Baby sleep training - which books worked for you?

[CatLuver]

Dreamer – thanks again, you’re so helpful. You’ve pretty much convinced me about the grunts and moans. Occasionally he has gas and needs to be burped but most of the time I think (hope) he’s fine.

HH and Tao – that’s unfortunate about babies regressing. Why must sleeping be such a struggle?

Unfortunately my baby is not a sleepy baby. Once he is awake, he won’t fall asleep on his own even if he is yawning and staring. He needs to be soothed to sleep or nurse to sleep. At night if he “dream feeds” it is great and he goes back to sleep, but if he wakes up, he’ll stay up looking around for hours and won’t go back to sleep (same as during the day after the EA). He needs to be held until a deep sleep before he can be put down. I don't think he has slept more than 13 hours a day since the first week or two. And we have to work hard for those 13!

 

[Mara]

In general we did EASY from early weeks thanks to the PS ladies suggesting it. And we didn't stick to 2 hours or anything like that, how do you fit all that in 2 hours? Though I think ours was more like AES... J was better with activity after sleep then eating then sleep during the day. Though he also fed more like every 3-4 hours and was sleeping around 7-8 hours at 8 weeks. My goal was to get him to 12 hours by around 4mo and we were kind of close, it was more like 10-11 hours. He also was not one of those kids who easily took a ton of naps during the day OR would fall asleep for long periods after eating during the day. He seemed to like to sleep more at night once he got his circadian rhythm going. Even when he was a few months old it was a struggle to get him to nap but putting him down at night was way easier (in shades of gray of course lol). He's had only one nap a day since he was maybe 6mo... so that night sleep was super important for him to keep up.

He was not doing night feeds prob around 8-9 weeks since he was going 8 hours. I think it was like 9pm to 6am-ish around that time.

Ditto also that you can train or do what you can do but that there will be regressions--hopefully they will be short. Our kid is almost 14mo and he has been consistently sleeping 12 hours since around 5months... there will be 2-3 week periods every few months where he regresses due to growing/teething/whatever but for the most part he's very schedule oriented.

 

[Laila619]

Unfortunately my baby is not a sleepy baby. Once he is awake, he won’t fall asleep on his own even if he is yawning and staring. He needs to be soothed to sleep or nurse to sleep. At night if he “dream feeds” it is great and he goes back to sleep, but if he wakes up, he’ll stay up looking around for hours and won’t go back to sleep (same as during the day after the EA). He needs to be held until a deep sleep before he can be put down.

Same here Cat. I envy anyone who can just put their baby down drowsy but awake. As soon as we try this, Luke cries/screams. ARGH!!! It doesn't matter how sleepy or milk drunk he is, the instant his head hits the mattress, he pops up and bursts into tears.

Is there a secret, or are some babies just really stubborn?

 

[Dreamer_D]

Unfortunately my baby is not a sleepy baby. Once he is awake, he won’t fall asleep on his own even if he is yawning and staring. He needs to be soothed to sleep or nurse to sleep. At night if he “dream feeds” it is great and he goes back to sleep, but if he wakes up, he’ll stay up looking around for hours and won’t go back to sleep (same as during the day after the EA). He needs to be held until a deep sleep before he can be put down.

Same here Cat. I envy anyone who can just put their baby down drowsy but awake. As soon as we try this, Luke cries/screams. ARGH!!! It doesn't matter how sleepy or milk drunk he is, the instant his head hits the mattress, he pops up and bursts into tears.

Is there a secret, or are some babies just really stubborn?

Hunter was the same. I would say he was never a great sleeper and it was a lot of work for us and lots and lots of "regressions" ( I put that in quotes because I think of it more as constant changing than regressing, because we never really reached an ideal to regress from in the first 9 months! It was sort of always changing.)

