My sleep plan

sarahjulypsu

So I know that alot of us have been having problems w/ our 6/7 month olds and sleep. My DD was a sleeping champ. She started sleeping 6hr streches at 6 weeks and 10 hours by 3.5 months. We never had a routine because I never felt the need for one. Recently she has started fighting/refusing naps and waking up every few hours at night. So I have read as much as I could get my hands on. I thought I would share my plan (I started last week)

First, I really didn't want to do rapid extinction and Ferber was sounding to hard for me also. I feel to bad to do it. DD has been teething and just gotten over a cold, but also she isn't sleeping, so I knew intervention was needed.

For the first week I wanted to get her use to a nap/bed time routine. I set the sleep sheep to the ocean sound. Read her the same book in the rocking chair. During that week I let her nurse before the nap and rocked her to sleep. Then I put her in the crib a sleep.

Now we are on week two. I am still using the sleep sheep. Reading her the same book and rocking her untill she has calmed down. Then laying her in the crib awake. At this point she screams. Instead of leaving the room I have been staying w/ her and rubbing her chest/head. So far it seems to take about 5/10 minutes and she has fallen asleep.

Next week I plan on trying to get her to fall asleep in her crib on her own. I think i'll prob give her 5/10 minutes of crying before I go in and rub her head/chest.

 I know my plan is taking longer but it's the most I could handle. Last night she went to sleep at 7:40 for the first time, up at 10:30 and back down untill 6:20. Way better than the every 2/3 hours she had been getting up!

 Sorry this is so long. Also sorry for any spelling/grammer problems. I want to catch a shower so I didn't edit.

ekc29

I think your plan sounds great and so far, it sounds like it is working! Good job! I am interested in seeing it all pan out, I am also getting to a point of needing some kind of intervention for my DD. Right at six months, we started seeing the same things w naps and night sleep. I am currently rocking/nursing to sleep and have slowly started rocking her for smaller increments of time every day, sort of weaning her off the rocking. Some days, it's very successful and other days, not so much. I am dreading having to try Ferber, so I , too am open to all other methods, even if they take longer. We shall see...... : ) Good luck to you!

rmm17

We had the same issue at 6 months (although Ace was NEVER a good sleeper, i just had all i could take by 6 months and thought he was old enough for a plan). We did a similar plan:  read, rock, nurse, put down drowsy and we would pat his back or rub his belly.  Then we moved on to putting him down more awake and he protested that.  We went in every 5 minutes to check on him/comfort without picking up.  I set a 15 minute limit.  If he wasn't asleep by then i would rock him back to sleep.  The first night he fussed/cried for 14 minutes.  The 2nd night he went to sleep with no problem and no crying.  I am definitely not an advocate of straight CIO especially for really little babies.  It was my feeling that if he was crying for more than 15 minutes he just wasn't ready.  We have had to "retrain" after a vacation but it only took 1 night of fussing for 5 minutes.  Also, when he cries at night, we always go to him right away to check and comfort without picking him up.  I hope your plan works for you.  It sounds like your LO is ready for it.

 

PS: We use the sleep sheep too and LOVE it.

sarahjulypsu

I'll post a follow up in a week. I hope it works : )

RomeRomance06

That's great, that your plan is working so far! I just wanted to say that the staying in the room to comfort without picking up didn't work for us, although I wanted it to because I felt bad leaving her when she was crying so hard. When we sleep trained I would put her down awake but sleepy and she would cry and cry - tears and everything - until I left the room. And then she would roll over and go to sleep, almost immediately. This took me a couple days to figure this out. I would stay there and sing to her and rub her head/chest and she would just scream louder. When I left it was a much faster process. I'm not sure why. Now, most days, she goes to sleep on her own without a peep even if she's wide awake.

dsmithplus2

Sounds like its working! I'm actually gonna try this. I've tried everything but CIO, as I don't have the heart to do that.. Hopefully it works for me GL!