps and at night. Sigh. But he is poorly, he needs the extra comfort at the moment. I will go back to the spaced soothing when he's well again.

HTH

I have this problem too with my nearly.five month old DS. I will be watching out for good ideas too. The No Cry Sleep Solution says the first step is to take the nipple out of their mouth just before they fall asleep and hold them while they fall asleep. I haven't even had any luck with this, let alone putting him in the cot awake!

DS is 8 mths and by no means sleeping thro' the night but it is getting easier slowly, despite colds, teeth bronchiolitis..... We can now put him down awake most of the time. I've read 'no cry sleep solution' a few times and as with any book, it doesn't all fit with our approach but we've taken some good ideas (routine as far as poss (i.e bedtime, meals), special sleepy cuddly, cue words). Over the last few months we've really tried to put him down awake, picking him up after a min or two to reassure, put back down when stops crying and repeat. I try to decide beforehand how many times I will do that before reverting to usual, i.e feeding then putting down asleep. It feels better if I have a plan. At the time it doesn't feel like it's working but when you look back, you realise things are improving. We don't do it when he's ill, which feels like it's been the majority of the time recently. DH also tries to put him to bed in the evening whereever poss, if I can feed him between tea and bathtime instead and he's home in time. A few times DH has gone in at night time if he's not working the next day and I think that's helped. DS has another cold/more teeth coming up, but at least I can go in and sooth him without resorting to feeding and he will eventually go back to sleep. He does grizzle and make some noise, but he doesn't cry hard like he used to. When he does this I just try to go back to sleep and usually I wake up a couple of hrs later. We can also now put him down in his cot awake for naps, with just a bit of grizzling.

At the time, you really don't feel you're getting anywhere. Now I only feed once overnight, usu around midnight and then not til 6am which is a big improvement for us. He might need settling once in between, sometimes I don't even have to pick him up, just rub his tummy. I'm now going to try and reduce how much he's feeding overnight, altho' it's difficult to know with breastfeeding. We are getting there, slowly. Just as well, as I'm back at work in 6 weeks.

I think these methods have helped, or maybe it just keeps you distracted/occupied whilst they just sort themselves out.......

Good luck

For what it's worth, I really don't think this would have worked when he was younger. We didn't really start this until 6 weeks ago in a serious way. I did try intermittently before then, but it usually ended in tears all round as he wasn't ready for it. I can't remember exactly, but I think DD was roughly the same age (7-8 mths) x

I'l be honest, i really hate the whole 'letting baby cry' thing, i think it's pretty damaging to the baby and it makes them less likely to trust you. I never let my baby cry himself to sleep, instead i would give him a bottle and cuddle him in the bedroom until he went to sleep and then put him in his cot. I did this until he was 13 months old, and then one night he just magically started going to sleep by himself in his cot! it was literally like magic! He must have just been emotionally ready to settle himself to sleep. He's slept through from 7-7 since he was 6 weeks old. now he sleeps from 7pm when he literally begs me to put him to bed, until 8.30am. He's nearly 14 months old now

I'm with naomi tbh. I honestly think some babies do it and some don't. DD1 was fed/rocked to sleep until she was over a year. DD2 (4.5 months) moans at me to turn out the light, then pops her thumb in her mouth and drops off in her bed, by herself!

I'm with ooof, I do the exact same and it's taken a while but he seems to have got it now. He goes to sleep on his own now.

Hi, yes I know what you mean Naomi and I never let him cry himself to sleep. The method I use means he is always comforted. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough in my post

The technique involves comforting again and again until they go to sleep calm. Takes a lot of repetition!

Ps and the crying is really minimal, and if they ever really cry (rather than protest quacks and grizzles) you go to them.

Another one who does Spaced Soothing like Oovoof, and found it very successful. I wasn't convinced about doing it as I didn't want to leave my DS to cry, but in a very short space of time it got results and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Also have to agree with naomi & pook though, different baby, different way of doing things, just happened that my DS responded well to it. Worth a read about anyway? Hope you find a good solution.

