Advice please on Contented Little Baby routine

[susanAM]

I put my 5 week old breastfed baby daughter on this routine at 3 weeks because it made a lot of sense. She took to it very well.
At first I found it hard to get used to waking her at the end of naps ( she was always still asleep at the end of the suggested times) and at 10.30 pm - it went against the grain for me to do this but as I understood the theory I did it and it worked very well, until about two days ago, since when during her daytime naps despite being well fed, changed, in a dark room, correct number of blankets, swaddled etc. she does not sleep, but cries off and on, sometimes for the whole "nap".She will cry for minute, then be quiet for a minute or so, then cry again and so it goes on.
What do you advise me to do?
She feeds well and stays awake between naps. She adheres to the routine at nights. This morning she woke at 7 o'clock on the dot and I falsely thought we had cracked it!
So far I have stuck firm to the times suggested, and have not gone in for a peek or to pick her up.

That means for the last two days she has not really slept at all during the noon- 2pm period. Yesterday morning she did not sleep at her morning nap either.
Last night was the worst. Having barely slept all day I put her in bed at 7 pm and she cried on and off till 9pm till the crying got much worse. I went in to see her, she was lying in a cold and wet pool of sick.You can imagine how terrible I felt. I cuddled and fed her for half an hour( she fell asleep at the breast) and she slept till 2.30, fed for 20 mins and has now gone back to sleep.
I am completely okay about being firm in the early days if it is for the greater good for the baby but we all have our limits and I really don't think it is okay to let a baby cry as much as I have done over the past few days.
Please advise and let me know if this is a phase which is to be expected.

Glad things are improving for you susanAM. Taking Bossykate's sensible advice re Gina Ford routines, plus all the messages about following your instincts, I feel there's a 'contented little baby book (amended)' waiting to be written. Pupuce - a new job for you?

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I have to say Bloss I always respect your views on GF. I have always made it known that I have never read the books and wouldnt as routines are not the way I want to go with my baby. You followed her book because you thought it would suit your ds not because it fell into your lifestyle or that your friend is following it. It does seem that some followers do force their children into the routines no matter what but you seem to use them where possible but also go with the flow.

fp-thought you'd had a ritual burning of the CLBB, or was that someone else?

It was me - I read it when my dd (now 2) was small so knew what I was doing!!!!!

Tigermoth - very funny.... Someone else suggested that recently. I'd get Bloss and Bossykate to help though

SusanAM - glad things you clarified things... hope you continue to find Mumsnet useful. Is your DD better now ?

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I was looking for it too ????

Just a quick addition: GF doesn't recommend letting babies - especially not ones that young, cry for more than a few minutes at a time. Also SusanAM - it's great that you want to breast feed as much as possible. However, I can't recommend GF's idea of expressing and giving 1 bottle a day at around 6 weeks enough. It'll give you a lovely rest a 10.30pm, while partner does it, hopefully? Also - only this week I've spoken to at least 3 bf mums (2 of them clb ones) who stopped giving the expressed bottle through laziness, going on holiday etc. Now, all 3 of them, have babies between 4 and 6 months who are refusing a bottle at all - just when some of them might like to drop the bf. I think the thing is, just one bottle a day, expressed or formula, but make sure it's EVERY day to minimise the risks of refusing a bottle later.

I don't think her website is up and running. I don't have the URL and when I did a search I could not find it.
GF was also suppose to start a support network. No idea if it has happened. I had contacted them and they were suppose to get in touch with me... they didn't - their loss

I have the same experience as Manna - 1 bottle a day (from 4 weeks onwards at 2230) guaranteed my son never refused it later. DD didn't have 1 a day (as I became lazy) and it was very difficult to get her to take it at 5 months. She did take it eventually as DH is persistent !!!

Pupuce, GF put the support network on hold towards the end of last year, but was supposed to be getting together a list of interested people and circulating it. The reason given by her people for not getting the group off the ground was that GF was tired & ill! However, have just noticed on Amazon that she has two new books out!!! Is she really that concerned about the parents following her routines? I don't think so! To be honest I find mumsnet the best support network for GF mums and for all other aspects of parenthood.

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Hi Bloss... Guess who
First of all most parents that I kow who use the CLBB say their kids did 2230 to 7 at 9 weeks (so did DS but DD was - lucky me at 6)... so much earlier than 9 weeks is IME not that common.
That feed usually stops just like that to the point that most parents will tell you that when they woke at 630.... they ran to see if baby was still alive !! It is not always the case and some babies go slowly from 330 to 430 to 530. I would not (personnally) try to increase the 2230 feed. It will be the next one to drop anyway. I would continue as you are for another week or so - maybe giving her 1 oz of water before the breast at 330.
How much sleep is she getting during the day ?
I know you know GF's stuff really well but I find an extra pair of un-involved eyes always useful

Amymum, yes she was ill last year... I know what you mean bout the books but they are updated versions not brand new titles (at least from what I have seen)...

