If you nurse to sleep...

[qwertina]

do you do it for every nap?

My 13 week old DD finds it difficult to go to sleep in a buggy/sling/car/cot unless i bf to sleep. We are also going through the dreadful half hour nap stage. My concern is that every feed is now turning into nap time.

If you fed to sleep what age and how did you stop?

I started crying when I read your post, it's awful, but glad to know I am not the only one! At the moment I have been trying to get to baby to sleep anyway possible (bf or pram) at least every two hours, many many times a day as he will only do 1/2 hr at a time, now even with the pram rolling, so that he doesn't get overtired. I have been advised to make days as routine and as predictable as possible to help get more settled at night, so have started trying to make sure he gets up at the same time every day, and we try to do things in roughly the same order, when we play, when we go for a walk, when we have dinner, bathtime etc, and am keeping a diary. But I am so tired it's difficult to remember why I am doing it. We tired cranial osteopathy as well with no sucess. He comes awake at night every time he realises there isn't a nipple in his mouth. When a mother in my baby group complained that her 4 month old had started waking at 2 again I felt like slapping her. Mine is 6 months old and has never slept through. Please let us know if no cry nap solution is helpful.

Well I had the worst night on record.

I tried what my DH did and shut the door when DS woke around 5. DS babbled and shouted for 90 minutes!!!!!! Plus woke every hour from 11 til 2. Then every 15 minutes from 2 til 4....then the mega wake from 5 and then woke every 30 minutes until 7

Sounds rough Bartiimaeus, sorry to hear that. It is one of my worries that once she does not associate feeding with falling asleep how am I going to get her to sleep when she wakes at night? Or should the night wakings just stop then.

Will report on the NCNS MareMeva, hopefully there will be some tips we haven't tried yet.

I think once she can self settle, which seems to be the main problem here, she WILL be able to get back to sleep herself in future. You said earlier that on this forum there seems to be a correlation between bfing and babies who sleep 'badly'; IMO thats because it's far more hassle to make up a bottle every time your baby stirs in the night so you tend to use other methods such as shushing or patting which in turn help the baby to learn how to self settle.

This is what any form of sleep training will also do, be it CC, gradual withdrawal or PUPD. I know they seem like really hard work when you're already shattered but the benefits are huge. I don't like CC and think its easy to cave when you're tired so would be more inclined to go with gradual withdrawal. Incidentally, I think sleep training is not recommended under 6 months.

Hope that helps.

We had a good night yay!

Slept 7 - 11 - 3, then woke up hourly till 7 but still I feel like a different person.
It's amazing what a difference a good night makes, I feel like I can do this now. Let's hope for more nights like that!

I stopped bfing because I was in the same situation as you and thought that that would solve the problem of my ds needing to suckle to sleep. After a very difficult weaning period, he transferred his love of boob to a sippy cup!!! Every nap/nightimes he had to have the sippy cup to suckle on in order to get off to sleep just as he'd done for so long on the breast... Arrggghhhh!!!!!

After trying a million other things I saw a sleep consultant to teach ds how to self settle, that's the key I think. I'm not saying you have to pay for a sleep consultant here, just that you need to teach dc to self settle. I wasn't able to do it from a book unfortunately eventhough I bought every one available.

Anyway, I really regret giving up bfing thinking it would help with ds's sleep situation and now having taught ds how to self settle I just wish I could bf again.

Good luck xXx

Hi rr16 - can I ask what self-settling techniques your sleep consultant taught you?

Which sleep consultant did you use rr16?

I know what you mean by not being able to follow advice from books, I too find it difficult.

How old was your ds when he learnt to self settle?

Good morning ladies,

To answer qwertina first, I used Sarah Barnes (Leeds area) from www.gentlesleepsolutions.co.uk/

DS was 16 months when I started sleep training in earnest. I waited far too long because the every 2 hour wakings started at 5 months. I blamed bfing and quit at around 14mo. If only I'd known then that the bad sleep pattern wasn't linked to bfing! I'd taught him the way to go to sleep was by suckling and so that's all he knew.

Saffra as far as the self settling techniques Sarah Barnes taught me they were all the minimum cry approach. A very gentle method of pupd - more pd for my wriggly ds and slowly retreating from his cot/room over a period of time.

Before contacting her I'd managed to teach ds to self settle at the beginning of the night after a feed while we were still co-sleeping, just by putting him back down every time he got up. That was a slow progression but ds finally figured out what I was wanting him to do. However, the night time awakenings/feeds were still going on until I got professional help. The support provided enabled me to stick to the plan Sarah gave me. I wasn't able to follow the advice in all the books I read because I felt too desperate and alone to manage (despite a gr8 dh and supportive family around me I still felt it all on my shoulders - it was ultimately always down to me in the middle of the night).

I must say that ds is still a rubbish sleeper and would quite happily have the sippy cup all night if he could. He wakes up ridiculously early most of the time so it's still a work in progress after 8 months of sleep training but omg what a difference it's made for everyone when he learned to sleep right through!!! But all of it goes to pot when he's ill and I have to do a few days sleep training to get him back on track.

