Has anyone successfully done Jay Gordon's Night-weaning sleep plan recently?

[chickenstew74]

I've read through his plan and he talks about the family bed. Is the plan only aimed at bed-sharers?
Do you have any success stories? How do you do it when you're already exhausted?
My oh is due to go away for work soon and the very thought of getting through that week on the sleep I'm getting now just makes me want to weep!
Besides that I think it's just time to try something. Help!

[lalath]

I did it three years ago, with DS who was 2 at the time. We did share a bed, though.

It worked very well. The nights we did it weren't really harder than the nights before, with all that feeding! DS woke up a lot. He very quickly (during the first night) realised what was going on, and by the third night it was easy.

The fast results were what spurred me on.

I did try it when he was slightly younger, and on the first night he was too distressed for me to continue, so I do think it only went so well because he understood what was going on and was ready for it.

[chickenstew74]

Thanks lalath. My lg is 19 months now and the non-sleeping is really taking its toll on all of us now.

I thought the same about the waking in the plan not being much different to her normal waking. Sometimes she fully wakes up and then she can be up for two hours. I have to get up at 6am for work.

My worry is that she is so strong willed and has never fallen asleep just from patting, shushing etc. At least I don't remember her doing that.

[lalath]

DS had never fallen asleep like that, either, but he seemed to get it very quickly.

There were no real tears - he would sort of grizzle for a bit, but nothing at all that concerned me, and never for longer than about a minute at a time (on and off for about five minutes), and I was holding him all the time, for the first few days. After that the first stage there was no protest at all.

For the first couple of weeks, though, he did massively increase his feeding during the day - I had told him he could feed as much as he wanted when we are out of bed. That only lasted for two weeks, then he went back to feeding just three times a day. I think he wanted the reassurance that it was still there.