new 'SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK' thread

[tibsy]

hi ladies, the other one ran out of space, so if no one else starts a new thread, here it is....

all this sleep training is a nightmare isn't it? I did once try pupd but ds became so hysterical and all i kept thinkg was he is thinkg "mummy is here, why won't she help me!" It was awful and after 45 mins of crying I gave in and decided that it would not work for my lo at that time. He was around 4 mths old then. maybe now he is 6mths it would work better. I did feel that all thje picking up/putting down confused him and cranked him up further. bottome line is though, that i don't think my ds is gonna just decide one night not to wake etc. so i guess at some time somethinghas to give. I want to wean him off boob to sleep too but i know that that is gona cause major tears and i dunno if I can do it but what is the alternative? dh nad i have a few really big social events and i cannot be here at bedtime and my ma won't want to babysit him if he is gonna kick off, esp since she will have dd too. so confusing all this isn't it?!

maebee - is it very hard emotionally?

cruisemum: it is hard emotionally, but actually, my lo is going to sleep QUICKER...so far...then when we rock him and stuff, and often he is screaming and crying then, so although i feel better cos im holding him, i dont know if he is. and i do feel its better than cc cos im in the room and i pick him up if hes distressed, until hes calm again, and then i put my hand on him and sssh. im finding that i only am picking up less than once a minute, and sometimes if it does seem to be beginning to upset him more, i just have my hand on him and ssssh.
its easier emotionally for me when i think that this means i WONT have to do cc, that it means he is learning the skill of sleeping on his own, but without being abandoned, that it means he wont be constantly overtired, and that i, for the first time in weeks, have spent a whole day without hating him and wishing he wasnt here. or i wasnt here.
i might be eating my words later on this week, im not expecting a smooth ride, but maybe think about the pupd method again. or an adaption for your lo.
i feel a huge progress that for the first time, he isnt needing me to rock and ssssh for ages, and he has woken up happier, AND he is just as bolshy and "spirited" so i havent been breaking his will or anything sinister!!!

Cruisemum: another night for us of bf, then try and calm down for sleep, then PU/PD till asleep. I find sticking him in his sleeping bag after his feed and then rocking and babbling to him helps him to get sleepy. Not exactly what MaeBee is doing, but has the advantage that DH can do it if I'm not around. I only start putting him in his cot when he's sleepy and calm. On the bright side, I now know most of Dr Suess' Red Fish Blue Fish by heart

waht i do now (and have done since birth), is to bath, get ready for bed including gro-bag in my bedroom with dim lighting, bf in my room with TV on reallllyyyy low. He nods off, I take him to his room with him still attached and then put him in cot. Some nights, like tonight, he goes donw no fuss, others he wakes immediately. He has woken once alrady this eve and I have bf and put him in his cot again. in your opinions, what would work for me? he gets really upset when he is upset (iyswim!) and I have never been able to see anything throuhg because I find it too upsetting. He is 28 weeks old.

I want to stop bf to sleep soon and introduce a bottle at bedtime so other people can do the bedtime thing so I could actually have an evening out once in a while! I know he will go mad when the bottle is done at bedtime but I have to do it sooner or later so now is better than 7 or 8 months imo.

maebee sorry meant earlier are you doing cc and pu/pd but didn't finish the sentence (brain dead!)knew you were doing pu/pd but then wasn't sure by your post if you were mixing the 2. hope i didn't offend

cruisemum : until last night, i was doing very similar. and, as i said, its really early days, so hard to say if this is going to work. but, whatever your instinct says! for me, i was beginning to realise my boy was needing me to get him back to sleep, cos he didnt know how to self soothe, it wasnt just hunger or wanting comfort or anything like that, and i know i need to teach and guide him gently into learning to go through those cycles of sleep.
my boy is younger than yours, so my only advice would be read around, ask around and see what seems to ring true for you, and if you think hes calling you cos he needs you than go to him, but if you can teach him to not need you than that is what parenting is all about!!
but this will probably all blow up in my face and not work nad then i will look stupid!
but check out the different approaches and websites. a recurrent theme on this thread seems to be that those of us who arent capable of doing cc are trying either babywhisperer or nocry sleep solution, maybe read up on those methods??

tamdin - no offence taken!!!

am off to bed already. wish me luck!

lots of luck.

oh dear, my poor DH has a fever, sleep deprivation has finally eaten away at him too. so i'll be on my own tonight. wish me luck.

