Our Sleep Plan - Support and Encouragement needed

Heaven, good for you! And it will take time. And even when it does take time, there'll be times when she's teething and will be up all night again, but *that's okay* because you've given her some tools to get herself back on track again.

Are you breastfeeding? I am asking because you say in your plan that babies at five months old should be able to sleep through the night without feeding. That may be so for some babies, but not so for others, particularly breastfed babies, and night feeding is often necessary for some babies for many, many months. The ideal I guess is that they wake up when they are hungry and go straight back to sleep again. Insisting on sleeping through without a breastfeed might jeopardise your milk supply, particularly when growth spurts are hitting.

Toomany- Yeah, I am BF. That part is an excerpt from the book. I would love if she slept all night without a feed but that's not going to happen, LOL. I'm cutting it down to 2 feeds though for now and then hopefully only 1 later.

Night 3: Not a great night sleep but something GREAT did happen!!
-firstly rocked to sleep, then realised I hadn't fed the poor thing lol so did what we usually do and fed her when she was sleepy, tried to stop her going to sleep feeding but couldn't so put her in her cot after a feed and amazingly she didn't wake up straight away.
-Woke 1/2hr later at 8.30pm :rolleyes:
-DH got up to rock her - 8 attempts at putting her down and her screaming as soon as he even started to lower her in.
-My turn- 4 attempts then on the 5th one I was fed up, put her in and didn't pick her straight back up when she cried, for some reason decided to roll her on her side and pat her bum and she went from screaming to STRAIGHT TO SLEEP!! DH and I were stunned. I know other ppl can get their babies to sleep this way but DD NEVER EVER has!! So finally she's asleep at 10pm.
-10 mins later I hear her wake up, ****! She rolls onto her back kicks her legs a lot, gets her arm out of her wrap, grabs her teddy and rolls over and GOES BACK TO SLEEP ON HER OWN!! DH and I now are in amazement and can't go to sleep :rofl:
-She then woke at 11.30, had a feed and got put back in bed.
-Woke at 1.30am and rocked back to sleep. Finally back in her cot by 2am.
-Wakes AGAIN at 3 am and I feed her and fall asleep and she stays in bed with us until she wakes at 5.45am.

So, some progress I would say!! Woot!

:dance: You are doing so well!!! :dance:
Sensational work by everyone, including DD, with that self settling!
Keep on trucking hun. xoxo

Well, 7.05pm and she's in bed asleep! Same thing happened, after a gazillion tries we tried again, she cried but then put her on her side and patted and she went to sleep! Good work my baby girl!

GOOD ON YOU!!!!!!!!! YAY! For being asleep!! Hope she gives you a nice long stretch tonight!

We aren't being strict with our routine at the moment, thanks to TEETH teeth and more friggen teeth :doh: But last night I got 1.45am to 7.30am!!! We are having midnight parties now, but I'm convinced thats teeth, and we are getting later morning starts, between 6-7.30am at the moment WOOHOO! You will get there too darl :D:D

That's great :) Well done to you both :)

Good work girls!!!!!

Heaven - DD did the same thing but when she was put on her tummy :o Instantly asleep!!! Until she realised what was happening - and now she fights it :rolleyes:

Great job though - you should be very proud of your progress!!! As for the feeding - as long as they go straight back to sleep, I can deal with the feeds overnight. It's the wake ups that hurt more :wall:

Yay! Its funny isn't it. I always found things that never worked before will suddenly work and things that your used to doing suddenly don't work. I found it always matter trying different things til you find what works at that time.

Thanks guys!!
Leash- I have a suspicion DD might be getting her top teeth soon too. But there's always something so I thought we'd start now anyway.
Michelle- Yeah, when she feeds overnight and goes back to sleep I don't care but I'm not getting up to rock her for hrs every night!!
shell- It is so weird! I can't believe she actually let me pat her to finish going to sleep. Hope she keeps it up!

Night 4:
In bed at 7.05pm after lots of tries and then eventually let me pat her to sleep again, woot!
Woke up at 9 I think, I don't remember, we fell asleep again! bugger. But woke at 12 again and then was up until 3!!!!!! All this time we were trying to put her down. I think the problem is she had a blocked nose and kept waking herself up coz she couldn't breathe :( Anyway, she then slept til 5.30am.