The solution for us was to basically do lots of baby wearing in the day so he would sleep. And then when we decided that he needed to learn to sleep on his own from drowsy we did the pick-up-put down routine. And it took a loooong time. I recall vividly the first session took 1.5 hours of calming him, putting him down, picking him up as soon as he cried, and calming him (often nursing until calm) then putting him down... repeat repeat repeat. You just need to be perversely stubborn. I think he was about 6-8 weeks? We tackled it at night/in the evening and in the day I just nursed him to sleep. But it took less and less time each time, and after a couple weeks he was able to be put down drowsy from nursing and fall asleep. My method was -- big nurse, diaper change, swaddle, mini nurse while swaddled then into bed either sleeping or drowsy. He did not stay asleep for much longer than 3 hours at night (thought in the first three months he would do a 6 hour stretch from 6pm to midnight), but that work early on paid off as we still to this day just stick him in bed and leave him and he falls asleep. So though the hard work will not get you a perfect situation with your baby, sleeping takes a long time for many of them, it does payoff in the long run.

CatLover, honestly at your stage I would simply nurse him to sleep. Take baby steps and work on getting him to sleep in his bed and into a routine using the "prop" of the boob and nursing to put him to sleep. And if he sleeps better being held/carried I would invest in a cood soft carrier, like a mody wrap or something, and just wear him during the day. Makes life much easier. Then once the routine is well set for you and for him -- like he is used to sleeping after activity etc, and eventually he is really used to his crib and to being swaddled (I recommend this with babies like yours and mine who are not sleepy types), then gradually I would start working on the pick-up-put-down to get him used to falling asleep on his own. But I would not worry about that until he is older, maybe 6-8weeks or older if you need more time.

 

[Shoopy]

I don't think it's a bad habit unless it doesn't work for you. If nursing to sleep works and you don't mind it, I would continue until it doesn't. I nursed to sleep but had to stop when I went back to work. Can't really nurse to sleep when the milk machine is at work. To break I would make sure to start her routine at the first sleep cue so that by the time she was done nursing, she was very tired but not sleeping.

We also rocked for a long time because it worked and I loved to rock her. Now we cannot. She's 24lbs and 35in-not a teeny person anymore

EASY-I never followed the schedule but after 2-3 weeks, she put herself on the 2 hour, then 3, then 4.

I feel for you girls because the first few months are so hard.

 

[Bliss]

OMG, I feel your pain!!! M was and still can be one of those babies who just like to be held - ALL THE TIME. So I really had some belly laughs when moms would tell me to nap when the baby naps. Unless it is possible to nap while wearing the baby and pacing endlessly all day, it was a no go for me! Then the night insanity would begin. It was pretty bleak.

I feel like when M grew a little more (she is now 12 lbs 10 oz and 24 inches!) at eight weeks, she started to stabilize. I could put her in her swing or bouncy chair and she would not cry. It would last maybe 20-30 minutes, but that was heaven to me. Then she started to go into bedtime mode at 8 weeks. She would nurse and fall right back asleep so I'd just plop her back into her crib. She still wakes up every 2-3 hours, sometimes 4 hours but the lifesaving part is that she doesn't require hours of soothing to go back to sleep. And I can now plop her in the bassinet. If I hear her fuss, I'll listen for the pant before the wail - and it's never happened. I usually fall asleep and wake up to learn she just stirred and grunted a tiny bit and put herself back to sleep. Of course this all ends at about 6am when she's up and wants to play. But then she's back to sleep in an hour or so.

I was like Dreamer and got stubborn with putting her in the bassinet because I didn't want her to depend on my soft cushy bed. WHY are SIDS approved baby mattresses so HARD and UNCOMFORTABLE? No wonder the baby wakes up and cries! It's like putting her to sleep on a hard cold floor...with a sheet on it. LOL

She still has tough nights. Yesterday we had our first 2 vaccines - rotovirus and TDap. (Did any other moms cry when their babies got the shot? I burst into tears and was so embarrassed!) Anyway, she had a tough night last nigt. Fussier than usual and wouldn't sleep long stretches...just needed to be comforted by Mommy. Hehehehe. Those two emoticons are exactly how I felt. Gooey love because she needed me and wanted only me. And the GRRR from being up all night. Hehehe.