Hope you don't mind an interjection on this thread but it seems like a good place to put this.
Had the unexpected experience of defending Gf at a "sleep talk" sponsored by cow and gate at our health centre.
Chap gave talk, helped by HV, lots of stuff about not setting up associations with sleep and rocking, feeding etc. followed by Q&A session - babies who would only sleep if held etc...
As people were leaving the HV produced a copy of CLB with the express purpose of making fun of it, which struck me as odd because what ever you think of the book it attempts to address/ preempt the problems we had spent an hour discussing with Mr cow and gate .
She read out bits of a routine, laughing at suggestions the mother should ensure a good breakfast by 8 am. I kept quiet..I did not particualrly want to be a spokeswoman for GF or any one else !Then she said the book was aimed at people with nannies, was very "county set" whatever that means, and it was americanised as GF is Canadian ( is this true? Thought she was British )
STILL I kept my mouth shut....then she said "Basically it is the same as what we were taught 50 years ago, the baby is on a four hourly routine , fed for ten minutes, swaddled and placed in his cot and left to cry till the four hours are up and it's time for another ten minute feed".
I could NOT keep quiet at this point! It was such a blatant misrepresentation of the book, which she claimed to have read! GF expressly criticises the old four hourly routine.
Incidentally I really like my HV but I thought it very interesting that she had preconceived ideas about what the book was about, and was prepared to pass them on to her patients .
We had a bit of an exchange, perfectly friendly ( I think!) and I said I knew several people who had followed the routines and found them very helpful. Two of the four mums present then admitted they too had read the book and found it helpful!

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Bloss,
Read the thread on Gina Mums - How to get baby to sleep thru' nite. I was in exact same boat as you when ds was about 9 weeks. Kept waking at nite to feed, then would lose interest in 7am. I got lots of good advice on how to tell if its habit or real hunger, how to break the habit, how to restructure the feeds. It took me I think at least a week of water/pacifiers & comforting to stop him waking & to take more during the day. Not easy. As sometimes it meant waking at 3.30am, then ds goes back to sleep but wakes again at 5.30 am.
Pupuce is right about not increasing 10.30pm feed. I found that increasing this feed did not help ds sleep longer, he still kept waking.

Jasper- I can NOT believe she has read that book.... that one who has read the book doesn't think it would be right for them : absolutely fine... but then to start blatently missquoting !!!! I would have gone crazy : very good restraint on your part I must admit.
Also I think it is unprofessional behaviour as she was then criticizing several mothers (probably some first time mums) who REALLY don't need to be told that they are doing this wrong. This reminds me of a discussion we had a few months ago about mothers using GF and feeling guilty about it because of some of the missconceptions, abuse and alike from those who have no respect for others' choices.

My own HV is no big fan of routines but she readily admits to still not having read the book but every time we talk about it, we always end up agreeing and she is always surprised when I tell her : that's exactly what GF says in her book.

Anyway I am pretty sure GF is from the North East. Not Canadian (she may have been born there but if she has lived all her life here.... she is pretty British to me). And my SIL (Canadian) uses CLBB - gift from me - and this is not something readily available over there.

Gina Ford is Scottish.

I am off to a bf support group at the health cente..not been before...run by same HV. Wonder if last week's discussion will be mentioned!
With all my bf problems I was very touched she suggested i might be of help to some of the younger mums...wait a minute...was there an insult concealed in that?

I too read the CLB book and tried to follow it briefly, but it caused so much crying that I had to abandon it completely. My baby just would like in his cot for 'naps' sobbing for ages. Also, he was sleeping from 7ish until 2am and then waking at 5am and then 7ish again - so early on I thought I'd do the Gina thing and give him a feed at 10.30/11pm to get him to go longer. He promptly 'added' a regular 11pm waking to the 2am and 5am wakings, which really wasn't what we'd intended. Even at 7months he still wakes up at that time. I'm sure Gina Ford is a perfectly nice person (someone who I trust who met her said she is lovely and gentle & Scottish (!) and very fond of babies) but her routine just didn't work for me. And her case histories in the book are chock-full of babies crying for hours, which isn't something I personally can cope with. If it works great, but I do suspect that some people who follow her routines are just blessed with easy, sleepy babies who wouldn't have given much trouble anyway. I know lots of people with one 'easy' baby and one non-sleeper, despite doing the same things with both.

That's pretty much my view of GF, too, Wells1. Two of my children would have been perfect 'Gina' babies, while the others - no chance!

I think HP's are concerned about CLBB because, as discussed elsewhere on Mumsnet, the routines are not breastfeeding friendly for many mothers. There is a long thread somewhere about that aspect.

Wells1- I know what you are saying but Bloss and I both had VERY difficult babies, that's why we used GF (didn't know what else to do....all else had failed!)... and they fell into the routine fairly easily but both of us had the experience without the routine of babies crying all the time. With GF routines they cried FAR less. DD who is by all account an amazingly easy baby is also on a relaxed version of GF (see once you have done it, you know how it works and a lot of what you have read from GF is engrained! even if you don't open the book you do the routine)