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December 2011 Moms
nap training: i give up!
ok, i thought i was going to start nap training last week. i did it for one day but realized that since she was getting her shots the following day, i should start fresh on monday (today).
i let her cry once today for a nap, she fell asleep on her own for about 20 minutes, but cried the next 20 minutes. it was pure hell. i just can't do this.
we hired a new nanny, a nice woman from india, and she's going to teach me how they put babies to sleep in india-- with no crying! she thought the concept of western sleep-training somewhat cruel and unusual. i'm going to start out with the indian way, i'm so over this crying!
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Re: nap training: i give up!
Did you use crying it out (without checking) or would you check and calm every few minutes? It's amazing how different babies handle sleep training!
I'm so glad you have the nanny- that will be great to have her help with that
My Ovulation Chart
This. PLEASE share!! DS and his non-existent naps are killing me.
First I love your siggy Michelle!
And second Ana does nap but Im interested just bc it sounds interesting. LOL. So yes please share!
Yes, please share if she has some magic trick that works for napping! Our little guy sleeps like a champ at night, and LOVES to nap if someone is holding him, or in the car, but if you try and lay him down during the day, it is a no go. I can't get anything done when we're home during the day, and it's getting ridiculous! I told my husband yesterday that we need to hire a "baby holder" for during the day, haha.
I can't deal with the crying either- breaks my heart! Yesterday, we tried leaving him for 5 mins, then going in to check on him/soothe/etc....we did this for over an hour, with less than 10 mins of sleep from him. Next nap, we tried leaving him longer- a little over 10 mins, and by then he had escalated to full-blown screaming, and by this point, I was crying too. No thanks. I would rather hold him for every nap until he's 5 years old than to hear my baby scream like that. Not good for anyone!! It's hard because my MIL and FIL keep telling my husband that we need to just let him cry it out, no matter how long it takes- even if we have to just close the door and go outside so we don't have to hear him scream--um, seriously? No way!! I tried to explain to my husband that that is NOT happening in our house
It's tough because he is normally such a good natured little guy. I think I need to come up with a good pre-nap routine, because once we started consistently doing our pre-bed routine (bath and lotion with soft music/low light, swaddle, bottle, into bed, pacifier, sing him Twinkle Twinkle, kiss and door closed) he dialed right in and goes right to sleep at night. Trying to think of what a good pre-nap routine could be...?
i did checks every 3-5-7 minutes. she would calm down but scream as soon as i left the room. i wanted to scream, too!
and i'll report back with what i learn tomorrow from my nanny. i know it involves massages!
This is actually going to be kind of an epic post, but I feel like I've gone from total nap hell to nap heaven over the course of the last few weeks, so I thought I'd share in case you guys can benefit from the little adjustments I made that made a BIG difference...(don't worry, I've done my time in the no-nap zone -- these are all fairly recent discoveries).
What I've been doing is putting him down to nap in our bed "big boy" style, with the big comforter making him cozy. I lie down with him and settle him down by stroking his head or cuddling him (he still does the crazy restless arms sometimes, so I use my cuddle arm to ever-so-slightly restrain him). If needed, he'll get the binky, but it's only a sometimes thing with him. He usually falls asleep pretty quickly and stays out for at least an hour, but the naps are getting longer and longer to the point where I usually get at least one two-hour nap a day, sometimes two, with some one-hour naps thrown in. I start the "nap sequence" whenever I see the first yawn or eyerub after he's been awake for awhile. Sometimes it's after one hour awake, sometimes he can go as long as two and a half or three.
For a VERY long time he wouldn't nap any longer than a half hour and it drove me crazy. I finally realized that when he woke up screaming, it meant he was still tired and wanting to sleep more, so I started putting him right back down (starting the whole nap sequence over again with the cuddling, stroking, binking) and more often than not he would sleep for another 45 minutes or more. It's like they have to train their little bodies to stay asleep for more than a half hour at a time during the day even though they want and need the sleep.
I also now realize that during the hell-nap weeks I'd been mistaking tiredness for hunger. He'd wake up crying and if it had been over two hours since his last meal I always assumed he had woken up because his tummy was empty, so I'd feed him. Little did I know, DS can actually go as long as 3 1/2 to 4 hours between meals without starting to fuss for food, but I hadn't been giving him the chance to. If he wakes up crying now, it usually means that he needs to sleep more, not that he's hungry. If he wakes up calm and happy, he's slept enough. Once I stopped trying to feed him at the drop of a hat, things actually got way easier.
Anyway, sorry for the novel, but maybe it'll help someone out there!
Same as pp, my LO would only sleep in my arms during the day, but slept fine in his bassinette at night up until about 3 weeks ago, at 5 months he started to self sooth, and that was the turning point.
On day one of "sleep training" (I did my own version, not anything I read up on). I fed him and rocked him to sleep which is what I normally did, then put him down in his crib, but I stayed in his room, so that I would be there as soon as he woke up, he woke up immediately, but I put on his mobile and he watched it quietly for about 30 mins but didn't sleep.
I did the same his next nap time, and after the mobile he went to sleep for 30 mins, and as soon as he woke up I picked him up comforted him.
After that he went down like a champ, depending on the time of day sometimes he gets fed before and sometimes not, but as soon as I see him yawn, rub his eyes or look sleepy, I rock him until he is almost asleep, then carry him upstairs and put him to bed, he usually wakes up, but I just put him down and walk out of the room, and he goes to sleep, he will cry sometime after about 30 mins, but usually for less than 30 seconds then he is back asleep.
I think the main reason this worked is that he learnt to self sooth by sucking his thumb, if I had tried it earlier I am not sure it would have worked.
Diagnosed with Anti little c antibodies. DS1 7.11.11 - Anaemia and Jaundice. 10 days in the NICU, 1 exchange transfusion and 4 blood transfusions. DS2 29.8.13 - Anaemia 7 days in the NICU and 1 exchange transfusion. Both are now happy and healthy.