It does get better. But it gets better very sloooowwwwwly - at least it did for me. I hope it gets better quickly for you! There is nothing scarier than having to change your baby's diaper at 3am. You know you have to do it but you are praying it won't wake your baby and cause him/her to be wide awake. That is scary!!!! I like Dreamer's routine - that is what I've been doing and it has been working for me. At around 6a when she's up and wanting to play, I'll give up and bring her to bed to snuggle. That makes it more worthwhile. I could kiss the soles of her little feet for hours and hours. They're like gummi bears! Hehehehe.

Yeah, the sleep thing is pretty horrendous sometimes. I never know what I'm going to get when night falls. You clockwork baby mamas are amazing and I wish I had one of "those" babies! But I guess it's karma because my mom says I was colicky. At least M isn't colicky or I'd probably be institutionalized by now!

 

[geri]

This all sounds so familiar. Claudia is 8 weeks tomorrow and is hard work to get to sleep, especialy during the day. Like Bliss and Catluver, initially she would only sleep on us or in the sling. She had a couple of bad weeks between 4 and 6 weeks where even holding her or putting her in the sling wouldn't work. We have now started putting her into her cot and trying to get her to self settle but this usually involves an hour or so of putting her down, soothing, leaving the room and coming back when she cries and starting all over again. Once I get to the hour mark I usually cave in because if she is awake too long it gets harder and harder to get her to sleep at all. For those of you who were stubborn, how long would you try for each time and did you let them cry at all or go straight to them when they cried? Also, for those with a night-time routine, did you give the baby a bath before or after a feed? A few people have told me to do it before but short of waking the baby well before she is due to feed to give her a bath, this is impossible because she is usually hungry when she wakes up and screams if she isn't fed.

 

[Dreamer_D]

This all sounds so familiar. Claudia is 8 weeks tomorrow and is hard work to get to sleep, especialy during the day. Like Bliss and Catluver, initially she would only sleep on us or in the sling. She had a couple of bad weeks between 4 and 6 weeks where even holding her or putting her in the sling wouldn't work. We have now started putting her into her cot and trying to get her to self settle but this usually involves an hour or so of putting her down, soothing, leaving the room and coming back when she cries and starting all over again. Once I get to the hour mark I usually cave in because if she is awake too long it gets harder and harder to get her to sleep at all. For those of you who were stubborn, how long would you try for each time and did you let them cry at all or go straight to them when they cried? Also, for those with a night-time routine, did you give the baby a bath before or after a feed? A few people have told me to do it before but short of waking the baby well before she is due to feed to give her a bath, this is impossible because she is usually hungry when she wakes up and screams if she isn't fed.

When I did the pick-up-put-down I would pick him up the moment he fussed or cried. It is not a CIO method at all, nor about letting baby fuss to figure his stuff out. Instead, for me anyways, it seemed to be about me soothing the baby and then eventually he got comfortable in the crib, or plum tuckered out, and fell asleep. So I would stand beside his crib during the process, rock him and calm him, put him down, pick him up if he cried and repeat. If he was too worked up I would nurse him and reswaddle him, then stand by the crib again and rock him and then put him down. What I found was that over the course of the process he would lie for longer and longer (at first 2 seconds, then 10, then 30 etc) in the crib before crying. I always picked him up immediately. And I persisted until it worked That is the thing about these types of methods. You just pick a method and keep doing the same thing until baby sleeps. Like I said, first night was 1.5 hours. But because I never let him cry or fuss for long and picked him up immediately, he did not get sooooo worked up I found. I think eventually he was just so tired he passed out. But whatever works I say! And I would consider it a "win" if he slept for even 10-20 minutes in the crib. And then the next time you have to stick to the guns and do it again. And then persist in the method long term until it works. I think for us all told it took a couple weeks of using the pick-up-put down (as I said, pick up immediately) for it to work. We say gradual improvement in that time with setbacks/regressions along the way.

