We met Andrea Grace - here is the aftermath

[lucidlady]

I've posted several times about my 10 month old DD's appalling night time sleep habits. She woke up roughly every 90 minutes during the night and the only way I could get her back to sleep would be to feed her. She also used to end up in our bed every night as well, and I would then be wide awake from about 3am onwards. I'm back at work FT and the sleep deprivation has been absolute murder.

In desperation, I have read just about every sleep book there is on the market. Controlled crying is not an approach that I am comfortable with, I just cannot stand leaving DD to cry hysterically. It makes my boobs ache and my heart weep. Yes I am a wimp.

Andrea Grace is one of the only books I've read that doesn't immediately promote controlled crying as the only solution. I also read the No Cry Sleep Solution but I have the attention span of a sleep deprived gnat, and I couldn't seem to figure out what I actually had to do. After one particularly awful night where DD screamed from 1am - 5am I announced to DH that I was going to go and see Andrea Grace.

She asks you to keep a sleep diary and send this to her before the appointment. I have been tracking DD's sleep since she was days old so I was able to send her way too much sleep data. DD and I went to see her last week, and in a nutshell, this is what she told us to do:

1. Re-affirm the bedtime routine.
   
2. Cut the nighttime breastfeeds.
   
3. Do not take DD out of her cot into our bed.
   

All sounds great doesn't it? I was more interested in HOW exactly she thought I would achieve this. She said that I should push the bedtime routine back - I was giving the bath far too early. Also, I was to stop DD falling asleep on the boob. Andrea suggested waking her up to read her a story if this happened - the same story needs to be read every night. And then once DD has had her milk and her story, put the light out, say sleepy time (or similar) and pop her in the cot. Once this happens, I am to sit near DD, cuddling and stroking while she is in the cot is allowed but I cannot take her out of the cot again unless she is sick etc. If she wakes in the night, I am to cuddle or stroke her but not lift her out.

Night 1: DD took an hour to settle down to sleep at 8pm. Woke 45 mins later, just needed a quick pat and went back over. Woke again at 1.30am, took an hour to settle back to sleep then slept til 6.40am.

Night 2: Took 22 mins to settle down at 8pm, slept til 2.30am. 20 mins to go to sleep then slept til 3.38am. More or less awake and screaming until 5.09am then slept until woken up at 8.35am.

Night 3 (also known as the worst night of my life): Took an hour to settle from 7.45pm. Woke up at 10.10pm, back over at 10.25 and slept til 2.05am. Absolute hysterics. Back down at 3.10 then awake every hour from 4am onwards for up to 15 mins.

Night 4: An hour to settle from 8pm. Slept until 2am. Back over at 2.07am and then slept until 6.45am...

No doubt I have now jinxed everything but I am feeling much more positive today. I'll update again in a few days.

[PineappleBed]

Oh lucid what do you do about naps? Dd currently has a nap with the same milk then cuddle till asleep thing and if you don't put her down for a nap then she doesn't spontaneously fall asleep ever, she can stay awake all day. Do you just do the same milk, put in cot awake comfort etc until she falls asleep for a nap?

Sorry for all the questions, I think I've decided you're the Oracle!

[lucidlady]

pineapple I wish! I'm just muddling along too. With naps, I can only get DD to nap in the pram. The childminder can get her to go to sleep in a cot but I've never managed it. She has 2 naps a day with me, first one is 90 minutes after waking and the second is about 3 hours after waking from the first. She usually naps for 2.5 hours in total.. When she's with her childminder she will take one long nap about 5-6 hours after waking up, and this nap averages out around 2 hours.

I was talking to Andrea today and she said lets fix the nighttime sleep and then the daytime sleep should sort itself out. The main problem we seem to have is working out the best nap/bedtime timeslots. I cannot seem to figure out when DD is tired enough to sleep.

