Any NCSS graduates out there ? Can I have some advice about naps please?

[AliandHerScallywag]

DS is nearly 7 months old and we are just starting the No Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS). His sleep patterns are a bit of a mess so it's difficult to know where to start, so please bear with me.

The short version of my question is this:
Should I just get him to nap in anyway possible for now so that he isn't overtired. The aim being to improve the nights even though the only way he will sleep in the day when we are at home is on me, having been BF to sleep?

Here is some long winded background:
DS is a big baby: 9lb 13 at birth; 22lbs @ 5 mths, no idea what he is now. He was excl BF on demand for 6 months (the idea of a routine was laughable). We are BLW which is going really well. His nappies would suggest that a fair amount is being eaten. Since birth he has always been very into BF. If I think back to the first few weeks I just remember sitting as he fed and fed and fed. He rarely napped in the daytime (I'm not joking) for the first 10 weeks or so. However at that stage his night time sleep was very good for his age going from 11 - 4 quite regularly.

From about 3 months onwards he did start to nap a tiny amount in the day. From about 5 months he occasionally had longer naps, but there wasn't much of a pattern. The easiest way to get him to sleep has been to BF. Sometimes we can bounce him to sleep, but he is too heavy these days. Pushchairs and slings work sometimes, but then he wakes after 30mins or when we get back home. Now once he has BF to sleep he wakes the instant I put him down in the daytime, although not at night . This means that if I want him to sleep he has to sleep on me, which is a bit limiting, but more importantly reinforces the wrong kind of sleep associations. As he is my first DC I am able to just sit or lie with him, and I am prepared to do this if it the best thing in the long run.

From about 4 months onwards night time sleep deteriorated. Christmas was hideous. Now we are back at home things have settled and he has started sleeping better in the evenings. Typically he will wake about 5 times between 7 and 7, with one maximum sleep span of 3 - 4 hours during this time. I think that the problem is that he can't self settle, and the BF to sleep association that he has, rather than that he is hungry for every waking. I don't believe that CC would do either of us any good. He is what Sears would describe as a "high needs" baby and he just tends to wind himself up and up if he ever does cry. So I am going to try the more subtle approach of NCSS.

If anyone has any success stories to bolster my resolve, or if you have any tips on what to do about napping on me I would be very appreciative. Thank-you for reading this, and for any advice you can offer.

yes I would do whatever you can gto get him to nap during the day and work oin the nighttime stuff first.

this may help with the napping though (you could have been writing about my ds2 there btw!)
i used to feed him to sleep on my bed. I would lie down with him next to me and feed until he was fast asleep.
the key thing now is not to just get up. you need to wait a good 5-10 mins to make sure he is absolutely in a really deep sleep, otherwise you will disturb him and he';ll be awake again.
so, lie there for a while, then make sure you have a firm pillow handy, or a rolled up blanket.
gradually ease yourself away and the replacement between you and baby so he can still feel the pressure. even better if you can leave a top or something you';ve been wearing on it so it smells the same as well.
once you have managed to get off of the bed keep holding onto the replacement you have put beside him and then gradually redudce the pressure.

if he stirs during this then do whatever it takes to get him back off to sleep.

btwe just wanted to add that his night regression at 4 months was prob growth spurt related. happens to all of them!
3-4 hrs in a stretch is good, ds2 was still waking 2 hourly at 9 months which is when I resorted to ncss lol

Thanks TIY, a good tip for when on my bed. As I am so tired ATM I am napping with him on the bed quite a bit in the day. He is rolling though so can't be left on his own. At least I get to put my feet up.

I would get him to nap anyway you can and keep him asleep for at least 45minutes to an hour each nap. I think only when they are not really overtired can you see what ELSE might be workable.

I know you've found our thresd. We ALL tried completely different things and have ALL had some measure of success. We just slowly worked out waht suited us and our DCsbn ut as I said I don;t think you can do this with a really ovetired child.

I used to get DD to sleep according to the suggested amount in the NCSS for her age HOWEVER possible. I would feed her back to sleep if she awoke. I missed all my mother and baby groups to do it. The first result was that bedtimes were a lot easier.

I did have a cu toff point for trying to get her to nap if she wouldn;t go otherwise I got really stressed. As I remember I used to do 20 minutes, then a break for half an hour and then try again. Otherwise I felt like I was going nuts.

I do think that the fact we have all had some success is to some degree because they sleep better as they get older though.

Also, if your DS is anything like my DD ALL bets are off when he is teething. I just took her into bed with me and went withthe flow. It didn't have a long-term bad effect on her sleep.

get bedguards if you want to be able to leave him on your bed! although having a nice nap yourself is good too :D

Thanks LaTrucha. I had wondered whether the success on your thread was down to them getting older. It's one of those things that you can never be completely sure of though. I missed my tots group this morning, but DS decided not to nap. He has just had 20 mins in the car, but woke up once we got home. I think your advice to only try for a nap for so long is a good one.

