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June 2011 Moms
IdigDirt
member
**hepcats**
IdigDirt
member
So I want to read Good Night Sleep Tight but I am really short on time and sleep. Is this method something you could (or want to) sum up easily for me to try until I have time to read it? If so I will love you forever and send you many virtual brownies, if not I will still love you forever but will send significantly less virtual brownies.
ETA: if any of you lookey-loos want to share sleep tips you will be entitled to share in the brownies.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: **hepcats**
Ha! I don't know why but I'm always afraid when I see my name pop up on the boards, like I'm getting ready to get called out for something. You'd think I'd have gotten in a lot of trouble as a kid but I didn't, so maybe that's why I'm paranoid.
Anyhoo, to sum up for your LO's age:
- Bedtime should be around 9PM or so. If bedtime is currently later than that, try to slowly move it up, 15 minutes at a time.
- Put LO down drowsy but awake.
- Establish a bedtime routine that is relaxing to LO.
- Try not to nurse/feed to sleep so that LO can begin to learn to put themselves to bed and not associate nursing/feeding with sleep.
- For naps: try to feed sometimes when they wake up from a nap instead of right before, again to break that sleep/feed association.
- A dreamfeed or a first after midnight feed routine should be established. If LO wakes up before 6AM, no feeding. Pat, shush, rock, but no feeding. Try not to pick up LO out of bed unless they're really losing their sh*t. LO will begin to eat more during the day after a few days at most.
Sleep Lady Shuffle can begin now or in the 4th month, whichever you prefer, because it is a gentle method of sleep training.Once LO reaches 4 months, you have the choice of weaning them out of the dreamfeed or first after midnight feed if you choose. You start by nursing 5 minutes less than you normally would (or feeding 1/2oz less than you normally would) and slowly, each day, decreasing the nursing time and/or ounces until you hit 5 minutes of nursing or 3oz of feeding. At that time, if they woke, you would pat, shush, but not feed until 6AM.
I know everyone is always afraid of starving their child, I think primarily because it's not like they can actually tell us they're hungry, but we need to give more credit to our LOs sometimes than we do. They realize they're getting less food and begin to intake more during the day. When LO started STTN, he was eating 3.5ish oz each feed but once those O/N feeds were cut out, he started taking in closer to 5 and is now at 6 oz each feed. I make that first morning bottle larger than the rest of them throughout the day so that he can get some good nutrients first thing.
There is the long version of this book but there's also a workbook version, which is like 75 pages or something, and has all the same information but with less detail and backup. I got both because I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing on anything. I'm not sure if the workbook goes all the way to year 5 the way the long book does though. HTH!
Haha. Me too.
Thanks for sharing! I have actually tried some of the things you've mentioned before. I'm such a weakling though. I'm no good at not feeding her. I decided that I would let her have her first wake up feeding but not feed her again if she woke up after that and before 6am. Well, everytime she does this, I try to pat/ssh her back to sleep, but I'm so tired and and out of energy that I end up just holding her and nursing her (and me) back to sleep. I then end up holding her the rest of the morning (usually an hour or 2) until it's time to wake up for the day.
It's just so hard. How do you have the energy to get through it?
Sorry to butt in, but ITA with the bolded stuff. It's all good in theory, but in the middle of the night, at like the 3rd awakening, it's just so much easier to give her the boob and be back to sleep in 10 minutes. Uggghhh. Plus I'm afraid if I don't feed her, she'll just get more mad and it'll be that much harder to get her back to sleep. No real point to this reply, I'm just at a total loss. Maybe I need to get that book even though I have read No-Cry Sleep Solution... thanks for the summary though hepcats!
I'm an ogre.
But seriously though, I approach most things in parenting the same as I do at work: I could delegate some work now, spend the extra time (that I may not necessarily have) to make sure it saves me time in the long run - or I could continue to do all this work on my own and be stressed and overworked for a longer period of time. Same thing with this: do I want to be doing the waking in the middle of the night thing all the time? Granted, most kids grow out of this on their own eventually, but do I really have the energy to be dealing with it at 6 mos, 9 mos, 1yr+? No. Therefore I bite the bullet now so that I don't have to take a bullet later lol.
You're so right. I guess just keep hoping she'll grow out of it sooner rather than later. Every time I go to bed I say a little prayer and hope that I won't be woken up until the alarm goes off. Either that, or I'll wake up and be amazed she is still asleep and go back to sleep myself. lol
Good point. I just wish there was a guarantee that biting the bullet now will actually work! I'm running low on patience.
You are the most awesome woman ever!
When you say post midnight dreamfeed do you mean I have to set an alarm or something to wake up or just feed the first time he wakes up aftermidnight and not again for the other few times he wakes?
The *speaks between chews* bolded *takes a swig of milk* portion.
adamsps: You might make a new post asking hepcats this. Unless she has her post order set to "last post first," she probably won't see this as it's from October.
Good luck with your sleep training.
good info!
best of lucks...going throught the same with my LO!!!!!