DH has just wandered in and told me that I need to push bedtime back and be more engaged with DD when she's in the cot, ie lie there with my hand in the cot while she falls asleep! Have just had minor hissy fit and told him to eff off - when he manages to get her to sleep without calling me in to take over THEN he can lecture me!!! Muppet

Good luck tonight everyone - DD has just gone over 5.5 hours after last nap. I'm sure she does this deliberately, lets me think I've cracked it then
moves the goalposts

[pookypup]

Thanks for the posts Lucid, it's reassuring to read. We have had a shocker tonight - 1 hr 30 of crying, he got so hot that I lifted him out to take off sleeping bag earlier. I've just caved in and have let him fall asleep on the boob.

Hopefully we can pick up again tomorrow night when he's not teething so badly! I'm also feeling guilty as it was my first day back at work.

[lucidlady]

pookypup that must have been so hard for you especially after the back to work trauma!! Be gentle with yourselves, you've got a lot going on.

Another 4am screaming wake-up but this time I understand why - I've got a raging sore throat and sore ears, which is what i think she has, and I feel like screaming too. Poor poppet. DH overruled me this morning and insisted on bringing her into our bed for cuddles. I've left the two of them snoring away...

How did everyone else's nights go?

[pookypup]

Ah thanks Lucid.

Ds ended up in our bed from 4.30 after 4 wakings. He slept like a log next to me and has just woken up. I now need to get ready for work in 30mins. Eeek!

[abadoo]

What's the longest anyone's DS/DD has cried for in the cot whilst you were comforting them to sleep?

I tried this once and gave up after an hour (he was 6mo at the time) .

[lucidlady]

pooky that is so typical isn't it. As soon as their head hits your pillow they're out for the count. Hope you weren't too shattered at work today.

abadoo DD's record was 2 hours and 15 minutes a few days ago. It was insane. But...

Tonight I pushed bedtime back to 8pm (I normally put her down about 7ish) as I'd realised that 8pm is when she normally crashed out after much singing/shouting/raspberry blowing etc. FIFTEEN MINUTES later she is out cold!!!

This is where my sleep diary has come so in handy! Woohoo! Now she just needs to stay asleep until 7am and I will be one happy mummy

If you don't do sleep diaries you should start - I think I may finally be starting to crack this....!

[pookypup]

Very interesting Lucid, look forwards to seeing how tonight goes for you. I'll look over my diary in the morning

DS went after an hour tonight, mostly crying fussing. My Mum was visiting and took over for the last 10 mins and managed it. Dh usually works late and it was so good to have help. No stirring yet, but it's still early.

[peggyblackett]

Wow - this works! We are on day 4 and dd2 (coming up for 8 months) slept through .

She was mad as a snake on the first night, for about 20 mins, but we have found it relatively easy once we stuck to the 'no BF at night' rule.

Thanks for posting this lucid. This post, along with chatting to one of DH's colleagues wives who'd used someone to help her with sleep training, has given me the push to try and sort it out. I've been running on empty for quite a while now, so fingers crossed things start to improve. I have to go back to work in a couple of weeks time, so I need things to improve :)!

[peggyblackett]

Hope you had a better night pooky

[pookypup]

Thanks Peggy. One waking but it was for 2hrs! How did everyone else get on?

[lucidlady]

Morning all!

peggy that is awesome! You must feel fantastic today! Or did you keep going in to check she was ok?! I think once you have that first night of sleeping through, it gives you the strength to keep going doesn't it?

pooky that sounds much better than it normally is for you - how did you get him back over?

DD gets a gold star this morning - she slept from 8.15pm last night to 6.40am this morning! I'm so pleased, especially since she has a horrible cold and before we started this, she would have woken up every hour complaining and dripping snot. I do still think 8pm is a bit late for a 10 month old, but I have been told that when she starts dropping naps during the day she will sleep more at night. She's currently averaging 12-13 hours of sleep a day, of which 10ish are at night, and the remaining 2-3 during the day. Eventually she will get to a 12 hour night time sleep apparently. Bring it on!!

[ItsaTIARA]

Really interesting thread. Good luck everyone.

