F/U to feeling sad about sleep training

Re: F/U to feeling sad about sleep training

• jshf member

  February 2012

  Maybe you can try the Sleep lady shuffle or the pick up/ put down from the Baby Whispere.  They are more gentle ways of sleep training.  But with anything, there will always be set backs due to illness, travel, developmental milestones.  GL!

   

  

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• Athena0809 member

  February 2012

  KCKappa:

  I posted last week about feeling sad/guilty about putting DD into her crib awake and letting her cry for 5 minutes before she fell asleep on her own. Well, after that first night we had 4 more increasingly wonderful nights of her going into her crib awake, crying/fussing for less than a minute before talking herself to sleep, and only waking 2x/night (instead of every 1-2 hrs like usual)... and then things fell apart.

  On the 6th night, as she was rolling around with her blanky to get to sleep, she bumped her head pretty hard on the crib rails and immediately started screaming. I went in to comfort her, and when I tried to put her back down she started crying again. I gave her 5 minutes, but she was still crying hard, so I rocked her to sleep. She was up every 1-2 hrs the rest of the night.

  The next night, we tried again to put her in her crib awake, but after 5 minutes she was again still crying hard, so I rocked her to sleep - and she was up every 1-2 hrs. We took a break Sunday night and just did our usual routine of rocking to sleep, then last night I tried to go back to putting her in her crib awake. She cried hard for 7-8 minutes and that was all I could take, so I went in and rocked her to sleep. I guess instead of teaching her how to go to sleep on her own, I've now taught her that if she cries long enough, I'll come get her - and I'm not really willing to let her cry much longer than we've already done to unlearn that lesson.

  We're going to go back to the old routine for at least a few weeks now. Maybe we'll try again as she gets closer to 1. I guess this is just a vent, so thanks for listening. Sigh.

  That was exactly my problem when I tried Ferber. Although I was modifying it like you (with the shorter intervals) eventually I would come to get him because I was not comfortable with him crying that long. like you, I took a break but I may return to sleep training, not necessarily Ferber but some sort of form of sleep training. I guess my point is you are not the only one!

  

  
  

  
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• rubber_chicken member

  February 2012

  I don't think the issue is that you're comforting her, but that you're rocking her.  She's falling asleep being rocked, and it's disorienting when she wakes up and isn't still being rocked.

  Is there another way you could comfort her? What about changing where she sleeps? Would you be comfortable with cosleeping or bedsharing?
  

  

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• KCKappa member

  February 2012

  Thanks for the replies! It's good to know I'm not alone! We have tried bedsharing, and it seems to either make no difference or wake her up more depending on the night, and both DH and I sleep worse. She seems to get more worked up if we're in the room but not holding her, so Sleep Lady Shuffle and pick-up/put-down don't seem like they'd be better options at this point. She slept absolutely terribly last night, so hopefully we'll figure something out or she'll grow into this sleeping thing soon!

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