Anyone want to join me for a sleep training support thread?

[Bundlejoycosysweet]

Hello,

Just starting sleep training my 5 month old DD and thought it would be nice to chart how it goes on here and hope to get some company with fellow sleep trainers.

Hopefully this will give me more tips to try and more confidence to continue.

Gosh so some improvements last night! Well done those who got more sleep!
Have started weaning dts, dtd not interested in food at all - I mean clamps her mouth shut if it approaches!! Neither of them were starving at 7 this morning so am going to bite the bullet i think and feed dtd once only; and maybe not feed dts at all
Wrt dh.... That's a whole other thread!! ( he 'doesn't do' crying, nights, nappies etc etc.....) he had a lovely lie in til 9 this morning. He will at least take dd 12-2 whilst I and the twins nap. That's something.

After being up from 4.30- 6 with ds he finally fell back asleep and stayed sown till 9 which is great but wished he would just drop a night feed and get up 7 ish to be honest! Back to work in 10 days so desperate to at least drop to only one night feed!
In relation to DH's involvement in all this- pretty limited if I'm honest! He is crap at getting up in the night and if I pushed the issue he would spend so long 'coming round' himself that I would only be awake getting frustrated at him that it's easier to just go it alone. When my waters broke with first dc in the night he had to have a shower and a strong coffee before he felt fit to get me to hospital- I was not impressed!!!

Woo hoo woo hoo!! No idea why - maybe it's all beginning to sink in - maybe they were so knackered after Friday night BUT dts slept through! 7-6.30 (woke up at 5 but was easily sshed back to sleep!)
Dtd woke & was fed at 22.15. She didn't wake again til 2. I did pupd and she went back to sleep until 7!!!!
OH MY GOODNESS

lala amazing!! Well done! What does it feel like to have had a good nights sleep?

Still rubbish here - up every hour until 3 when I fed her and put her in bed with me. She then slept until 5.20, then I had to hold her but she slept on me until 6. However, she was obviously still tired as she has cried and cried and now gone back to sleep.

I'm thinking of trying pick up/put down but it just seems to wake her up more. Any other ideas? At the moment rocking in arms until asleep, then in cot with dummy but she wakes every hour and we have to go through that every time!

Great news lala especially that you managed to get both of them to do it! Long may it continue.

zambooloo if you are seeing no progress then maybe it is time you tried a different tactic? Is it the dummy falling out that is waking her? If so not sure how you fix that one other than cold turkey which is probably a bit harsh! PUPD could be the way forward because then she'll be settled in the cot so won't have the shock of wondering where you are when she wakes.

My night was ok. DD woke and fed at 10.15 when DP dropped a saucepan, then woke again at 1am and fed and settled quickly, then woke at 4 am fed but would not be put down, cue forty five minutes of me trying to settle her in cot, she wasn't that upset but was so snotty every time she started to settle she'd not be able to breathe and woke up so I gave up and let her lie on me and feed until 7.15.

I thought I would join in. After about 3 weeks of my 8mth DS constantly waking every hour, and being too nosy when feeding, I decided yesterday enough was enough. He was falling asleep on my knee downstairs. Took him up to feed him around 7.15, 'ding' he woke up wanting to play. Put him in his cot, played for 10 mins. He realised I wasn't going to pick him up again. I sat in the nursery chair facing sideways away from him. Boy did he set off!! He threw his dummy out, banged his head on the rails and did the mummy I love you sob. But as I said I'd had enough. I didn't want to abandon him tho, so I stayed there the whole time. Occasionally, I would lay him down, put dummy back in and kiss him. After 1 hour he fell asleep. Woke himself back up after 10 mins, cried another half hour and fell asleep until 1.30. Woke up long enough for me to bf him, then back until 5.30. Tbh I probably didn't need to feed him this last time, but I did.
This morning he is in a brilliant and playful mood as he got a good nights sleep, as did I.
Sorry for the long thread , just wanted to share. Here's to tonight.