Learning theory as it applies to animals, including babies, is fairly clear -- inconsistency will undermine the process. So if you want to use something like this or any other method, you have to be very consistent in the application.

We did not give Hunter baths at night consistently for a long time. At 8 weeks I did not really bath him much at all, especially not at night. Out plan was never to have a particular night time routine, that way we were not a slave to it. I got that from Neatfreak here on PS. Sometimes we give him a bath, sometimes not. If you want to bath at night, I would do it before nursing as it is stimulating and would in my mind count as activity. I also likes to nurse Hunter before sleep because it made him so groggy.

 

[CatLuver]

Thanks all for the input. The good news is that C "dream fed" for 3/5 feeds last night and I was in and out of there in less than 20 minutes! Hooray! We did have one "incident" which I'll post about in the newborn thread.

However, it's still is very difficult to get him back to sleep once he is awake, both during the day and at night. Sometimes he wakes up during or after a feed, just hangs out there with his eyes open, looking all around. It doens't always make him sleepy to nurse, unfortunately. Sometimes I know he is tired because he keeps yawning, but he's fighting it to stay up. Even if I hold him til sleeping, he keeps peeking out to check that I'm still there, and if I put him down before he's 100% sleeping, he'll wake up. So I think I will try your method Dreamer in a little while, because 1.5 hours does not sound that long at all compared to how long it takes anyway to get him down when he's awake!

How long should babies sleep during the "night"? Since it often takes so long to get C down when he wakes during the night, during a period of 12 hours he will only get maybe 7-9 hours of sleep. So I "extend" the night by keeping it dark until 1pm or so, so that he gets in more cycles with dream feeds rather than EASY etc. Along the same lines, if he is sleepy during the day and hasn't woken up to do his "A", I assume it's fine just to put him back down to sleep? It doesn't always have to be EASY, can it sometimes be ESY or EAESY, or does it always need to be the same during the daytime to avoid confusion?

If breast milk is digested in 2 hours, how do babies ever learn to go longer, don't they get hungry? C is pretty much like clockwork, every 1.5-2.5 hours he needs to eat. If he happens to get formula, he can go 3 hours.

Geri - whenever C wakes up he pretty much needs to be fed right away, too. The bath is relaxing for him, but when he gets out and needs to be dried off and changed, it pretty much wakes him up. And we don't bathe him every day so I'm not sure how it should fit into the nighttime routine either.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Thanks all for the input. The good news is that C "dream fed" for 3/5 feeds last night and I was in and out of there in less than 20 minutes! Hooray! We did have one "incident" which I'll post about in the newborn thread.

However, it's still is very difficult to get him back to sleep once he is awake, both during the day and at night. Sometimes he wakes up during or after a feed, just hangs out there with his eyes open, looking all around. It doens't always make him sleepy to nurse, unfortunately. Sometimes I know he is tired because he keeps yawning, but he's fighting it to stay up. Even if I hold him til sleeping, he keeps peeking out to check that I'm still there, and if I put him down before he's 100% sleeping, he'll wake up. So I think I will try your method Dreamer in a little while, because 1.5 hours does not sound that long at all compared to how long it takes anyway to get him down when he's awake!

How long should babies sleep during the "night"? Since it often takes so long to get C down when he wakes during the night, during a period of 12 hours he will only get maybe 7-9 hours of sleep. So I "extend" the night by keeping it dark until 1pm or so, so that he gets in more cycles with dream feeds rather than EASY etc. Along the same lines, if he is sleepy during the day and hasn't woken up to do his "A", I assume it's fine just to put him back down to sleep? It doesn't always have to be EASY, can it sometimes be ESY or EAESY, or does it always need to be the same during the daytime to avoid confusion?

