Does PUPD encourage them to sleep through?

[BlameItOnTheBogey]

DD is nearly 5 months old and is an atrocious sleeper. She doesn't sleep during the day hardly at all and is not so great at night either. The problem is that she doesn't know how to self settle and so every time she hits a lighter sleep cycle she wakes up and will only be resettled with the breast. She doesn't take much during the night feeds and is only using it to resettle (I reckon the only feed she actually needs is around 4am). I have a toddler and need dd to start being able to sleep during the day and to only wake at night when she really needs a feed. If we try PUPD does anyone know if this actually teaches them to self-settle or does it just create another prop that they rely on to resettle when they wake up (alebit one that my husband can equally do)?

I've not tried PUPD myself but I think the idea behind it is that it teaches them to self settle. It is basically crying themselves to sleep (like in cry it out or controlled crying methods), except that they do their crying in your arms rather than alone in the cot. The theory is that it takes a progressively shorter time for them to get the hang of going to sleep by themselves, until they can just do it.

So until your DD has got the hang of going to sleep on her own, you would ieally use it to get her to sleep after every awakening - the more consistent you are, the easier it is for babies to learn how to get to sleep. It assumes that your baby will be comforted by being picked up & held by you - I think it would work less well for a baby who was irritated or stimulated by your prescence.

You would probably need to re-do PUPD after disruptions to sleep (holidays, illness, developmental spurts etc).

If you can sort your DD's naps, her night sleep may well improve - insufficient daytime naps often mean an overtired baby, and overtired babies find it harder to go to sleep and stay asleep at night.

HTH

Thanks for the reply AngelDog. So we started this on Sunday night. It took her 40 mins to go down. She woke at 01.30 and took 50 mins to resettle. She woke again at 0400 and I fed her and she went straight back to sleep. Last night she took 20 mins to go to sleep and didn't wake until her 0430 sleep! Then she went straight back to sleep until the morning. Hooray! She's napping in her cot now after 15mins of PUPD so maybe this is the way for us to go.

*0430 feed not sleep...

Let's hope the progress continues!