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How do you sleep train if you have a busy life

6 replies

KJEL · 30/01/2023 08:14

I want to start sleep training my youngest and id like to use the pick up put down method, its mainly to get him sleeping in his cot as so far he will only sleep with me. The problem is i do alot of running around through the day, with school runs for my eldest and different groups he will often have a nap in the buggy ir car seat, will this ruin the training?

OP posts:
PritiPatelsMaker · 30/01/2023 17:46

I don't think it will. Lots of babies sleep somewhere different for naps.

Imenti · 30/01/2023 17:56

I've just done some gentle sleep training with my 6 month old and advice I got was that you need to be consistently putting them down, using the technique at least once a day at the same time to start with. Just until you've achieved what you want too and then it doesn't matter as much. Apparently it's easier to start with naps rather than bedtime - so one naps, then two naps, then bedtime. I have the same issue with school runs so I am practising with the second nap of the day. To get success quickly you may want to curb your activities for a couple of weeks to focus on cot settling, then you can pick them back up once you've progressed to doing the technique every time.

Tiredmummaoftwo · 31/01/2023 08:09

@Imenti would you mind sharing the technique? My six month old is also bed sharing with me and I don't know how I'm ever going to get him into his own cot during the night (he doesn't mind napping during the day in there) and I don't want to leave him to cry for ages at night that just seems quite traumatic x

Imenti · 31/01/2023 17:39

I follow Sleep Well with Hannah, Parenting Community on Facebook. She is a sleep consultant who has recently held a whole free sleep workshop in Jan which I unfortunately think is closed now. There is a free sleep workshop in the community but it only gives a few pointers - however you can ask questions on there and will have literally thousands of people to help you!

Hannah's technique is to basically take very small steps, to do less to get your baby to sleep. Basically ever since we've had our babies, we have taught them how to get to sleep, be it feeding, rocking, co-sleeping etc. We now need to gently teach them a new way to get to sleep - and on their own eventually - but this takes time and patience and we can't just chuck them in the cot and hope for the best! She is not an advocate of cry it out methods, but this is NOT a no cry method - your baby will protest and cry at first at the changes, but this gets less and less every time. The difference is you will be there comforting and supporting your baby the whole time.

The first thing you need to do is take a small step away from the normal way you get your baby to sleep - your "safe space". The most important thing is that whatever you do, you MUST be consistent. Constantly changing what you're trying to do to get your baby to sleep is just confusing for them and then nothing works. So pick something you are comfortable doing.

For us, we fed to sleep on the rocking chair. So my first step was just rocking on the chair, patting and singing the same song (over and over again!). Then after 3-4 days, I stopped rocking and just did patting and singing (note these naps were contact naps still). Then time for the big move - patting and singing the same song but in her cot. The first time it took 30 mins and a lot of crying but she eventually drifted off...next day I tried it took 10 minutes! Always start with the first nap of the day and once that is going well, you can introduce other naps and then bed time. Soon I will stop patting and just sing. Then I will just sit by her cot, then move to the chair, then the door and eventually out the room! It will take time but is more gentle than cry it out. Some people take the step of moving from sitting to laying down and cuddling, then laying down and patting, then just laying down before moving to the cot. Key is to 1. Not take big steps 2. Be consistent and do the same thing every single time. 3. If you start getting stressed, leave them in a safe place, count slowly to 30 seconds, then straight back to technique if baby is crying more, but keep counting if baby is protesting less.

Sorry that was massive but it's really working for us! Hannah also has a sleep course you can pay for if you need more help /support but defo join the FB community first as you can get lots of free advice from other parents and from Hannah Love Costello on there. Good luck! Not easy but we are really seeing results!

Tiredmummaoftwo · 31/01/2023 17:43

@Imenti thank you so much for taking the time to type that all out. I understand it all and am going to give it a go starting tonight. My issue is going to be getting him out of my bed to begin with so I'm thinking start with making sure I do all night feeds in his nursery even if I sleep on the floor? Then I could gradually move out of the room x

Imenti · 31/01/2023 19:30

Your welcome 😃

Yep, that sounds good. The aim is to get them self settling completely for naps and bedtime. The idea is that if they fall asleep independently in the cot then when they do wake, they don't freak out (because they haven't moved from where they fell asleep), they self settle themselves back to sleep. Makes sense if you think about but of course it's natural for us to want to settle our babies to sleep!

If you don't already then practice the self settling for naps too as this will help them get used to falling asleep in the cot and hopefully help with the bedtime transition and night time wake ups. When they wake in the nights, if they are used to the self settling technique to get them off to sleep, then you can use this again rather than feeding back to sleep if they don't need it. I'm yet to tackle this one myself yet as we're still working on all day naps but it's good to have a bit of a framework to work too. Hannah also has some advice about weaning them off night feeds when they are old enough but I'm yet to cover that yet. Hope it goes ok, stick with it even if it seems it's not working!! X

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