Good work Heaven! Sounds like you have been in the wars..... Well done!!! x

heaven- if her nose is blocked you might find a vaporiser next to her bed really helps.

I second a vaporiser. Its the best 60 bucks I have spent all winter!

Thanks guys, I will check them out!!

Hi Heaven
Sounds like you guys are making great progress, well done!

One thing I was going to suggest is maybe try not analysing every night in great detail. You can drive yourself crazy keeping track of every waking and how long they sleep, especially on nights when you go backwards. Best to stick to 10-day assessments cause you're more likely to see real progress after longer intervals, which helps in keeping up the momentum.

Anyway, things are looking up, hey?

marcellus- true! Thanks, I should do that, just wait until 10 days and see what changes there are.

I have to tell you all though that tonight she went down on only the 3rd attempt!! Yay!!

:dance:

Woot! What amazing progress! :clap:

OMG!! EVEN BETTER!! SHE WENT DOWN TONIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY!! THE FIRST!!
So proud of my little girl, she's getting it. And her routine is even out a bit tonight coz MIL is here.

BRILLIANT! well done to you!

Hooray!!! Well done!!! xx

thats great, must be such a relief and you were able to do it the way you felt comfortable with, Yay!

Well, did our 10 day log last night.

Asleep time: 8.20pm
Awake time: 5.45am
Total number of awakenings: 3
Longest sleep span: 2hrs
Total hours of sleep: 5.25hrs

So basically, NO PROGRESS!! I am really friggen fed up now. I have no idea why she is waking so much! We have gotten better with the rocking to sleep. We are now able to put her down first try for the first sleep and also during the night when she wakes. But we are STILL on the first step though. And EVERY night without fail she wakes after 1hr or less after she goes to bed. Why? She is not hungry or anything. I just pick her up and rock her and put her back down but FFS it's wearing thin. I mean seriously, the longest amount of sleep I've had in the last few months is probably 2hrs. That's not ok!!

I've really just had enough. I feel angry that I've got into this situation somehow and I feel like gentle techniques are rubbish and don't work but I can't bear the thought of letting her cry. So what are my options? I have none, I just have to not sleep. Great.

Can you tell I'm over it?

First :hug:
Second - you HAVE made progress!!! She settles much better now and that is a GOOD thing!!! Well done - you should be very proud :hug:

Now, that first wake up 1 hour after going down ...........

Is it at the same time / predictable?? If it is remember the book suggests sitting there in the 15 minutes before the *expected* wake time so you can pat / shhhh etc as they start to stir to help them move into the next sleep cycle.

You have made some great improvements so far but it can take a month or more to change sleep patterns. Try to focus on one change / improvement at a time. Keep going!!!!!

Oh Heaven :hug: :hug: :hug: I know they say you see progress after 10 days but for us it took LONGER for her to stop multiple night wakings. And YES its frustrating, especially since you focus on it so much, analysing every single tiny details, hoping and praying to see progress, and it fgeels like one step forwards, ten steps back, and that night of sleep feels like it will never happen :-(

How you put her to bed? Wrapped, in a sleeping bag, or under blankets? We put Jazz to bed either in a sleeping bag or under blankets, but then when we stopped doing that (just dressed her warmly) it made a huge difference :o :dunno: She hated being wrapped, always kicked her way out of it, and it seems it is pretty much anything that covers her arms/legs that she hates.

I know it might seem like a long shot, but the way I saw it, what have I got to loose? It's not like it can make their sleep any worse :rolleyes:

We also found success with our amber necklace.

Thanks Michelle! I forgot about that. I'm going to try that tonight. I think it's about the 1hr mark she wakes up. Last night I think it was only 45mins.

Thanks Leash. Yeah she's wrapped to go to bed. It's really hard to put her down when she's unwrapped coz she flails her arms around when you go to put her down and wakes herself up. But lately she has been getting her arms out and then going back to sleep in the night so maybe now that she's settling easier it might work. Might try her unwrapped tonight. She has an amber anklet but I don't know if it does anything. Maybe a necklace would be better. I think she might be getting her top teeth. I just wish I knew the reason why she keeps waking, I hope there's a reason coz at least then I can do something about it.

Thanks so much guys. I will soldier on anyway :( No choice really!

