Sleep training, help!

[firsttimemum0000]

As much as I'd like to post a really long thread about all my current problems with my 20 week old daughter I'll have to keep it brief as I'm literally in the middle of trying to get her to sleep in her cot during the day. Basically what I'm wondering is how long do I keep at it? It's been an hour so far. I put her down, let her cry for no longer than 5 minutes, go up, pick her up to settle her down, put her down once she's nearly asleep, rinse, repeat. Is there a point that I should give up and get her to sleep in a way that I know works? (in my arms, in the pram or car). Or should I persevere? I have a feeling she could keep this up all afternoon and I'm not sure that's good for her. The problem is that she is waking up every hour all night at the moment and using me as a dummy to get back to sleep. So I'm trying to break that association and let her learn to get herself to sleep. I don't want to let her just cry it out but equally am at my wit's end and cannot keep waking up every hour indefinitely. I'm trying to break the association between nursing and sleeping by not nursing her to sleep at bedtime, or any time, any more and having a few minutes between nursing and sleeping. That's all fine and she goes to bed without too many problems at night. But she's never been a fan of sleeping in the cot during the day. But I figured that if she can settle in it during the day, we've got a much better chance of her settling herself at night so she won't wake me every time she goes through a sleep cycle. She won't take a dummy. I've introduced a comforter but that's very recent so isn't working, yet.

So my question is, how long do I keep this up? Should I give up and get her to sleep in a way I know works or is that just defeating the whole point of the exercise? Please help me!!

I had to do same but I stayed with LO and comforted throughout.

I also did it for first nap of the day because I think folk have said that the urge to sleep is stronger then than the afternoon nap.

With our first attempt it took 45 minutes, then less by afternoon nap that day and less to settle to bed at night. We did it five days straight to make sure it stuck (so we didn't go anywhere for that week). After that we had some pram and car naps allowed.

One thing I found though is that my LO will only nap 30 mins in cot despite repeated attempts to get him to settle longer. He'll do 90 min in pram or car. Frustrating but never mind.

We did see some improvement in sleep but it's gone back at times for various reasons - teething, illness, separation anxiety - and we had to start all over again. Just to warn you!

I reckon an hour probably plenty for both of you - it'll get to the point where baby has so much adrenaline flowing they won't sleep.

Maybe just try again tomorrow.

Good luck

Thanks for your reply. This afternoon was a disaster, I gave up after 1.5 hours and she then slept in my arms for 2 hours solid, an age for her. She'd have gone longer but I had to move to go to the loo and eat. She seemed really quiet and subdued for the rest of the day so I feel awful now. Having read more since, I think 45 minutes is tops really. And I don't think I was doing the pick up put down thing right. The whole thing was a huge trauma. I like the idea of trying it for first nap of the day, that is the one she sleeps best for and we're almost always still in then. I'm wary of making the cot a bad place for her though as she always goes down easily at bedtime, even though she does wake up 2-3 hours later then every hour for the rest of the night! I just convinced myself that getting her to settle herself to nap there in the day would help with the night wakings, which seems logical but when are babies ever bloody logical?!

I've stopped nursing her to sleep now, especially at bedtime and am trying the pantley pull off method. Though that made her scream just now, starting to panic in my sleep deprived state that she's traumatised by this afternoon's cock up.

Daddy put her down after the last feed tonight and I'm giving her a comforter when I feed her and when she sleeps, hoping to build up an association to that instead of my boobs!

Think I'm babbling, I'm just so desperate to sleep for more than an hour at a time. My stupid fucking periods have just come back too so to say I'm ratty is an understatement!

I feel your pain! We were on half hourly wake ups last night until I gave up and brought him in bed. Co-sleeping has saved my sanity but probably made things worse in long run, maybe, who knows!

I agree with your logic, cot napping by day definitely helped things for a while for us, not working now though for some reason.

It will get better - doesnt it just have to?!?

Hey,
I feel I should write a book about trying to get LOs to sleep in cots. I spent MONTHS stressing about it, all the while she was napping really well in her pram. I wish now I had left it and let her sleep in the pram, and not even tried to cot nap her, because at 9 months, she was hot the other day so I put her in her cot to sleep instead of buggy, thinking it would never work but was worried about her sweating in the buggy. She went to sleep in the cot and has napped there ever since! I would stick to what works. It doesn't matter where they nap as long as they nap well, and it will all change as they get older. Please don't worry :o)))))

I kind of second what Clare said.

It sounds like you're making this all hard work. 4 months is tiny and you could just feed to sleep for naps or take for a walk and relax.

Frequent waking is very common at this age and is thought to be a developmental thing as they learn to do new stuff

I also gave up and did bits of co sleeping. DS does go to sleep in his own bed now. :)

Babies will learn to go to sleep on their own eventually, it's not compulsory to try and teach them, despite what a lot of books say.

It is rubbish at night, but it will get better, honest!

Thanks, I agree with you and am starting to think getting her to sleep in her cot in the day is never going to happen. Tried again this morning using shush pat. It didn't work at all and I had to give up after just 10 minutes as she was getting really worked up. It seemed like it was just pissing her off. She's so good at going down in her cot at bedtime that I don't want to make it a battle ground or traumatise her against it. I wonder if she's kind of thinking, well this is where I sleep at night, not during the day mum! The only reason I was trying to do it is that she is waking up so often at night and I really can't handle it any more. I'm so tired that my right eye is twitching, I keep going dizzy and am starting to feel quite low with it all. I was hoping that if she could settle herself in her cot in the day she'd be better at self settling when she wakes up at night. That's the theory. There's a lot of theories about babies and sleep aren't there?!!

Tbh I'm considering putting her in her own room in the next couple of weeks or so. She was due to go there at 6 months anyway so bringing it forward a month or so doesn't seem so bad. Part of the problem at night is that I wake up as soon as she stirs and though I try not to, I tend to just put her on boob quite quickly as I know it's the quickest way to get her, and therefore me, back to sleep. And I don't even have to get up to do it! I think if she weren't right there next to me I wouldn't wake up as readily and she'd have more of a chance to settle herself. Though it would be a pain going through to her room to feed her I'm hoping that would be down to once or twice a night which would be a big improvement on what's happening now. I also wonder if I'm waking her up in my sleep, either by moving around or whatever and also with her "mummy radar" ?!

It can't happen straight away anyway as her room isn't ready yet, need to put blackout curtains up and swap the spare bed for her cot, decorate etc. How old were your little ones when you put them in their own room?

We did it at 26 weeks and she slept better immediately! They can hear us moving around and as you say, you can hear every move they make! I didn't feel comfortable doing it sooner personally, but guaranteed it will make a difference to both of you whenever you decide to do it and it DOES get easier :o)

There is a big developmental leap at around 20 weeks which really disrupts sleep (have a look at the Wonder Weeks). Would just do anything to get the sleep rather than sleep training at the moment.

I'd also not train during the sleep regression/leap they have going on at this age. Sleep by whatever means unless they have previously self settled fine!

They so grow out of it eventually and pram to sleep during the day really isn't the end of the world.

You sound well read! I did something similar with ds, thinking about sleep cycles and the ability to settle himself. What kind of cry is it, maybe a self sooth anyway? google 'Mantra cry' there is an example of one on you tube.