XP from 3-6 board: The No-Cry Sleep Solution

littlev

Has anyone had success with this sleep training method?  Can you be specific about what you changed in order to achieve better sleep, and how long it took?  Currently DD is sleeping around 3 hours for naps (2 or 3 naps) and in bed around 10-11 hours with 3-5 wakings at night.  I know she is over-tired, and today is my first day trying to implement my new ideas from this book.

beautiflaw

I read the book cover to cover and it worked for us. I eventually discovered that I also needed to change her feeding schedule to reflect her sleep schedule. I also realized that she was waking in the night because of me, not because she needed something. After I read NCSS I read Bringing Up Bebe (not very AP friendly but I still enjoyed it), and I used a combo of NCSS and BUB. She eats and sleeps on a schedule now and rarely wakes in the night. Here's what we do:

8:00am - She wakes up. She eats breakfast (cereal, fruit puree, 8oz bottle) 

9:00/9:30am - She takes a nap because her belly is full again. She usually sleeps for about 30 minutes because she is transitioning to 2 naps a day now.

12:00 - Lunch. (veggie puree, 8oz bottle) 

1:00/1:30 - 2nd nap, usually it lasts about an hour. 

4:00 - Snack. (fruit or veggie puree, mum mums or puffs, 8 oz bottle) 

5:00/5:30 - 3rd nap, usually lasts about an hour. 

7:00 - Dinner. (veggie and meat puree, 8oz bottle, sometimes with a couple of tablespoons of rice dissolved in it if she is having trouble with spit up)

8:00/8:30-  After she eats she usually falls asleep within an hour and she sleeps all night. We tried co-sleeping for a couple of months but my husband and I snore VERY loudly and it was keeping her up, so she sleeps in her own room. She sleeps a solid 12 hours without waking about 90% of the time. The other times she is waking due to a wet diaper or she's sick. She doesn't use a pacifier, blankie, stuffed animal, or night light. We elevated the head of her crib so her reflux wouldn't bother her while she sleeps, but that's it.

When she cries in the night I wait a little while before I go see about her. I started studying the sound of her cries and now I can tell if she's crying in her sleep or if she's actually awake and needs me. She will whine in her sleep when she is trying to roll herself over (I place her on her back in the crib, but in the night she rolls herself on her side or tummy), or just in her dreams or whatever. If she's actually awake she pretty much screams like crazy until somebody goes and picks her up, and usually its because now she tries to pull up or crawl in her sleep and she gets a hand or foot caught in her crib slats. (I had to take the bumper off because she trying to use it to climb) Before she was waking up at 12:00am and 4:00am, and sometimes also at 6:00am. Now if she wakes up at all she only wakes up once. The rule I try to follow is that if she is still crying after about 7-10 minutes, she is awake and needs somebody to see to her. Usually she is just making noise in her sleep and she starts snoring again after about 90 seconds.

 

Hope some of that was helpful. 

jcsumm0

I have had some success with it.  However, my LO was quite a bit older than yours when I started.  She has sort of always been all over the place with sleep.  She'll sleep really well for a few weeks and then it will all go to crap.  I usually can figure out something to help her sleep better.  Once it was that she was cold; we put a space heater in her room.  Around 5 months I realized she needed to be swaddled again--I swaddled her until she was around 8 months and that helped a lot.  Then she started sleeping on her tummy (unswaddled) and that helped.  I started NCSS when she was around 9 months and started waking up 5-8x a night.  It was around the time she got more mobile and she was waking herself up by sitting up in her sleep.  So I did the following things from the book:

1. Introduced a lovey.

2. Pantley pull off--I try for drowsy but awake but she is usually reeeeally drowsy but she does open her eyes and blink a few times when I put her in the crib so she knows where she is.

3. Pre-nap and bedtime routine.  It is very simple but it does help her to know what is coming.

4. Nap schedule.  I don't really think she was ready to be put on a schedule until she went down to 2 naps, but since she did go to 2 naps (around 8-9 months), I do a 2-3-4 schedule and that has helped a TON. First nap 2 hours after wake up, 2nd nap 3 hours after wake from 1st nap, bed 4 hours after wake up from 2nd nap.

5. Feed often during the day.  I started noticing that she wasn't just comfort sucking during the night, she was really eating, so I offer to nurse her all the time during the day (and she gets solids too, but we do BLW so she eats what she wants, sometimes a lot, sometimes not much)

6. Sleep cue words.

Now she is back down to 1-3 wakings a night, and she sleeps from about 7-7 with 2 naps during the day between 2-3 hours total.  I don't think she is totally going to STTN from 7-7 until she is night weaned, but I am not ready to do that yet.  She has always been small and had some issues gaining weight, so I am ok with feeding her once or twice at night for now.  We'll probably do some gentle night weaning (which I'm sure will involve some crying) once she is older than a year and getting more nutrition from solids.

Sorry for the novel, hope some of that is helpful to you!