I think the 'no cry sleep solution' methods sound a bit like 'Spaced Soothing'. You don't leave them to cry x

Self settling - it saved my sanity and is the reason ds3 went in a strict routine of going to sleep on his own from day 1!

it really depends what you are doing now to get your baby to sleep. you need to start with that and work up gradually to putting baby down awake and letting them fall asleep alone. Also keep in mind that whatever you do to get him to sleep regularly they will expect every single time they need to go to sleep - day or night, nap or bedtime or middle of the night feed. I use a comforter (and dummy). I put tell them it's time to sleep, close the blinds with them, put them in the cot and put the comforter against their cheek, then walk out. with my older 2 who couldn't/didn't self settle i sat next to them stroking their head or holding a hand till they were settled enough for me to walk out.

Me too - 5.5 month old waking hourly to 2 hourly for a feed back to sleep... Need to put down awake but I might wait for a few weeks as I remember with ds (now 3) it got easier as he got older... Can't bear the crying and distress but getting so weary. Can't sleep in the day either. Good luck all.

Thanks so much. You've given me hope and a much-needed injection of common sense. I tried staying for 20 mins tonight, and to be honest I think he kept peeking at me and it might even have kept him awake, but I'll keep that one up my sleeve. Spaced Soothing sounds promising for further down the line once our "being in the cot without crying all the time" skills have developed. Like you DCB I'm reading No Cry and taking a few idea from it. I think the idea of having your plan decided for the night will really help me. Its those 2am "I have no idea what I"m doing" moments that really do my head in and have me weeping over my porridge the next morning. Even if it just gives me something to do while nature takes its course and things improve by themselves... Half the problem is that I'm so tired I can't identify the problem or decide what to do about it. But this has been a huge help. Good luck to all the others in the same situation.

Mum vs. Baby when it comes to sleep is my DD's favourite game. When she's asleep she's a champion sleeper, but getting her to sleep is another matter entirely. It quickly became aparent to me that she liked to be rocked to sleep in her car seat attached to the buggy frame. She would go down in minutes and sleep well during the night too, waking up usually twice. Then I realised that rocking her to sleep all the time would mean she would expect it, so I stopped rocking her. Baby 1 - Mum 0. She did not like this at all. So I would tuck her up, give her a kiss, tell her I loved her and leave. She would fuss and grizzle and sometimes get mad (but I never left her if she was properly crying, too young for that) so I'd go back, kiss her, tell her I loved her (she'd be smiling) and then leave, then she'd grizzle etc. First couple of days it went like this and took her about 15 mins to get to sleep. By day 5 only 2 mins. So we got that down to a fine art and now I want her to be able to sleep in her crib during the day, 1) so I can get on when she's napping and 2) so she will happily go to sleep at night in her crib. Whilst she will sleep at night it does take about 2 hours to get her to sleep. I'm currently applying the same principal. I put her down at 10:10am this morning for her morning nap (she normally sleeps for 2hrs) and she woke up after 45 mins screaming and crying, so I got her, fed her (it was about that time) and put her back at 11:55am, she grizzled and fussed but is still sleeping now. I think if you can stick to your guns and be more stuborn than them then you win! I'm confident because she's done it before so I know she can do it again. She now sleeps through the night for about 12 hours or so, she'll wake up at around 5am chatting to herself and go back to sleep. I know it'll probably change again soon but I think sheer determination does help!

My DS put himself to sleep at various times in his 1-year long life. It NEVER made any difference to his sleep. He still wakes up 3-5-6 times a night for boob. I just rock and feed him as I lost the will to engage in any kind of "solution".

I did put my son down awake at 5.5 months and every night thereafter but although it did cut down Some of the night wakings (especially the evening ones), he didn't sleep through the night til I night weaned him at 11 months (and that was pretty cry free thnk god).

But I found it helped to feel that I was at least takings steps in the right direction by putting him down awake. And i think it helped. But I don't feel strongg enough to do it with my second baby at the moment and she is 5.5 months.... Hoping some divine inspiration will help me at some point!