oh no amberjee. solo night parenting is the worst! I'll be in the bar(chat section) if you need me x

hi all!well, tonight went well, only 3 wakings and only 1 feeding!! it was 40 pupd's the first night, and 17 this night. i woke up to hear him chatting to himself rather than crying, and i didnt think that would ever happen!

well, hope this continues. hope you all had an okay night, especially Amberjee, with her poorly DH.

morning, a pretty gud nite for us too a few wakings for the dummy, but i left her dream feed at 10 to see if that wud make any diff, well it seemed too she was in bed at 7 and didnt get up till 4 for a feed and then went back to sleep till 7.30 so am in a better mood but still tired now just go t to sort the dummy situation out cant take it away she loves it to much and i wud be able to cope with the upset!!!

actually the night was not as bad as i expected. at first, DS wouldn't settle, so i put him in the sling while i had dinner, and then put him down and he didn't flinch. So he slept in cot from 9 to 12, then 1 to 3, then he stayed in bed with me and was a bit restless, but i did manage a few naps in that time.

youngmum that is an amazing night for such a young lo. well done all of you!
amberjee glad it wasn't as bad as predicted. We women are amazing aren't we
maebee that is major success very quickly. well done all of you too!
my night wasn't bad by past standards but was a bugger as he's been sleeping so well recently.
went to bed at 7-11 not a peep.
11 woke for milk (had stopped doing that so that's a step backwards!)
woke at 12.45 and would not go back to sleep. Not sure if it was teething getting those big back molars atm or if he had sore tummy (due to the noises coming from his ass!)anyway manged to get him back to sleep about 2.30. woke at 6.45 for the day.Very tired
Dh taken him into village to get papers and some fresh air before his morning sleep.
I should be doing the hoovering but of course have ended up lurking around on mn!

oh sorry should explain it's tamdin/bampa....got badgered into changing my name to an easter theme like everyone else in the virtual bar last night....we ran a competition for the best one...this was the choice....don't ask!

morning all
phew, that was a whole load of posts to get thru
mae on your continued success.
i seem to have abandoned any type of routine atm but am hoping to get my ass into gear soon
we had an unsettled evening last night i'm afraid so in the end i wrapped dd in the shawl her gramma knitted for her and brought her downstairs all cootched up where she slept on me happy as larry goes against everything i say to dp about not taking her out of bed after bedtime, but wanted to watch ugly betty anyway, meant i got to have an extra cuddle and dp and ds joined in so that was extra nice

Cruise, I'm going to buy a lambskin see if that helps. Posted a question about them and they get rave reviews. Might be worth a shot. We've had a couple of bad nights due to the mystery of the non pooing baby. Still catch up soon

lambskin? wor's that meant to do?

ginger we put a blue sheepskin(from blooming marvellous)in ds cot when he was about 6 months and it made a big difference. mush more comfie plus keeps the heat in winter and keeps them cool in summer. The new zealanders also believe they have healing properites and use them in the special baby units (so i read?)

Cruise, here's a link to the thread I started. A friend has one too and it's the only way she can get her DD to sleep in her cot.

link here

Hi all and thanks for the welcome last week - i somehow haven't made it to the computer all week so now there are too many posts to plough through. Things are still v tough here - dd seems to be waking every 20 mins or so for much of the night, despite not being bf to sleep (most of the time I just pat pat shssh her at least for the early part of the night). In the middle of the night I often find myself deciding to do cc but relent in the morning when I see her happy smile when she sees me! Am trying ncss but don't seem to be seeing much improvement. Is it because I don't have the stamina to shsh/pat pat every 20 mins all night so end up resorting to co-sleeping and latching her to my boob so that I can get some (broken) sleep? Does anyone have any success stories to encourage me??

Just skimmed the posts and was wondering, Maebae, how old is your LO? Mine is 18 weeks and like Cruise I have found she seems to get more and more worked up with PU/PD. Not so with ssshhing her lying down and holding her arms, it's just that she wakes up again after about 20 mins [sad face]

lilysma - poor you you must be shatterted beyond reasonableness (is that a word?!) i have tried ncss top no avail. makes bugger all difference. only one thing would have worked 4 me anyway - the pull-off bit and it was rubbish. there is a ncss thread with success stories on it, just didn't work 4 me. . hope you get some rest soon, you poor thing (lo too...)