What's interesting is that Andrea (who I haven't read) prescribes the same scheme I came up with after reading Dr Richard (Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems) Ferber and ditching his CC section.

1. Put them in their cot, alone, awake, after a soothing bedtime routine. Reassure and be there for them but do not pick them up.
   
   
2. Do not feed them in the night (except water)
   
   
3. Do not take them into your bed unless they are ill (or have bona fide nightmare with toddlers)
   
   
4. That's it.
   
   That really is enough to get the vast majority of children with no special needs to sleep through.
   
   I know Andrea says don't pick them up at night, and she has a point but actually I did, and it didn't seem to do mine any harm - in the middle of the night it's all about comforting, calming and minimising noise for me. IMO it's the habit of eating that wakes them up. Just like an office worker who has a mars bar at 11am every day will be starving and grumpy for a couple of days if they give it up. I don't think you would wake out of a habit of cuddles in the same way. Ferber's other analogy is that a baby who falls asleep on the boob and is then put in a cot is like an adult who's gone to sleep in bed and later turns over, semi-rouses and realises that SOME MANIAC HAS MOVED THEM INTO THE BATH! They are understandably unsettled by this.
   
   The other key is understanding the difference between cross crying and distraught crying and responding accordingly.

[lucidlady]

very good points itsatiara. Often the most effective sleep solution is the simplest one isn't it! To be fair to Andrea she said to me earlier this week that if DD is absolutely distraught and distressed then of course I should comfort her and pick her up - which is exactly what we had done on Monday morning and Tuesday morning. I'd been panicking afterwards that I'd ruined the progress we'd made but she told me not to be so silly, DD is the important person here and if she is distressed she needs to be comforted.

My daughter is quite a shouty child, she generally gets annoyed rather than distressed, which is why I don't tend to lift her out.

How is your DC sleeping now, has this been a long term solution for you?

A few of my friends have done CC, and they always end up having to repeat the training every few months so I was wondering if this would also need regular refreshers or if this is a more long term solution.

[bigkidsdidit]

everyone is doing so well!

the advice from all sources is so similar I am thinking of setting myself up as an expert and just repeating it all

it works though so who cares!

[Bartusmaeus]

Thanks for starting this thread lucid

My copy of Andreas book arrived yesterday and I started reading it in the train today. A first I was kinda "yeah yeah" as it was a bit guilt-inducing with the whole "babies need sleep" (I know! I'm trying!) but then I read a case-study which is almost exactly like my DS.

We've a late Drs appointment today so that'll throw everything out so we're going to start tomorrow.

Excellent tip about the sleep diary, will do that as my brain is so sleep-deprived that I often can't remember what I did in the night. Just that I got up far too many times

Going back to your point about the bedtime lucid Ds is 11 months and goes to sleep between 8pm and 8.30pm. Even if we try to do it any earlier, he just takes longer to go to sleep!

I'm in France and I don't know any baby (except a couple who have British mums) who goes to bed before 8pm. It seems to be the standard time here as no-one gets home before 7pm at the earliest. And they all apparently sleep through

[PineappleBed]

So started last night. Took 2 hours for her to go to sleep but little crying. Then up for 1 hour 20 mins of crying at midnight, then through to 7.45!!

Crying was horrendous! And I was awake till 3am feeling sad and sure she was about to reawaken.

This morning she was her normal happy self and had had 2 bottles of milk today - Hooray - and a normal pooh so I think having milk during the day (rather than refusing milk in daylight as she's drunk it all in the night) is helping her bowels as I'd hoped.

Sorry poss TMI

[ItsaTIARA]

My DCs are much older now OP, but yes, essentially they slept through from 10 months (they were never particularly bad sleepers to be fair - very poor nappers, but at the better end of the nighttime sleep spectrum).

We had the Great Stay In Your Bed at Bedtime wars of 2005-6, but we didn't have to repeat sleep training as we're talking about it now.

