Astrid,

I just wanted to come in to say hello. Jacob had always been a lovely sleeper.....until 6.5m!! Then his sleep went totally haywire. He was tired all the time (as were we!) but it seemed that nothing we did helped and we were all going out of our minds!

Thankfully, here in Hobart, there is a Mother & Baby Unit where CC is not practised at all - they help you understand your baby's cues more and teach you lots of different settling techniques and work with you one on one - above all, they always told us to go to Jacob if he was upset so that he knew we were always there for him. I found this very comforting as it's what we had always done and wanted to continue doing. I really gained a lot from it, in that I gained some self-confidence and learnt to understand Jacob a bit better. I wouldn't say my stay there with Jacob was a raging success, in that he doesn't sleep through every night etc etc but he sleeps a lot better now than what he did then. For us, we found that giving sleep cues helped - he seems to be a creature of habit (like me!) who needs/benefits from the predictability factor and having the same thing happen at sleep time each time really helped him. Obviously this doesn't work for everybody, I know....it's just what worked for us, plus some wind-down time and persisting with settling him for sleep if he was still tired.

It's been really hard work as we've all been tired and cranky on plenty of occasions, but we have persisted with our comforted sleeping techniques and we go to him whenever he needs us so that he knows Mummy and Daddy are always there. I can honestly say, that he has a lot more confidence in putting himself to sleep now than what he once did. Sure, he's 16.5m old now and we started this when he was 9.5m (the time we went to the M&B Unit), so it's taken a long time, but it has worked. I like that he knows we are there for him if he has trouble going to sleep or wakes up and needs help going back to sleep. He goes through stages where his sleep becomes unsettled, and then the next week, it will be great again. So I really believe that gentle parenting works, particularly when it comes to sleep - they gain confidence in themselves (and you gain confidence in yourself!) and you can tell how much they love and trust you for it!

Sorry to have waffled on......and take from this whatever you will Astrid, I just wanted to share our sleep journey with you and to let you know that I appreciate how hard it can be!