Also, do you think her daytime naps are effecting her sleep at night? Because at night she is put down to sleep but during the day she STILL either is held or in the HAB.
It was IMPOSSIBLE to put her down in the day before and I actually haven't even tried for ages. If I don't try it's like I can hope that I might be able to do it but if I do try and I can't do it it just makes me so frustrated and angry iykwim?? So I'm just living in denial, pmsl. But maybe I just really need to cut out the holding while she sleeps in the day altogether so she gets the idea that she always sleeps in her cot??

It's sooooooooo hard to do though. I'm not very patient I don't think. And when I'm not getting enough sleep at night it's hard to have patience and be bothered during the day. Much easier with DH here aswell so we can take turns. He might be getting a bit of time off soon though :crossfingers:

I know the book says try anything to get day sleeps happening but I would try doing day sleeps, even if its just one, in the cot?
OR, maybe, put the shirt you are wearing today in her bed tonight? If she doesn't sleep much in the cot, that might help it be a bit more familiar?
Or maybe a mixture of both?

BRB, its about to rain and I have washing on the line lol!

Right... I can empathise too BTW, about not being patient. I don't have a lot of patience when it comes to Jazzy's sleeping, mostly because I just want to scream SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP DAMMIT!


Hmmm, actually, thinking about it... do you think the silence of night is waking her up? If she is in-arms during the day, she'd hear noise, at least some. ou've probably tried but maybe if you have a tv in the room put it on at night? Or a radio playing soft music or even white noise at night might help?

She seems to be such a light sleeper during the day too, it's so annoying!! She doesn't even sleep that well when I'm holding her it's just that when she stirs I can quickly get her back to sleep whereas if I put her down she's awake after 45mins and still cranky and I can't get her back to sleep and it makes me cranky I've put in all that effort to get her to sleep and she's awake again so soon! grr... in the HAB she will sleep for 1.5hrs or more.

Hmm.....in the day I have her sleep time music on while she sleeps. Man, that would do my head in playing all night though, pmsl. Or maybe I'm so tired I won't hear it.

Well tomorrow is the weekend and DH will be home so I can start trying some day sleeps in the cot then. Who knows, now that she's easier to get down at night she might be easier to put down in the day too.

Heaven, if there's one particular day sleep that's better than the others try putting her down for that one. I wouldn't bother with the others though, cause it's just more stress (and less sleep).
Concentrating on night sleep is easier. Once she gets the hang of it, you may well find that the day sleeps improve all on their own. The most important thing for now is that she gets enough day sleep so she's not overtired.

When we did the NCSS, we found that day sleeps started working once DS was able to put himself to sleep in the cot, not before.

good luck (as always)

Thanks marcellus. I'll try for just one day sleep to start and see how I go.
Oh man, I can't wait til the day when DD puts herself to sleep. Feels like it will never happen though!

Oh, another thought - One thing that can set in around 6 months is separation anxiety.

Oh yeah that is just starting. Well not separation anxiety yet but crying at strangers, lol.

Home alone by myself tonight. She went to sleep at 7.15 and slept for 1/2hr, have been trying to put her down since then and she won't let me put her down even when she's sound asleep. So now she's in the cot crying. I can't hold her anymore, my arm is dead. Tried just giving up and getting her up and she was still crying so what's the point. So she's crying in there now bc I need a break. Maybe she'll magically go to sleep. Doubt it but I give up, I've had enough. Nothing works.

umm..ok she went to sleep. Cried for about 10 mins and I went in and comforted her twice and rewrapped and made sure she was ok and still on her back. Then she stopped crying and I went in and didn't let her see me and she was kicking around then slowly moving less and less and went to sleep.

I just feel awful though, wouldn't call it successful. My poor baby girl :( What if she thinks I don't love her?? I just needed a break though, it was too much :(

Heaven :hug: It is so very hard. DD has been a shocker for the past week - screaming as soon as she is put into the cot even though she is sound asleep, not settling, not sleeping well. All pear shaped. But it will get better (I have to think that or lose the plot :rolleyes:) She had one nap today :o and her eyes were hanging out of her head. But would she sleep ..... Noooooooo!!!!!!!!

Give up tonight. Do what you need to to get through the day. Think about whether she may be teething and that may be causing her distress and adding to the unsettled stuff. Does panadol / nurofen help??

