Anyone else trying to gently sleep train?

[MrsIH]

Dd2 is 13 months old and always been a crap sleeper. The longest stretch of sleep (up until very recently) I’ve had is 3 hours and that is on a good night. Generally I think she was waking 2 hourly but I’ve had nights of every 45 minutes. I have a dd1 who is 3 but who is thankfully a good sleeper.

I’m not at work atm luckily and I have no tolerance really for the crying methods. They’re just not for me so I’m not looking for suggestions or justifications of them.

What I’m trying is getting her to fall asleep in the cot and also trying to reduce feeds (she is breast fed) over night.

Anyway the falling asleep in the cot is going well. She did last night but some nights I’m still putting her down asleep as I pick her up and cuddle her if she cries. Frustratingly last night she woke up after 2 hours even though she’d fallen asleep in the cot. I think I got her back down ok but then she woke after another 2 hours. Then I was up for 2 hours trying to settle her. I gave in and fed her in the end although she still didn’t go back to sleep! DH managed to get her down in the end. So I’ve had about 5 hours broken sleep which isn’t great.

Basically looking for anyone else trying to do a similar thing and some moral support. I’m desperate to improve sleep as it’s so hard having her and her sister all day on my own on broken shit sleep!

It’s so hard! Glad it’s not just me and dh that have hushed arguments in the early hours

I know it's hard but apart from the dream you should not be feeding at other times as baby becomes dependable on these feeds and it will be a case of them waking because they want a feed, not because they are hungry but because it has become a habit. I don't know how much you feed at each time but because your little one is so young I would suggest to gradually decrease the amount you give. Dream feed keep as normal but all other times decrease by an ounce every few days and then start to miss them out until eventually just having the dream feed. I really feel for you with all the night wakings, I know how hard it is. I hope things will start to get better for you

I was advised by a health visitor that you don't necessarily need to wind after a dream feed. The whole idea of a dream feed is that they stay asleep during the feed(you shouldn't really be able to hear them sucking on the bottle, it will be very quiet) this suggests they are in a deep sleep and they shouldn't take in any air as they do when awake. Good advise from SisterA and this is what I used to do just incase she did have a bit of wind. Try not to be so intent on getting wind up though that you wake your lo otherwise the dream feed is no longer a dream feed.

9:00am post was for colinthedog

At dream feed I used to actually change her nappy, just because her nappy was so heavy in a morning and I wanted her to be comfortable during the night, don't think this is recommended but she was such a deep sleeper between the age of 6-10 months I could change bum and give a feed without her waking. Once she started waking at dream feed (about 10 months) I spent the next couple of weeks decreasing the amount every 3 days (6 down to 5, down to 4, down to 3) then stopped after that.

@SisterA Sorry I missed your post earlier, thanks for the tip!

@Claire543210 it’s difficult as apart from the occasional bottle DS is breastfed. So not easy to decrease the amount. I’m also not sure I agree that he doesn’t need any milk at night at just 6 months old, especially as he’s struggling with solids. I admit I shouldn’t have fed him so many times last night, but I was just too tired to do anything else. I’d be happy with two feeds at night at the moment, so I think I’ll work towards that and then look to drop the other night feeds when he’s a bit older.

This is a great positive thread. Many mothers find keeping a diary helps as you sometimes think you are not making progress after say a buit of a slip back , Stuff written down helps keep you focussed

6 months is quite early to seriously nudge but a great time to start good habits, Some babies do need a night feed att 6 months but by 8 months normally they do not especially if they have porridge for supper

Colinthedog: Didn't realise you bf, I guess it is hard to know how much he is getting. After 6 months babies can go through the night without a feed but I agree with you I think this is too young, that's why I did a dream feed until 10 months but i wouldn't feed again after that but you do whatever you have to do. I know, I spent a long time putting my lo in bed with me just so I could get some more than needed sleep so am not passing judgement or telling you what you should be doing, just offering advise. At the end of the day mummy knows whats best for their lo

Good advise about the porridge (slow energy releasing food) I totally agree shouldn't need a night feed after 8 months, even though I did dream feed until almost 11 months

I only wish I could get DS to eat porridge! At the moment we are stuck on smooth purées and the odd suck on a finger food if I hold it up his mouth. We are working on textures but it’s slow going.

I keep forgetting your baby is only 6 months @Colinthedog. My dd was so slow with solids. We just did blw which dd1 got straight away but it was months before dd2 ate much. Anyway I know how you feel, but your time with porridge will come!
So far today dd2 has had porridge, a peanut butter sandwich and a bit of scrambled egg as operation fill her up continues!

I too thought it would help to fill my lo up throughout the day, I now know it's got nothing to do with hunger. If you child is eating 3 meals a day plus 2 snacks plus milk, they shouldn't be hungry during the night. If didn't eat much for tea porridge is certainly a good option. Many on here think it's cruel to let their babies cry a little for a short period of time and think the answer is to fill them up with food and put a bottle/boob in their mouth, those under the age of 1 I get it but older than that you are far from teaching your lo to self settle

Thanks @NoMorePoliticsPlease it is nice to have a thread to support us parents to keep going with sleep nudging without leaving babies to cry. Sleep nudging is the right term!

The diary is a good idea. I read the no cry sleep solution a while ago which suggested logging a night every few weeks as if you look night by night you get lost in the detail and can’t see the progress made.

Generally people doing gentle sleep training aren’t looking for their child to self settle so much as sleep longer periods even if they need help settling.
Feeding is often for so much more than just food- especially breast feeding. It’s a relationship rather than a method of feeding for many...

How was everyone’s night?