If breast milk is digested in 2 hours, how do babies ever learn to go longer, don't they get hungry? C is pretty much like clockwork, every 1.5-2.5 hours he needs to eat. If he happens to get formula, he can go 3 hours.

Geri - whenever C wakes up he pretty much needs to be fed right away, too. The bath is relaxing for him, but when he gets out and needs to be dried off and changed, it pretty much wakes him up. And we don't bathe him every day so I'm not sure how it should fit into the nighttime routine either.

From about 6 weeks or so we started trying to set Hunter's internal clock for day and night. So at 7pm I would "put him down" for the night which meant dark in his room. If he woke and was not ready to go back to sleep, then I would stay in his room in the dark with him and just wait until he seemed ready, or use the pick up put down thing. But the point was that between about 7/8pm and 6am, he was in his room in the dark. Then in the day he was out with me in the light! Nap times took place in a room that was not pitch black. And if he woke to feed I would do an activity. I wonder if your son is reversed his day and night? If you want him to do the majority of his sleeping in the night, then you don't want to keep it dark in the day and you don't want him to sleep for loooong stretches (for a kid that age, and long stretch in the day is longer than 45 minutes. I would not wake a child when sleeping (let sleeping dogs and babies lie ) but I would make sure he stayed up once he did wake to feed, by stimulating him with light and sound and maybe going outside for a walk or something. The home is that his circadian rhythm will adjust to short sleeps in the day and then longer sleeps with feeds in the night. But it can be a gradual process to get onto a pattern like that over a period of months. Your son is still very young. In total, at that age they sleep about 18 hours per day IIRC. The hope is to have most of that at night (with feedings as needed) and then less in the day, and one way to accomplish that is to try and have lights on and activity in the day, and darkness and no activity at night.

I often did EASEY in the daytime. The only thing I would suggest is that if he wakes to feed you keep him up for a while with some play, even for just 10 minutes, so that he does not think day is the time for the long sleeps. I would not wake him, as I said, but would just try to build activity into the day. And I would keep the lights on in the daytime so he sets his biological clock for you.

When my son was EBF he fed every 2 hours, even when older. I fed on demand which I suggest for BF babies for ease and to maintain a supply that meets your kid's needs. As kids get older, they have bigger tummies and eat more calories. It may do out of the tummy but the calories remain in their system longer. Hunter did not go to a longer feed cycle until he was on solids big time around 10 months. At night, they go longer without eating because they are sleeping and need less calorie.

 

[Mara]

I wouldn't extend the dark to 1pm to keep his night sleep longer--that could cause some confusion. I would want him realizing that daytime is daytime and nighttime is for sleep. When J was little we'd just bring him out into the LR with us and keep him in the bright rooms all day. Esp when he was young and slept almost anywhere. He could easily take a nap with us in the front room, but they were short. At night he would go into a dark room and at night when he woke we only did the basics and then put him back down, quietly, no stimulation etc. He seemed to quickly get (within 4-6 weeks?) that day is for being more up and night for mostly sleep--that is when his night sleeps got longer. Regardless of how often you feed, I would try to help him set his internal clock to day/night. Their bodies are capable of understanding this I think by 4 weeks?

And you can do AES or EAS or SEA or whatever. J liked AESAES so what is what we did.

The other thing I wanted to say is don't worry TOO much about the details and semantics of it all. I know it's confusing and it can be overwhelming when you are in the thick of it all. I definitely worried over getting him on a sleep schedule, going longer between feeds, how often do we bathe (we only did it every few days then), getting him into a routine etc but the first 8 weeks are just kind of you all figuring it out together. Things seemed to get easier after that and even more easy at 4-5mo and then just easier still. And I say easier meaning it's not really EASY (lol @ EASY) but just somehow you get your Mom-sea-legs and you kind of figure it out as you go and realize you don't have to have it all mapped out and some uncertainty is ok and that you'll all work it out on your own time. I would modify 1-2 small things in what we did, but I would def not worry so much if I had a do-over. They figure it out. Enjoy the baby!! The time goes WAY too fast.

