Those who have sleep trained

[cantlivewithoutcoffee]

I wanted some advice from anyone who has sleep trained please.

I have a 7 month old daughter who was historically an awful napper (i.e. she wouldn't nap at all). Until 4 month regression, she would sleep well at night but napping would be hard work (usually impossible) to achieve. She was just too interested in the world to allow herself to sleep.

When the night sleep fell apart due to regression, we had to do something because she was so distressed with overtiredness and we used a sleep consultant who set us into a routine. Following her instructions to the letter worked and we got her sleeping at set times with practically no protest.

We are now a few months down the line and I have been adjusting her awake times according to her signals and age but I've found if we ever need to deviate from her routine to go out somewhere, everything falls apart - mainly because she is too damn alert and wants to see everything anywhere except her pitch black bedroom with white noise blaring loudly. If I put a shade on her car seat/pram, she cries before she goes to sleep which I struggle to deal with.

I naively thought that once we had followed the same process for months, she would go to sleep at her nap time because that's what she was used to doing at that time everyday and she would be tired but no luck. How does everyone else deal with this? I don't go out much at her nap times but sometimes it's unavoidable and if she doesn't sleep, she gets really cranky.

As for taking her out past bedtime, she also refuses to sleep. I almost always put her to bed then go out but there are rare occasions where we may need to go somewhere with her and it all becomes a big mess.

We have a few weddings to go to this summer and a holiday booked and all I can see myself doing is stressing about her (lack of) sleep right now. I want to enjoy these things but I can't see that happening as things are right now. Can anyone offer advice please?

My baby was actually EBF for the first while then combination fed FATE so I don't think you're referring to me

Oh and she slept 7-7 with a dreamfeed from 10 weeks and 7-6.30 with no night feeds from 16 weeks.

It's not a battle, we are both here to help folks LapinR0se, I assume. I recalled you saying you gave formula (aptimal i think?) at night, that's all. Thus must have been before 10/16 weeks old, given the post above. I wasn't trying to catch you out

This gives very different needs, in terms of daytime sleep, than someone still doing night wakes and/or feeds at 7 months old.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/2937682-Please-tell-me-things-will-get-better

I didn't think I was imagining things. Just making the point that your journey will be different to other people's journey. As will mine.

I think we could both argue the case that the reason both of our children slept well was because we bought into our theories early-on. While we used different tactics to get there, we started from under 3 months and worked consistantly towards our goals of independant sleeping.

There will be a very different set of expectations to anyone wanting similar outcomes but starting at 6/12/18 months old.

The OP was not formula feeding at night from 8 weeks. The OP is still breastfeeding at night at 7 months. And continues to be happy for this to continue.

One size does not fit all.

This helps my baby nap in her pushchair
www.snoozeshade.com

I am referring to this sentence:
Fits in exactly with LapinR0se's experience with her babies formula fed from newborn
which is a fabrication.

I consider under 3 months old as newborn and referred to being given formula regularly, as opposed to not.

Not meant to be insulting or a fabrication, just factual, informative and helpful. My apologies if you took it otherwise LapinR0se. I am happy to correct:

Fits in exactly with LapinR0se's experience with her babies given formula milk at night from at least 8 weeks old

now sounds far more pedantic than is necessary

The reason kids sleep well is because they're good sleepers.

There's huge variation in 'normal' - and mNy a parent convinced it's their techniques until ninja sleep denier baby 3 comes along. Not to deny that routines etc are useful - they are, but sleep is developmental. It's not taught, it's grown in to

We had (still have) good routines. Not gf level structure but we've had dark nights, not running to every grumble, consistent timings, routine, decent early bedtime from very very young. absolutely sod all worked until he just grew up a bit and whatever developmental magic happened. At18m he got it, suddenly and slept. Nothing we did.

We saw sleep consultants (all gave advice we'd tried anyway, totally useless) paediatricians and in the end sleep medicine at the hospital. All said we had great routines and we were not doing anything wrong, just a small percentage of kids dont sleep.

Anyway, my point is that we drove ourselves mad trying to get him to do what we thought he should do. Only when we accepted he wasn't going to sleep and worked around it did things improve for us. He still slept terribly but we developed coping strategies.

You have some events coming up that are important to you - if I were in your shoes I'd be assuming she wont sleep as you want and thinking of workarounds - hotel childminder, etc etc. Think 'right if she's not napping to fit in how do we manage that?'

Thanks Antiday. It had crossed my mind this may be the case before I started the thread which is why I thought I would ask around and see if there was anything I could start doing from now to avoid the situation.

It is likely I will need workarounds as you suggested. In the meantime, I will see if things like pram naps are a viable option and can be worked on.

Ineedwine, we use that snoozeshade already - she protests when we put it on the pram but she does fall asleep quicker than if she could see everything, I'm just not a fan of her screams of protest