Hi mummys
I have a 7.5 month old who due to my own bad habits has always fallen asleep on my boob during naps and at night apart from when she naps with hubby in the pram early in the morning. Before trying the pick up put down method she had slept in her cot a handful of times for naps but had never gone to sleep by herself. She has always slept in her cot at night but was fed back to sleep when waking. A week ago I was at breaking point after 15 wakeups in the night so I decided to start the pick up put down method on Sunday night.
Sunday went so better than I had imagined with approx 45 minutes of soothing and 30 pickups and she slept for larger chunks in the night. The crying wasn't as intense as I had imagined as she stopped pretty much as soon as I picked her up. When waking during the night the time taken and amount of pickups decreased. This continued the next day during naps so I saw an improvement straight away.
The next night she fidgetted for 10 minutes or so and rolled over and went to sleep! With no pickups, nothing! This then happened for the next 3 nights and the naps were pretty much the same as on the first day taking approx 20 minutes with about 10 pickups.
I was so excited to see the improvement when going to bed and she started sleeping longer during the night as well.
Friday night came and I expected it to continue as it was and it took an hour of soothing and far more pickups. It was also different in the way that the crying was more intense where at times she was inconsolable. It really hurt me to see her like that as she seemed to pick it up so well at the start. Most times when I picked her up she didn't calm down for a while and was really really upset. This was the same last night and tonight.
I have read that there can be a regression around day 5 but I stupidly assumed this was for a day. Has anybody else experienced this? Please tell me that it will improve again? There were more wakeups last night but in comparison to last Saturday it's decreased a lot - 5 wakeups compared to 15 but I'm more concerned about her getting to sleep at the moment. It was working so well I just don't understand.
I don't know if it's that she's overtired and it's building up as her naps are only short in the day - sometimes 30 minutes. Do they catch up? I don't know whether to go back to having her nap on me then working on the nights first so she's not as tired?
Please share your thoughts and if you have had a regression like this what did you do and how long did it last?
Thank you x