 

[CatLuver]

Thanks Dreamer and Mara...I didn't realize they shouldn't sleep during the day longer than 45 min. in order to maximize night sleep? If you do EASY or some version thereof, then you could be feeding pretty much every hour? How do you get anything done?!

I've been trying to put C down for 3 hours now...he'll go down for 10 min, fuss, I'll feed him, repeat. It's so hard to get him to sleep when he's not already almost sleeping! I tried putting him in the ergo earlier and he didn't find it comfortable. I have the moby too but it gets really oht and he's all scrunched down in there.

 

[Mara]

-Cat I'm not sure how old your baby is (I could prob go find it but I'm watching J so not much time haha)...but I seem to recall pretty young? If so, I'd say we basically either fed or happy babied him to sleep most of the first 8 weeks. After that we tried a little bit of the pick up and put down and sometimes it'd work and sometimes not. He could still be hungry or maybe he just needs some soothing to sleep? Once we got J down he would MOST of the time sleep pretty well but it was getting him there that took a while, some nights it would take us 45 min to put him down but once he was down he would stay down for a while.

There was something I read a LONG time ago about the stages of sleep, I'll have to see if I can find it but basically that there's the light stage of sleep where they just fell asleep and you think it's safe to put them down but they will easily wake up during that time, so I don't know how many nights I went to put J down thinking he was asleep and he was BURNING MY ARM UP from holding him still but he would wake up and we'd do it all over again. After I read this article we went AH HA and realized we had to wait a bit longer for him to enter a deeper stage of sleep where it was easier to move him around. It might be like 10 min so make sure you are comfy while you are waiting haha. After that we got better at gauging when he was ready to be put down.

And I think I said this earlier but I didn't take the 2 hour thing too seriously. We just went by his cues... so instead of every 2 hours it was every 3 or 4 mostly. So don't stress out about the every 2 hour thing. The 'activity' thing when they are young too might just be laying on you looking outside or you dangling a contrast black/white toy over them. I remember thinking 'activity? my kid is a blob, what kind of activity should he be doing?' lol.

 

[Laila619]

I've been trying to put C down for 3 hours now...he'll go down for 10 min, fuss, I'll feed him, repeat. It's so hard to get him to sleep when he's not already almost sleeping!

Cat, I can totally relate! It's rough. Every night we go though an endless rigamarole trying to get Luke to go down for the night. I don't have a problem getting my kid to *stay* asleep for the night, I have a problem getting him to fall asleep. It's endless amounts of rocking and finally putting him down only to have him pop his eyes open one minute later and cry. Sometimes it takes two hours. Argh! Why is the kid so resistant to going to bed?! Pick up put down doesn't work for us either, it just gets him even more worked up and stimulated.

 

[CatLuver]

Thanks Mara - C is almost 5 weeks. We do have to hold him to fall asleep before putting him down...but 10 min is not enough, it's at least an hour. Laila I feel your pain!

 

[Dreamer_D]

How long are his naps in the daytime?

Re: 45 minutes naps and timing. During the day, baby wakes, feeding and diapering etc takes about 30-45 minutes (when you BF, I think bottles are faster), then "play" (aka walk around holding baby, play with his toes, take pictures of him) lasts 20-30 minutes, then sleep is for 45 minutes to an hour depending on the baby, equals a cycle around 2 hours. That was about where we were at for the first few months. Like Mara said, all those daytime naps took place in the living room or out and about. He would sleep in a carrier, in his carset, in his stoller etc. Rarely did he take naps in his crib in those early weeks because, frankly, I wanted to have a life and little babies can often sleep anywhere. As they get older (3 months plus), the wake time lengthens to an hour or so, and for us we added a second feed prior to sleep which made the total awake time longer, but the naps were always only about 45 minutes. They stayed at 45 minutes per nap from birth until he went from 3 naps per day to two naps per day around 10 months old! And you don't get anything done

