Update on our sleeping (and it's good!)
Hi everyone,
You might remember us from such threads as "There has to be a gentle way to do this... "
Anyway, just wanted to give you all an update where we are up to now..
He gets up around 7.00am - 7.45amish (depends on day), has a feed etc.
Goes back down really easily normally around 10ish. I normally hold him for like 1-2 mins on the rocking chair, until he is sleepy but still awake, eyes open etc. I put him down in his cot and he rolls over & goes to sleep himself. Will sleep for around 1.5hrs, then i go up and hold him again for a minute and then he goes back down for another 1.2 hr or so (yesterday it was 1 more hr!). Sometimes i feed him back to sleep, but as DH can also put him back down i know he isn't dependant on that.
Then he stays up for 3-4 hours, and goes back down. This one is a bit harder, normally he isn't happy being held in my arms and wants to fight it, but once he knows its sleep time he is better. I put him down wide awake, and its funny, sometimes he screams for like 3 seconds (honestly, enough for me to get out the door), sitting up in his cot, and then once he has got that out of his system he puts himself to sleep.
Evenings he goes down around 7.30 - 7.45pm DH normally puts him to sleep (i give a feed first, although sometimes i do it), and by this time he is more sleepy, so its even easier than the morning sleep. He sometimes does a reenactment of the afternoon while DH or I sing him his goodnight songs, but normally goes down very well!
He normally wakes once during the night, and has like 1/2 a feed. Its any time from 4 - 6am, so he sleeps 8-10 hours (now i just have to work on going to bed before 12.30! ). He goes back down straight away, is normally asleep b4 i get him back into the cot.
DH has 10 days off from 23rd Dec (all paid leave!) so we are going to use your book to try and get him to sleep straight through until 6.30/7.00. I don't think i can train him because he can smell the milk, and can't do it atm cos DH needs to be awake for work.
A big thankyou has to go to Mel (Melbo) for lending us "the no cry sleep solution" (she even posted it to us for free - what a legend!), which has really helped me work out that it is ok to have a gentle routine, and to try and wean him off being dependant on sleep cues if we get to the stage where they are too much (like she said, if you are happy doing it, keep going regardless of if others think its a problem!).
It has def. helped us have a gentle routine (i think i was so afraid of having a "routine" i didn't realise how much a gentle one actually would have helped him), and the settling techniques.
Our next stage is to get rid of the night wakeing between 4-6am, and also work on the dummy if it becomes a problem.
Considering he was having 40 min naps and it would take us at least 1hr to get him to even have that, we are ecstatic about where we are up to... Now we aren't like "you go to him", when he is crying because it's not so hard and we are so exhuasted/frustrated from doing it all the time.
The only problem is he still doesn't have great sleeps out of the house, but i think if he had a cot in a dark room he might be better about it. At least i know if i get a babysitter at my house he will sleep :)
I think i will still use things like the hammock & co-sleeping with the next ones, but i just have so much more of a clue about what to do and what warning signs to look for before bad sleeping habits are really cemented in!
Thanks everyone for all your support.... We did it in a way we felt comfortable with! Although I think DA just getting older had a lot to do with it also! :)
Yael
