Hi girls! I don't have time to write persies but I did want to quickly share my breakthrough in Jack's sleeping patterns!! He goes down at 7 and wakes at 7 - sometimes a little later, so Nick and I are waiting around for him! And I put it all down to two things: self-settling and routine.

Here's how the new routine goes (thanks, Tizzie Hall!):


7am - wake up (normally it was 5 or 6)
8am- solids
9am - milk
9.20 - down for sleep (he has to self-settle, where I leave the room and he goes to sleep on his own)
11am - milk
12pm - solids
1.20pm - sleep (self-settle again)
when he wakes - milk
5pm - solids
6.30pm - milk
7pm - bed

I know that sounds really strict, but it's actually working. When I want to go out, I just work around it.

And the other key, the most critical key, is for him to learn to self-settle. He wakes every night, like every hour sometimes, because he's lost his dummy. He was wrapped and couldn't get to it. So, I took the wrap off him (which is big in itself) and then put lots of dummies in his cot so he always has one at hand.

When I put him down for his day sleeps, he sometimes wakes after one sleep cycle (45 minutes). I don't go in, let him grizzle a bit, and after around 4 minutes he has put himself back to sleep. It was so hard to do that in the beginning but now that I know that he will find his dummy, put it in and then go back to sleep, I feel much better. The book (Save Our Sleep) suggests to not leave it more than 12 minutes, but Jack has never cried that long. He goes to sleep pretty quickly.

The book also says not to let them sleep for more than four hours during the day. Before, I would let Jack have three sleeps before lunch and then two after lunch!

Anyway, I thought I would share this, just incase any of you are battling away like I was. Get Tizzie's book!!

xx