Nice work mich! Here's hoping for more success :)

Well done mich
Zamboroo - how old is your dc? Pupd stops working around 6 months as the baby finds it too stimulating. Need to either move to something like mich, or pupdcd (I think is ok up to about 8 mths but can check) or some form of cc.
I couldn't do actual cc with my dd (tried one night, worst night of my life) but I did do

• leave her a few minutes to see if she would self settle (between 1&5 dependant on her cry)
• go in, cuddle, settle and leave

Repeat ad infinitum!!

Lala - sorry for my ignorance but what are mich and pupdcd?

I'm Mich! lol

Oh god what a plum I am... I blame the sleep deprivation!!

Haha that's made me chuckle
Pupdcd is 'pick up, put down, cry down'
You do pupd for 10 mins then stay with your baby for ten mins (hand on chest & head if u like - dtd loves that) with them lying in their cot doing a 'cry down'.
I find I amend the timings now dependant on dtd as I can read her cues- I pick her up and ssh pat until she stops crying, pop her down with one hand on chest, other on head saying sshh loudly. Sometimes I can tell she will go to sleep shortly so I continue til she closes eyes, other times I feel confident to attempt leave the room, other times I pick her up again.
We are not there yet but considering 2 weeks ago she was co sleeping with me and waking every 1.5 hrs for a snack we've come a long way

Hello All. Horrendous night here last night. DS woken every hour from 1. I finally brought him into bed at about 5 but he was still very restless. DP took him 6-7 and I did 7-8 before we all had to get up and clean manically before visitors arrived. All this after fairly decent naps yesterday...

Practically no naps today, so a nightmare to get down tonight and I suspect another shitty night ahead.

However. Minor successes on the napping in cot front. Have got him to sleep in there for morning naps on both Sat and Sun (admittedly the naps only lasted 20 mins, but it's a start!).

On the techniques front, we're (well, just me really) taking a pretty gentle approach, rocking or whatever until asleep and then putting in the cot. We'll start doing the awake but sleepy thing once he's consistently sleeping in the cot.

Another early start for us...
DS had a bit of an upset stomach yesterday, once I sat down to think about it, which might have accounted for the restlessness.
A bit better last night, though I held him in our bed a lot to make sure he (we) got some sleep. He'd have stayed asleep a bit longer this morning I think but had filled his nappy so I got him changed as I don't want him to get nappy rash. Basically, the last 24 hours are a bit of a write-off because of this stomach thing, but I think he's a little better this morning.

Hi everyone,
moxxie sorry your little one is poorly. Hope all is better today!

lala thanks for the explanations! At least I gave you a laugh with my ridiculous-ness!!

So last night we thought we would try shush/pat without picking up if possible. We went for a walk & sit by lake for the 2hrs before bath time as being out and about means dd stays happy! If at she she gets really tired and grumpy. Got home and did bath, bottle, bed by 7. We were waiting for wake ups to try our new idea bit none came! She woke at 10.30 for a feed (as usual). It did all go a bit wrong after that though - she woke every hour again from 12.30-3 when she was hungry. I fed her & she slept in bed with us until 6.

This is where I need advice... She was wide awake so went to get her dressed & noticed she was yawning, rubbing eyes etc. so I tried to get her back to sleep - massive tantrum so gave up. I put her in her cot with mobile on and went to put some washing away. Anyway, came back & she was still yawning. Managed to get her back to sleep at about 6.50 and she's still asleep now (7.30). She's on me & wakes when I put her down, I need to do jobs now before dp goes to work so I'll have to put her down in cot.

Anyway - do you think this was the right thing to do? Should I have tried to keep her awake? Does this sleep count as still night time it do you think it will mess up naps and tonight's sleep?

Hi zambooloo sorry your night was a bit rubbish. It sounds like you have done the right thing by putting DD back to bed. If she is up for a sleep I say go for it, cos the last thing you want is to get into a cycle of over tiredness. Hopefully things will sort themselves out as the day goes on.

Last night was pretty average for us. DD woke up a couple of times during the footy but we managed to resettle then she woke for feeds at 11pm then 2 am and then I slept with her from 4.30 until she woke at 6.30.

Really want to tackle the having to sleep in with her in the early mornings but not sure how. Also hoping I can get her to be more consistently settled early evening, especially as am going out tomorrow night and don't want to have to come home early!

