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Sleep

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Original poster

Surprising result - thought I'd share.

22 replies

MoelFammau · 02/09/2012 03:59

Hello

Just thought I'd share this with you, as it sort of surprised me.

My DD (16mo) has only slept through twice in her life, and has never ever fallen asleep without breastfeeding herself into unconsciousness. It's getting harder and harder to feed her to sleep as she jerks awake the minute the nipple in removed.

Tonight I thought I'd try a tactic. The first part of bedtime was the same - DH washed her and cleaned her teeth, then I fed her. She refused to drop off though and something just flipped in me and I thought I'd just put her in the cot and try to teach her to fall asleep. In the past (inc last night) she'd scream the second I put her in, but tonight she didn't mind. So I gave her a couple of beanies (bunny and beaver) that were lying around, picked up a book and read out a story in a very boring voice.

After book one, she'd stopped standing up in the cot and was slumped in a sitting position against the bars. By book 3, she was lying down trying out sleep positions.

After book 4, she'd struggled back to standing and wanted cuddles. I refused to take her out and instead hugged her in the cot. She screamed for a few seconds, then I managed to distract her by putting bunny and beaver to bed. 'Look, isn't it comfy for them, all snuggled up... etc etc'. She watched then started stroking them (she'd NEVER cared 2 hoots about cuddly toys before this).

I started on book 5 with her sitting stroking bunny and beaver, then she started drooping. I lay her down. She protested and sat up. I read book 6. She slumped again and I put her down again. She stayed down this time and just drifted off. It took 90 minutes, 6 books and two cuddly animals but it worked.

It wasn't a fraught bedtime, it seemed to just play out as a long, peaceful negotiation for the most part. I was really relaxed doing it and she was too for the most part.

Not sure if it'll work tomorrow but hoping it will (preferably with only 5 books!).

Just thought I'd share that. Wasn't a planned event, I just went with the flow and something seemed to click.

:-)

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

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fhdl34 · 02/09/2012 07:21

Marking place to see how you progress with, 8 month old DD feeds to sleep which I'm happy to continue with until it stops working but looking for replacement methods for later on

Lush17 · 02/09/2012 07:31

Hope it works for you tonight as well. It's good to read your post and get tips, our daughter is 8 weeks old so am not worried at the moment, but I have to feed her until she falls asleep or she just cries and when she is asleep we can not put her down into her cot until a good half hour later or she wakes up. She may grow out of it but at the moment am enjoying all the cuddles

firstbabyhelp · 02/09/2012 08:00

Well done, it's good to read about techniques that don't involve controlled crying to help your baby fall asleep. My DS is 3 months and fed to sleep every night, I don't really mind but would ultimately like to address this so that DH can put him to bed sometimes. Really not keen to ever go down the CC route so it's good to hear about other techniques. Everything I read says to put him down awake but sleepy then shush, pat etc but any time I have tried he has been immediately outraged!

Original poster

MoelFammau · 02/09/2012 16:22

That's the thing, FirstBabyHelp. All advice says pat, shush etc. It really winds up DD no end and it escalates into a screaming fit that seems all at odds with sleepy time vibes!

For the record, last night DD woke once at 3am, I fed her and put her back in the cot. She fell asleep and stayed asleep until 7am. Not bad. Recently she's been waking every 2 or 3 hours at night.

I too like the feeding to sleep thing, as you all say, cuddles are a nice thing. I just feel that now at 16mo, she needs to learn how to drop off without boobs. And feeding to sleep isn't really working now, to be honest. She jerks awake the minute her head touches the pillow and it can take ages. She had bad silent reflux as a baby and is only just growing out of it, so bedtime has always been a nasty time for her.

Wondering if it'll work tonight....! Not sure what I'll call my 'plan'. Boring the Kid Into Unconsciousness, maybe.

OP posts:

monkeyblonde · 02/09/2012 18:10

Can't wait to hear how tonight goes!

1andAhalfWines · 02/09/2012 20:38

How did this go? Are you still up there on book number 9? Hope it works x

NightLark · 02/09/2012 20:44

ooh, reading with interest as 14 month old DD2 is currently asleep in her own bed (removed cot sides, created cotbed for easier insertion of child).

This compares to 14 months of sleeping with me, and about 6 months of poor DH trying to sleep wherever he can due to enormous baby taking up half the bed.

Enough is enough. And she is DC3 - I have always had terrible, terrible sleepers and have just thrown in the towel on early sleep training...

How many stories can you get it down to?