Its probably not what you want to hear, but I've given up trying to get my DS to nap. He generally sleeps well at night (7-5/6/7 with a dreamfeed and sometimes another waking) but has always been difficult to get to nap.

I decided not to fight it so when I'm not at work he gets one nap in the sling (its my exercise regime and I normally walk for up to an hour and a half, he'll sleep for 45mins to an hour) and one nap on me, where he will sleep anywhere between 45 mins and 1hr30. (I BF him to sleep and put my feet up with a book). When I am at work he often has 2 naps in the sling (one with me, one with his auntie).

I decided that the important thing was that he did sleep, and that I wasn't going to worry about the housework side of things. We now do some housework together (I put the washing out, he pulls everything out of the basket - I hoover, he chases it round giggling) but otherwise (DH and) I do things when he's gone to bed or when we're both around.

Anyway, my point is that so long as you're all happy, who cares. If you can, lie down together for a nap so you've got the energy to deal with bedtime...

Anyway, good luck!

Ali - I second what LaT said about getting your LO to nap whatever it takes for now and then, once he's more rested, looking at other sleep methods.
I agree that a large part of the success of those on our thread has been our babies getting older. And I'd also reiterate that we have all landed up using different methods to deal with sleep issues so there definitely isn't a "one size fits all".

For what it's worth, here are my thoughts:
I spent about a month really concentrating on my DD's day time naps when she was about your DS's age which I do think helped in the long run (she was also a bad napper to start). I found a rough rule of 2, 3, 4 helped us - she was sleepy 2 hours after waking up, 3 hours after the first nap and went to bed 4 hours after the second nap. She got into having the first nap pretty quickly and was sleeping for about 45 mins at that nap within a few weeks.

I always sang the same song and now it's definitely a sleep cue. That took a long time to develop but is paying dividends now.

Do you give your DS a dream feed just before you go to bed? That did help to "buy" us a few more hours at night.

Could your DP help at night by trying to settle DS when you don't think he wants a feed? Perhaps on the weekends if he's at work during the week. That helped us in getting me a bit more sleep and I think it helped DD too as he took longer to wake up (!) and there was no way he could feed her.

I think the NCSS has some very good ideas but, as she warns, they do take time so you need to keep going even if you don't see results immediately.

And, in the hopes it gives you some encouragement, my DD now usually sleeps from 7 to 6:30/7 with one or two stirrings (because she has dropped her dummy - getting rid of that will be my next challenge!). I sing her a song, put her in her bed wide awake, kiss her cheek and walk out the door. There were times when I wondered whether we'd ever get to this point and I still sometimes wonder when my luck will run out!

I am thinking of starting NCSS too with my ds3 who is almost 6 months.

Ds1 and ds2 slept all night in their own bed (Amby baby hammock) but we are cosleeping with ds3 which is totally different. He wakes and feeds as much as hourly through the night and I am fed up!

Not sure whatwe will do yet, but we must do something.

Just wanted to say thanks for your replies. Struggling to get onto our big computer at the moment as DS naps on me. I can surf the net from my iPod, but it's not so good for writing considered replies. I will be back later hopefully.

PS: DS slept from 9.30 till 3 last night [grin having managed 3 hours of naps yesterday.

My DD has a similar sleep pattern to your DS- she is 6.5 months and her sleep has been deteriorating since 4 months...

She used to nap for 20/30 minutes at a time (so would only have 1-1.5 hours total naps per day) and would be so tired by her 7 o'clock feed she would conk out almost as soon as she latched on! I started the baby whisperer EASY routine at about 3.5 months, but as she would only nap for very short spells the routine was out of kilter by lunchtime and she would be tired and hungry at the same time and would feed and go to sleep on the feeding cushion.

About a month ago I decided to start enforcing her naps, as I've read that to tackle night-time sleep you should sort the daytime sleep out. I would put her in her cot while awake and drowsy. When she woke after 30 mins, I would shush, pat, stroke, cuddle, rock her back to sleep. To begin with this always took a while - up to 50 minutes of her protesting, as she was used to getting up when she woke - but she would almost always go back to sleep, eventually. This way she would be asleep (or at least in her cot) until the next feed was due- which was a way to break the feed to sleep association.

It was bloody time consuming, but in the last few days I've noticed that when she goes down for naps she stays asleep for over an hour. Sometimes an hour and a half. Today she napped for 2 and a half hours at lunchtime (with one short wake up).

I also started giving her solids 3 times a day- though she doesn't eat much- so she eats a bit around 45 mins before her naps- which might or might not be helping too.

Unfortunately, her night-time sleep hasn't changed that much- she still wakes around 4-6 times roughly every 2 hours or so but I'm hoping that this too will get better in time. Good luck- sounds as though you're going in the right direction- 9.30 til 3 = v impressive.