Mine was much better than the night before. Awake at 9.30, 1 and 5, so I was happy to feed each time. Unfortunately he was wide awake for an hour after his 1am feed, and took a few attempts to settle after his 5am feed. But then slept until 7, so I don’t feel too bad today. Hope everyone else got some rest.

We had the worst nights sleep we have had since newborn days. I say sleep but there was very little sleeping involved. He did sleep 7 until about midnight (of course I didn't go to bed until 10) but he didn't go back to sleep properly until 4 after I gave up and took him downstairs to zombie out in front of the tv. Not ideal but I just needed something to occupy him whilst we were functioning on such little sleep.

Tiny human then slept on the sofa so I took the floor.

The biggest problem of it all is mainly that DH can't settle him and he goes ballistic.

Been wondering if it would be worth just powering through a couple of rough nights having DH trying time settle apart from a 2/3am feed?

Torn. Totally torn. Breastfeeding was so hard in the beginning and then it was my saving grace and now it's just really starting to take its toll and I feel bad!

Dont feel bad. Breastfeeding is hard. I breastfeed too and my DH cant settle DS when he wakes.

We had a similar night to last night. He woke at 9. I didnt go in as he wasnt crying and he went back to sleep. I dreamfed at 10.30 and he woke at 3 and 5 but I didnt feed him these times. We did end up co-sleeping but that's fine. Wasnt bad at all.
I downloaded a snore recorder app so I can see when he wakes. I seem to start taking to him even if he just wimpers so I need to stop Haha.
He literally made a tiny sound at 3 and I started chatting away -.- silly mummy.

Babies over 6 months wake FULLY between sleep cycles (usually 4-6 times a night minimum) and to 'sleep through the night' they need to be able to resettle them self after each sleep cycle. If they are feeding to sleep at bedtime, they will likely expect to be fed back to sleep at each night-waking too.
For babies over the age of 6 months, feeding to sleep is one of the most common reasons that babies wake in the night and is the reason why many babies have never slept through.
Generally the longer a baby has been fed to sleep, the more often a baby will wake in the night...rather than less.

Glad you had a good night @Colinthedog and @HakunaMatataa. Sorry to hear about yours @SisterA that sounds really tough. I’ve had the odd night like that where either dh or I have given up and watched a film with dd!

I had a pretty good night. Dd settled in the cot pretty easily, she needed resettling after a couple of hours but that again was just a quick cuddle. She woke then at 11 and I fed her. Woke again at 3, so I tried to resettle but wasn’t feeling it and so fed her again and she slept till 7.30. I’ll work on cutting out that second feed but happy to feed her at the moment as she’s poorly so it’s good for her to get the antibodies from my milk. That’s what I told myself at 3.30 am!

@Claire543210 yes, that's why I dont feed to sleep.

I'm glad things went better for you @mrsIH you've made so much progress too if you look back on your first post! Well done you. How is she now?

@SisterA
I would if you are sure its not hunger try with DH settling. My LO wont settle unless with me but he knows now I'm not going to feed him so has stopped trying to get the boobs lol. You've just got to do what feels right for you.

Well done @Colinthedog! That's great.

Praying for everyones sleep tonight!

Good morning everyone. How was your nights?

We had a good night. I dreamfed at 10.30. The snore app heard him wake and moan a little at 1 but he went back to sleep. He then woke at 3. I put a bottle of water in with him and he slept until 6.30. Seems he is starting to settle himself much better after waking him. I didnt even need to get him out of the cot last night! Very pleased.

That's great @HakunaMatataa fingers crossed it keeps on but seems so so positive!

We had a not great night but not quite as bad as the night before. I remember reading somewhere sleep can be really terrible just before learning a new skill and DS is totally on the brink of walking having taken his first few solo steps just last weekend. He's absolutely desperate to walk so I really hope once he gets it things start to calm down.

Clutching!!

That’s great @HakunaMatataa Hope last night was good too?

I’ve had a manic couple of days! But the sleep is getting better. Two wakes the last couple of nights. I fed her both times each night!!! I think one night I tried to resettle for half an hour but last night I didn’t even try

Is it mad to wildly hope she’ll just stop waking now the self settling is better?! Her first stretch of sleep is getting longer. So the first feed has been midnight. I’m hoping it gets later and later until it’s like 7am

Good luck tonight people!

We tried to take a gradual approach with our DD - we started when she was pretty little (4-5 weeks old) taking a minimal intervention approach. For her this meant putting her in the cot asleep with the only goal of her falling asleep on her own - we would shush and pat and sing but not pick up unless she was actually crying. We focused on trying to distinguish when she was fussing because she was tired versus actually crying. We also used to count to 30 - when you think about literally 30 seconds of fussing, it's nothing! Although at the time it felt like an eternity, but it gave her the chance to go back to sleep/fall asleep on her own. I also made a point of feeding her every 2 hours during the day until she was on solids (and she had good weight gain) so I was confident that she wasn't hungry.

We also focused on baby steps - I had a whole week where all I did was try to get her to fall asleep on her own in her crib with shushing and patting and then just putting down asleep. Even if she only napped for 10 minutes, I just focused on her going to sleep on her own. I think breaking it down to manageable goals really helped me mentally.

To this day, I find that when I go in and pick her up if she's fussing, it almost always leads to it taking her MUCH longer to go back to sleep and she gets increasingly worked up every time we go in the room or inevitably have to put her back down. She is a bit odd though in that she WON'T fall asleep when we're holding her - she snuggles in for a bit then gets too interesting in pointing out my nose/eyes etc.

There's a great book called Crib Sheets that looks at the evidence behind the different sleep methods and I found that really reassuring too.