Despite having good naps during the day, my little cherub decided he would stay up to watch the footy. I took him to bed around 7.15 as he was rubbing his eyes. Fed him, he fell asleep, head hit cot that was it. He cried so hard he made himself sick so we went back downstairs. Fell asleep at 10.30 until 3.30 then awoke briefly at 5.30. Slept until 9 him cuddled up to daddy.
Will try again tonight.

After a lot of procrastination I started today with pupd. First nap took 30 mins, second 15. Each time he slept for around 30 mins and then woke, fed and fell back to sleep. Is this ok for now? I'd rather do nap extension later than worry now.

Reading through to catch up now...

Hurrah we saw a bit of progress last night which makes me think DD is getting over her cold.

She went down in her cot awake ish after her last feed and just took about five mins to settle while I rested my hand on her back. She woke at nine by DH was in charge so left her for five minutes before he was going to go up. She snuffled about a bit and had a bit of a cry then went back to sleep by herself!!!! Hooray.

She then slept until 1am when she woke and just as I walked into her room she began resettling herself again so I had a snooze on the sofa in her room until 2am when she woke again to feed.

She did the usual 4.30 wake as well so I fed her again and managed to get her back in her cot. Then she woke at 6 so we snuggled until 6.30 when DH got her up.

Definite chinks of light here so hoping it continues!

I had a routine review with HV yesterday who thought I really should do some CC as '9 month olds do not need feeding in the night and the habbit needs breaking'. To be fair I had asked for her advice as feel worried about lack of sleep and starting back at work next week. So last night I thought 'right this is it, I will stay strong and not immediatley feed'. Ds went down about 8pm pretty easily. Woke about 9 as heard a short cry over monitor but waited Ds quickly self settled and went back to sleep. Woke again about 11.30pm. Had a cuddle of DH ( I was in bed) not sure how long it took him to go back to sleep, will ask DH this evening. Woke again about 2.30am and nothing would console him. I initially tried to offer dummy, shush pat and walk away. He went ballistic! Carried on in this vain for another hour with me going in every 5 minutes. By this time I was struggling (had a banging headache and all the getting up and down was making it even worse). Tried to sit and cuddle/ rock DS back to sleep in his room but after another 30 mins he was still crying so I gave up and went to get a bottle. Guzzled 8oz and went back to sleep till 8am. Not sure what the plan of attack should be for tonight?

After a late evening yesterday for us all, so he slept pretty well, and the night before he cried so hard he threw up, I'm going to try again tonight.
The HV came yesterday for his 8mth health check and we discussed bf and night feeds. She said it could take two weeks, but find a solution that works for me, be consistent and eventually it will work. I'm going to use the CIO method, while I'm sat there so as not to make him feel abandoned, I hope, and gradually leave the room. Fingers crossed.

Mich hang on in there, hoping tonight is easier for you!

Pupd is working quite well so far. He woke to feed twice last night which is a big improvement. Will focus on night weaning once we get him self soothing. This morning it took 12 mins of pupd and lying him down when he stands up to get him to sleep. Big improvement on yesterday!

Now just need to work out what to do with daycare naps.

So far so good. Actually he fell asleep feeding at 7. I put him down, he woke up. Put dummy in, shushed him, he rolled over and fell asleep immediately. Purely selfish reason, I dream fed him at 9ish, he hadn't fed off one boob enough b4 falling asleep earlier, so I needed to drain it because tonight is the night I'm not feeding him when he wakes. I have bottle of water ready, warned my hubby to find his earplugs and we'll see how it goes. Not well I expect. Perhaps I should've warned the neighbours

Here goes. He's awake. Had to change his nappy as it was really wet. Now laid in cot sucking bottle of water. Not crying, but not happy.
Waiting for the eruption. Playing my tai chi music. Keeping me calm. Used to work for him too when he was tinier.

After 1 1/2 he's finally gone! he drank some water. Didn't really cry too much. Banged his head against the top of his cot a fair bit, (he's a sleep crawler and likes to nestle into the mattress). Every time he started to moan a bit loud I turned up my music. Gradually turning it down as he's settled.
Should be a whizz at scrabble! Thank goodness for smartphones!