Hope this helps, any questions I'm here to answer them!

while I wish things would improve for you qwerina and maremeva so nice to read that other people have the same problem! I can't settle my 8mo baby without boob unless on a longish car journey or once in a blue moon in the buggy. it always has to be me in the night and usually takes about 2 hours each time she wakes up by the time I have fed her back to sleep, waited 20 mins so she's in a really deep sleep and moved her into the cot. half the time she wakes up on the way there and we have to start again. because she hardly naps she is so cross by the evening that there's no chance of putting her down awake. came here for help and saw loads of threads saying things like 'my 12 week old baby won't sleep' making me feel even worse, somehow I thought by 6 months she would be fine :( I have the no cry sleep solution but every nap or evening I just can't face hours of patting or whatever, I really need to do something though. Also identify with your anger - the other night when it took me 3 hours to settle her I got really cross. luckily she couldn't understand what I said but I don't want to be like that with her.

sorry for the rant, feel better now. good luck qwertina and mare, let me know if you find a solution!

My DD is 14 weeks tomo and I feed her to sleelfor some naps, but most are in the sling. I have to make sure she's asleep after being awake for about an hour (so I stick her in the sling before her tired signs), then rock or go for a walk. That way she gets fairly good sleep. However she feeds to sleep at bedtime!

DS was similar. We didn't crack self settling until closer to 6-7 months. I used to feed then pop on the cot drowsy and sometimes he'd fall asleep, other times I'd have to rock him. Basically I gave him a chance to self settle. Bear in mind though that self settling didn't mean good sleep at night!!

I'm a bit more relaxed about DD's sleep because I know that she'll change so much as DS did. When they're this age you worry about rods etc but give them a chance and babies will learn themselves.

Hello catherineps!

As your dd is older than mine, have you looked at Nectarina's thread 'What worked for us' ?

When my dd is older I am planning to do something like that I think, or cc if I am desperate.

I have just started reading the No Cry Nap Solution, haven't got far yet but have found that our babies have what is called 'One cycle sleep syndrome'. Apparently it is common and most children affected are between two and eight months. So there is hope catherine, that yours might just outgrow it soon :)

My SIL had the same issue with her ds and said it got much better when he started crawling.

Good luck!

There are parts of the NCNS that can be downloaded here www.pantley.com/elizabeth/links/4.html

That's something to hold on to, thanks! She is on the verge of crawling. I will pin my hopes on anything - she might sleep today because it's thursday, maybe if we use this teething gel . . .

Am hoping you posted at 7.30 because yours is asleep! if so, well done :)

Will go and have a look at that other post . . .

I'm in the same boat as you ladies! My daughter is 4 months old and the last 3 weeks can't get past the half hour nap mark and wakes every hour in the night. I am shattered and want to find a sleep consultant in the south London area who will help us but without resorting to controlled crying (dd is too young but even when she's 6 months I wouldn't use it). Does anyone know a good sleep consultant/ night nanny in this area who uses PUPD or gentle retreat? Like others after 3 weeks of no sleep I am too shattered to be able to put anything consistently into place myself and just feel I need that outside help to get us on the right track.

I'm with you on the chronically sleep-deprived front. DS wakes every 90 mins or so at night and will ONLY ONLY ONLY be settled with boob. DH has tried to settle him, which is successful for 10 mins, then he's up again crying for me. At the moment I'm so fricking tired I'm plumping for the 5 minute feed then back to sleep thing, rather than trying any brain/heartstring/time taxing sleep training.

Naptimes were AWFUL up until a couple of weeks ago when I started creeping in about 25 mins into a nap and watching for those first twitches of the hands/eyes that mean he's waking up. I put a hand on his belly and very quietly shush for about 5 mins and that (fingers crossed) seems to be working as he doesn't fully wake up after the first 30 min light sleep cycle. I don't get the timing right every day, but those I do, he can sleep for up to 2 hours which is bliss. Just wish I could 'fix' night times too!

Use the time away to break routine, it helped with us to get DS to sleep in a crib from co-sleeping. My DS sounds exctly like your LO and went through phase of screaming if I dared remove nipple but now likes a bit of space to sleep in. He is crap to get down at night though and wakes a lot. During the day I start rocking him to sleep when he has been up for 1.5 hours so he is rarely up for longer than 2 hours unless we are out where he will sleep in car or buggy but like you only half hour wherever he is. He is 6m now so hoping the night sleeps improve. It does make you want to cry when you hear about babies that do sleep well (has made me cry lots especially at 4am) I think we just have to try different thngs and wait for it to click in their mind. Feel for you, try not to be hard on yourself

Well, we are back and dd's sleep has changed so much in the last few weeks.

She is still fed to sleep and her naps are still 30 minutes, we are however down to one wake up a night (admittedly half the time that wake up lasts 2 hours). We even had one night where she slept 11 hours! But trying not to get hung up on that :)

We only got back today so we'll see but I'm feeling rather positive. Oh and there is no way she will take a bottle, I spent a small fortune trying different ones so I still bf and am rather happy about it.

Thank you everyone for your support, I am so glad I am still bf and I know I would feel so guilty if I stopped.

How is everyone else doing?