It will get better. If you need to CC and it sits well with you then do what you need to :hug: But if you aren't comfortable with it, know that one night is not going to cause her permanent damage and look at your other options tomorrow :hug:

Thanks Michelle.
No, panadol or brauers or hylands doesn't help at all so not sure it's teething. It has been going on like this for over a month now. Never been a good sleeper but been worst the past month or so.
No, I'm not comfortable with CC :( I didn't actually plan on her going to sleep. I didn't think she actually would. Just put her down to get a break bc I was feeling really angry and frustrated so I thought it was best to put her down. Then she stopped crying, then went to sleep.

After she went to sleep though she slept for 2.5hrs, then woke and had a feed and went straight back down for another 3.5hrs!! Longest bit of sleep we've had for AGES. Maybe she was tired from crying :( I feel terrible.

On the plus side, DH now has a week off! Yay! So we are going to stop using the HAB in the day and sort out her sleep. Hopefully.

:hug:
The 6-month mark is often VERY bad for sleep & settling.
Might just be a developmental thing, or a peak in separation anxiety or due to introduction of solids (or particular foods she is having). Or something else entirely....:rolleyes:
This is when the NCSS went out the window for us, I'm afraid. It would not work. DS needed us with him all night. He did not like his cot anymore. And I think sometimes his tummy was uncomfortable.
Early on around this time I found that not feeding him solids for a few days helped. Some find that avoiding high-GI foods helps. Or other additives etc.
Then we ended up moving him to a mattress on the floor. I slept with him for a few nights, then he was able to sleep alone again....until he started teething.... Some kids are just super sensitive to everything.
Take care of yourself, ok? I know you don't want to do cc, but if you need a break then do it. Make sure your hubby picks up lots of slack in his time off.

Alright, I'm over it. It's not working. The trying to stop rocking to sleep part does not work. We haven't used the HAB for the last week and in that time have only been able to put her down 3 times during the day. It is not getting any better. It's just ridiculous and we can't go on like this. So not sure wtf I'm supposed to do now. Seriously, nothing works.

Heaven, i havent read all of the posts sorry but i wanted to say that i remember my ds at 6 months and his sleep was shocking. We had 4 solid weeks of waking every 1-2 hours each night, He wouldnt stay in his bed, he would fall asleep in our arms then wake the second he was put down. He would go histerical if i left the room for a break etc. I was at my wits end, i wasnt sure what to do or try next and then like magic, one night he just slept for 4 hours then he would have 2 good nights and 1 bad, now the good way out number the bad and he is back to self settling and we are all so much happier.

I guess what i am trying to say id just hang in there - i have no real answers for you ( i dont even know why ds's sleep went crazy) but you are not alone :hug: xxxxxxxxx You are doing the best you can and it will get better

Hi Heaven, please, please please go easy on yourself.

You are such a loving caring mum and your DD loves you very much.

We're having a few sleep probs here this week (its the second last wonder week thank god!) and I have found the more you fight with them, the worse you feel.

Sleep problems put you between a rock and a hard place, because you start setting up expectations about what they're "supposed" to do or even what you would like them to do. This means that when they don't do things your way, you get frustrated, even angry (yes I have left DD crying in her cot for 10mins or so more than once to get a break!). And then, the anger and resetment you feel makes you feel guilty because, ultimately you're just trying to help yourself, your baby and your family but its not working.

So....

I would do one of two things now.

1. Have a break and totally forget the NCSS plan for a week, and then re-think it (and we'll help you).
or
2. Be creative and try and be flexible. Sometimes when DD won't settle, I just say to her. "Oh you don't want to sleep, okay then you have to sit quietly with me while I do this..." and then hold her while she squirms and cries a bit until she settles. Then 9 times out of ten she will let me put her down. Also, the more DD is put in her cot, the more she will get used to it being her sleep place...so rock her until she's dead asleep if you need, but at least when she wakes up, she sees its in the same place every time.

Good luck hun. HTH

hi heaven, when you put her down in the day, where do you put her? do you have a swing or bouncer or something to give you a break?
big hugs honey, jimmy is sleeping absolutely shockingly atm too. i swear sometimes he'll only sleep with my nipple in his mouth!