Advice pls - how to sleep train for this baby?

[hairRaising]

Hi please can I get thoughts from others who have sleep trained before on how best to go about it for my baby DD?

Am posting all the details to describe situ, tia for reading through.

DD is 6 months, sleeps in a co sleeper cot. from about 6 weeks old she slept through the night with no engineering from us (she would breastfeed masses in day then sleep 10-12 hrs at night).

Then at 4 month regression her daytime naps took a hit, she can now only nap max 45 mins but gets overtired v quickly & when overtired she screams continuously for up to 2h, it's awful for her plus my nerves are in shreds & DS1 (5y) can't bear the screaming.

so now our whole day is spent trying to get her to nap with wake times of 1h15 to 1h45. Problem is she is resisting sleep harder & harder, so we've slipped into trying everything possible to induce sleep: dummy, white noise, buggy on move, snoozeshde, sling. Nothing works reliably & her naps are getting shorter, sometimes just 20mins.

Night sleep is also going downhill: she can no longer fall asleep on her own & needs dummy and rocking. Then wakes throughout night for dummy to be replaced / cuddles. She never needs feeding (still feeds masses in day) but I've started to bf her at around 6am just to get her to sleep again til 7am so I can have an hour with DS1 between 6am and 7am.

I know we need to get rid of dummy, teach her to self settle at night, then try to extend naps.

But how? What order to work on things, given how sensitive she is to overtiredness?

DH has taken a week off work so we can do it together. We just need to get a plan together.

We're willing to try shush pat, pick up put down, and 2min timed comforting/controlled crying. Not willing to do full extinction cry it out.

She has to stay in the bedroom with us for next 6 months as DS1 is v light sleeper & shouts loudly in his sleep. Plus I wouldn't feel comfortable being in a different room to her yet.

Please help! Thanks v much in advance

I would do exactly the same routine for every nap and bedtime.

Thank you molly, I'll try that.

Ps @MollyDaydream do you use a dummy as well as the rocking and patting?

I am ridiculously scared of ditching the dummy but I know it is making things worse and not better!

I would if she would take one but unfortunately she won't! She has a comfort blanket though. My older ones had dummies.

Oh heck I'm supposed to start the sleep training tonight and I think I'm bottling it .... can't bear the thought of taking the dummy away .... really not sure I'm ready & convinced & will be able to stay strong.

DH is saying then let's do it in baby steps. I.e. Take the dummy away but then rock or cuddle her to sleep instead for a few days, then try to wean off the cuddling etc.

I'm not sure. My head says it's mad to just replace the dummy with cuddling & we'll end up worse off. But my hearts not sure I can take the dummy away and just rely on ssh pat to settle her

Agh ..., please tell me what to do!!!

You know what, I think you maybe need to work on ways to help YOU get through this, because you will, eventually (as you know, because you have a 5 year old!)

We can tell you what we did, but every kid is different, as is every parent. The main thing is you have to believe that you will find the answer to this eventually. You'll find it quickest and most effectively if you're calm and patient (I'm not saying that you're not, by the way, just if you are WELL DONE and pat yourself on the back and keep going... and if you're not, well don't feel bad because it's hardly surprisng, but maybe that's what you need to look at next).

Your baby is healthy and happy and thriving. What can you do to make this stage more bearable for YOU?

One last suggestion, I expect you've tried this (or similar) but it worked like a charm for my 2 older babies, had them asleep within 20 minutes every time (so long as they were already tired):

Good luck. xx

Hello,
I just wanted to say that it's awesome you and your husband are going to tackle this together and are making detailed plans.

I think having a rough schedule is a good idea,but I also feel it's important to not let it stress you out if things aren't going to plan.

It sounds from you've said that this recent regression has been quite stressful for you, and we've all been there where we feel like we are being pushed to our limits and something has to give. I would suggest actively trying to be as calm and relaxed as possible around sleep, e.g. if DD not having any of it, then think "oh well, we will try again in a bit" and genuinely trying not to get caught up in it emotionally (very easily said I know!). But if this is just a phase, then it's likely to pass soon and it will be better for everyone if you can go with the flow and be as chilled as possible about it. I k ow that's hard when you are worried about baby's sleep and hate seeing them so overtired. Especially hard when before now things have been great!!

In the book I have it focussed on a calming bedtime routine, and using what naturally soothes your DC, that could be patting, rocking, shshshs, white noise, breastfeeding.

The objective is that they are nice and calm and sleepy and then you attempt to put them down whilst drowsy but still slightly awake. You stay with them to comfort them or soothe them if they cry, doing your best to help them settle and if this doesn't work first time, you go back a few steps and repeat repeat repeat. Each time doing what is necessary to get them calm again. You can let them cry a little if you like to help them get a bit tired, I do this with my DD but it i can tell the difference between a distressed cry and a "shouty/wingey" type cry which I know is her trying to self settle. I respond to distressed cry. I think the key is reposition and consistency, staying calm and thinking thoughts of love, care and attention towards your child (great that DH is there to help as you will need to swap to regain your zen! )!