Mind you I stopped bf shortly after, so the temptation to feed a teething/poorly/nightmare ridden toddler wasn't there - we just cuddled and bed shared. I assume that if you're still bf during the day then you would naturally give night feeds in that situation which might be tougher.

[pommedechocolat]

Since reading this thread I have been refusing to bf dd2 to sleep or lift her out of cot. Naptimes take 15 mins ish - bedtimes a lot longer - until tonight! In bed with comforter, dummy and me singing and 5 mins later - gone! I'm sure she'll wake up all night now but at least at the moment it seems like magic!

[chollockbops]

Can I join the club?? Just starting this tonight and am mildly terrified! Screaming about to start in 3-2-1... :(

[RillaBlythe]

So when I start this tomorrow should I do the same for naps? I boob her to nap in about 10mins & her naps are good, happy to continue like that tbh but don't want to do mixed messages...

[pookypup]

Well done pomme and pineapple! That sounds great, 5 mins is stunning. How many nights have you been doing it for?

We were better tonight - 40 mins to go down.

[abadoo]

Bartusmaeus - the only time I tried keeping my DS in his cot and cuddling him over the cot bars, singing etc to him he screamed for an hour before I gave up. It was a month back though and we've been working at improving him going down since them, so I'm hoping it was a one off... Last night I successfully kept him in his cot by shushing him back to sleep/singing/rocking in his cot (am hoping to gradually withdraw).

[abadoo]

Lucid - 2hr 15!! Ok, so next time I shall try not to crack. Am starting a diary (have been doing them intermittently but I am interested to see if he crashes out at the same time every night...). Thanks

[GEM33]

Ive read every post eagerly. I feel on the same wave length as drcrab. I also had the same questions as pineapple.

In order to try and get dd to self settle to sleep at night, I tried the stay in the room method after paying 50 quid for that american womans sleep sense programme when my dd was about 5.5months old (now hitting 9 months in a few days). even though me and dh took it in turns to sit by her bed giving the odd pat or ssh /hold her hand she cried in an extremely distressed way for 2.5 hours, then sobbed in her sleep for an hour, she did this on 3 nights running. the crying was despite the odd cuddle, reassuring all we could without too much interefering etc as recommended in the programme. After the 3rd night, i had a break down and told dh i couldnt follow through with this what seemed like torture. we stopped and went back to feeding to sleep and feeding every 45-60 minutes through the night, all night from 8-7am.

I feel like a failure. dd has started walking and crawling at the same time now and she seems even more tired and truly needs 12 hours but she just doesnt get it. her sleep is worse than ever and started holding on to my nipple into her sleep as a proper dummy. i cant seem to unlatch her until she is in deep sleep. Some days i cant cope with anything.

sleep deprivation is slowly eating me up and i feel like my life has come to a standstill.

i really really want to try this lucid. ive got sooo much admiration for you for doing this. (and everyone else on here). I am absolutely terrified of starting this though. dd proper falls apart in tears when i try to get her self settle recently. i realise that if i started this, i'd have to follow through all the way through the night. no feeds. i just dont feel strong enough. i've been losing it the last couple of weeks and have shouted a couple of times and broken down in tears when dd wakes and even boob wont get her back to sleep.

like pinepapple says, my dd has started crawling round the cot and pushing buttons on the mobile and literally climbing the walls etc, i can cope with this but the crying no. so i take it from what you say, when they get beyond, you can pick them up and cuddle for comfort but then put back to bed?
i live too far away for andrea grace and theres no way i could afford any sleep expert until im back at work and earning again.

if any of you who have already posted have bothered to read this lengthy post, do you think i should try this? do you think it would be too torturous for my dd? she is very very wilfull and very hard to get to sleep and loves her boob so much. i wonder if we could actually make any difference with this. im so scared of doing her any emotional damage. im getting to the end of my tether though. and work is looming in dec.

if there are others on here whose babies have cried longer than 2 hours how long did it take to get less crying? lucid, i know you ve had a rough time but your dd sounds like an angel compared to mine. ive just got so much admiration for you though.