Original poster

MoelFammau · 02/09/2012 21:02

Ah, not tried yet - we're in the USA so it's only 4pm here. Will be trying in 3 hours and will post the result. Bet I've sabotaged this by talking about it on Mumsnet. It'll all go horribly wrong!

OP posts:

UmmOfUmbridge · 02/09/2012 22:09

Marking place as am trying to get co-sleeping 16 m old to go into a cot but I'm not willing to go down the cc route.

Original poster

MoelFammau · 03/09/2012 02:01

Night no. 2.

Time from start to asleep: 58 minutes.
Books read: 4
Time spent crying: Probably 30 seconds (the last 30 seconds before crashing)

Seems to be an improvement on last night by a third in both time and books. Time crying was about the same.

I must be one hell of a boring narrator :-)

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kleeen · 03/09/2012 02:30

wow! parallel worlds! this is very interesting as we have just started trying the gradual withdrawal method from the Andrea Grace book. I was convinced DS (10 months)would scream the house down, as he has in the past, when we
put him in his cot. But tonight he cried for about 2 minutes while I hugged him in his cot, then started quietly and slowly reciting his 2 favorite books (goodnight moon and the tiger who came to tea) and lay him down with a teddy who he previously wasnt that interested in. He flopped around in the cot, tried to get comfy, chatted with teddy and listened as I read the books. It took 45 minutes total, and was also a very painless process. Of course he woke up an hour later, but I simply lay him back down and recited goodnight moon, and he was out in under 4 minutes. no crying.

Now I'm just hoping he doesn't wake every hour as he does when we cosleep! mama needs a good nights rest!

Keep us posted on how things progress. Oh, and we are in NYC, where are you?

IvanaNap · 03/09/2012 02:45

Marking (sleepy) place.

golemmings · 03/09/2012 02:50

Watching with interest. DS is nearly 11mo (also had silent reflux) and I'm determined that by the end of September (when I go back to work) he will be better at going to sleep.

We did get it down to only 40 minutes of screaming at bed time and sleeping 7-4 but we had a succcession of visitors and camping trips and it seemed unreasonable to inflict his screaming on everyone else so went back to feeding to sleep.

Original poster

MoelFammau · 03/09/2012 03:25

I'm in New Hampshire at the moment but going home to Glasgow next week.

Whatever I achieve this week will be undermined by a 5hr jet lag on Friday

Must stock up on some more interesting books on my return!

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kleeen · 03/09/2012 11:01

okaaaay, so, throughout the night he was mostly quite easy to get back down. but he woke up at least every hour! sometimes 3 times an hour! it would only take one of us to go in and lay him back down, but how on earth do we cut down these frequent wakings? we are all so tired!

abadoo · 03/09/2012 13:52

Marking a (sleepy) place. If it helps my 7 mth DS, I'll happily give it a go. He's occasionally refusing to feed to sleep.

Original poster

MoelFammau · 03/09/2012 14:42

Well, DD woke briefly at 12.30am and 5am for a feed but actually I was expecting this because she'd not drunk much at all yesterday (too much going on to distract her).

Night 3 will be interesting. Going to buy some better books or I'll be stuck droning out Yankee magazine.

Not sure what to suggest, Kleen. DD went through a lousy stage of waking every 20 minutes bit she sorted herself out within a week or two (VERY long week or so, though!). She was about 10-11 months too - it coincided with her having achieved crawling and starting work on the walking. Is anything big going on with your DS, developmentally?

OP posts:

Original poster

MoelFammau · 04/09/2012 01:03

Night 3 not so successful. She had tummy ache and wouldn't settle, though she did try. Had to lift her out and administer Calpol then rock her to sleep, which worked very fast.

Heigh ho. Hoping to be back on track tomorrow!

OP posts:

Original poster

MoelFammau · 05/09/2012 01:20

World record - 10 minutes and half a book.

So far she's been asleep for over 2 hours....

OP posts:

Original poster

MoelFammau · 06/09/2012 01:54

4th night:

3.5 books and 30 minutes.

Is this a fluke or is it working...?

OP posts:

fridakahlo · 06/09/2012 02:04

Fingers crossed for you, wish that this had occured to me with mine, currently have a three year old boy rolling around on the bed, wide awake and pretending to try on my bra.

COCKadoodledooo · 06/09/2012 04:05

Dh did similar with ds1, I would feed him then dh would read the stories (tried me reading but clearly dh has a more monotonous voice!). Dh still hates the Mr Men 7 years later

Glad you've found something that works, fingers crossed it continues to. It's really grim when they won't sleep.

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