I hope it goes well! Xx

Thank you @Sib86 and @PellyBay ... do you know what, I think you're right and I've got too wound up about this. I got really scared last week, there was one morning where she was screaming so nonstop that I felt I was losing my mind, I had the urge to push her & I was frightened when I felt that, so I quickly bundled her into the buggy & got DS and got them both out of the flat quickly because I thought I would feel more in control in public. But she kept screaming & then poor DS burst into tears because I was dragging him next to the buggy too fast. I stopped in the street trying to comfort him & I called my husband home from work because I was scared to be alone with the kids. Since then I've been a bit fixated on trying to fix her sleep problems, because i just find it so hard to cope with her screaming & DS at same time. I know lots of mums feel this way & I keep telling myself that being aware of my feelings means I'm unlikely to act on them. But I still feel like shit. DH is amazing but we don't have any family close by to help and we're both a bit ragged. Sort to waffle in, and thanks for your responses x

Not sure if I have missed something but why do you want to take away her dummy?

The dummy is not the problem here.

I have no idea why you would want to remove the simplest and quickest way to calm a crying baby.

I would stop rocking. Start patting to sleep in the cot with the dummy.

You maybe need some pointers on getting baby actively sucking on the dummy - active sucking is what stops the crying and soothes baby, not the dummy just 'being there' in baby's mouth.

These night wakes, is baby straight back to sleep once dummy is put back in?

Hi fate and molly - she needs the dummy to fall asleep during both night and naps. Along with rocking in buggy, arms etc.

But the dummy always falls out & then she wakes after 1 sleep cycle (45mons for day naps, longer at night).

During night she resettles as soon as we put dummy back.

But for naps she doesn't resettle & then gets overtired from short naps, & screams for up to 2h.

So I thought she needs to learn to resettle herself without the dummy, that way she could hopefully resettle herself & get longer naps. And the overtired screaming would end.

I'd try getting her to find her own dummy. We had a sleepy tot bunny and about a million glow in the dark dummies in the cot
I do think 45 minute naps are normal though. DD has no dummy and still only does 45 minutes about half the time, we occasionally get a day with 2 90 minutes naps instead of 3 45 minutes.
Could you try going in to her after 35 minutes and replacing the dummy and patting her to extend the nap?

I sewed a ribbon onto the chest of our grobags (long enough to reach ear, so not long enough to go behind neck) with a press stud at the end. Replacing dummy meant reaching an arm over, locating ribbon therefore locating dummy and reinsert.

All done without opening my eyes, without moving from under my duvet. Without even waking properly.

By about 7-8 months baby had learnt own dummy locating method (arm sweep under chin to find ribbon, which found dummy to put back in). So dummy runs were a moot point anyway, no longer needed.

45 min naps will extend if you use a dummy or not.

The best things to do to work towards sleeping through are:
■ night wean (✔which you've already done)
■ get baby to go from awake to asleep in the cot. (Which means not rocking. But dummy is invaluable in achieving in-cot settling without crying)
■ Lots of sleep. Good sleep leads to even better sleep. So if naps are shirt just make them more frequent (✔ as you were doing). Deal with any night wakes quickly so straight back to sleep (✔ as you are already doing).

You seem quite stressed about the dummy. Like you are looking for something to "blame" for the way baby sleeps and you've latched onto the dummy for that. It's not the dummy.

If you want to to pick one thing it's not going to sleep in the cot (which by inference means rocking)

Get rid of the dummy if it's making you anxious. There'll be a lot of crying involved though. I can't see and benefit to the situation for all the distress though.

I hear you, hairRaising. Your description of your unsuccesful outing with the kids says it all. And sounds very familiar to me.

Being a parent is terrific, except for when it really, really isn't.... and you are too tired and stressed out to know what to do next. For what it's worth, I think you did absolutely the right thing in trying to take the kids out of the house, even if it didn't turn out very well on that occassion! A change of scene is usually a good thing - even if only to make you appreciate getting home again afterwards.

What gets me through (on a good day) is humour. Could you chat with your 5 year old about the baby crying in a way that is caring and affectionate but also funny, so he knows he doesn't need to be afraid? Along the lines of "Wah wah wah - poor baby! you know she's fine really? But she can't talk yet. She has so much she wants to tell us! It'll be nice when she can talk instead of crying all the time, won't it? What do you think she's saying?" It probably won't stop the baby from crying, but it might normalise the situation enough for your son to feel a bit better and maybe help you feel less stressed too.

My sons are 6, 4 & 16 months. The 2 older ones need asking to do stuff a million times and the baby has just started walking and falls on his face every 35 seconds. My house is a tip. I have to laugh as much as possible because otherwise I wouldn't know when to stop screaming. And yet, bizarrely, I love every minute of it.