When he was under 3 months, he would wake around 6am, nap again around 7:30/8am, nap again around 11am, nap again around 1pm, nap again around 3 pm, nap again around 5pm, then at 7pm we would start bedtime and from that point on if he woke it was hanging out in the dark nursing and getting him back into bed. So five naps per day roughly. As he got older the wake time lengthend and it became 4 naps per day and so on. But usually only 45 minutes! If he is sleeping for long period in the day -- I think over 2 hours is a long period -- then he may not sleep at night because he is getting lots of sleep in the day? Something to think about.

have you gone to a store and tried different slings? The Ergo is great for 3 months plus, and I too did not care for the soft wrap like the moby until baby is older and less floopy. But my friend has a sling where the baby lies crosswise on your body and her babies have both loved it and sleep all day in it for naps while she reads, eats, whatever. I am planning to get one for this baby. Maybe it will work for you?

FWIW I also read what Mara did about sleep cycles and I believe 20 minutes is when they shift into deep sleep.

And girl, do what works to get him to sleep for now and don't worry about what "should" be, though. If it means rocking or holding him, just do that. He is so young still. You can "work" on other things if you want, like daytime versus nightime or whatever, or just do what works for a long time. There are no rules. Survival is really the name of the game the first 6 months. Cherry pick the tips and advice you get and experiment and see what works, but basically just try to get through it with your sanity.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I've been trying to put C down for 3 hours now...he'll go down for 10 min, fuss, I'll feed him, repeat. It's so hard to get him to sleep when he's not already almost sleeping!

Cat, I can totally relate! It's rough. Every night we go though an endless rigamarole trying to get Luke to go down for the night. I don't have a problem getting my kid to *stay* asleep for the night, I have a problem getting him to fall asleep. It's endless amounts of rocking and finally putting him down only to have him pop his eyes open one minute later and cry. Sometimes it takes two hours. Argh! Why is the kid so resistant to going to bed?! Pick up put down doesn't work for us either, it just gets him even more worked up and stimulated.

It is always something! Hunter would go to sleep, but never stayed asleep until 9 months old. Before that it was 3-4 wakings per night and only nursing would get him back down. Very exhausting. Wanna trade I would take two hours in the evening if it meant a night sleeping through! But the grass is always greener.

Threadjack: Laila did you get your halo? I would really love to see it...

 

[Laila619]

Threadjack: Laila did you get your halo? I would really love to see it...

Dreamer, nope. I still have never pulled the trigger and ordered a setting for it, although I still think I will go with Eternity. Alas, she sits unset, taunting me with her beauty. Why is it so hard to find the perfect setting without spending a ton?! In the meantime, with my indecisiveness and delays, metal prices keep rising.

 

[beesha77]

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child was my bible with all 3 of my kids! But you have to read it BEFORE you have them! My second pregnancy was twins, and i don't think i have 3 great sleeping kids by chance, i think it has something to do with what i did with them when they were babies.

 

[Skippy123]

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child was my bible with all 3 of my kids! But you have to read it BEFORE you have them! My second pregnancy was twins, and i don't think i have 3 great sleeping kids by chance, i think it has something to do with what i did with them when they were babies.

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy child you used with your twins? I am having twins soon!

Right now I am reading Happiest Baby on the Block. I heard the dvd is better? Yes, No? If so I will buy it. TIA

 

[turtledazzle]

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child was my bible with all 3 of my kids! But you have to read it BEFORE you have them! My second pregnancy was twins, and i don't think i have 3 great sleeping kids by chance, i think it has something to do with what i did with them when they were babies.

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy child you used with your twins? I am having twins soon!

Right now I am reading Happiest Baby on the Block. I heard the dvd is better? Yes, No? If so I will buy it. TIA

Get the dvd. I read the book as well, but watching the dvd a few times was very helpful (I borrowed it from the library.)

 

[Skippy123]

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child was my bible with all 3 of my kids! But you have to read it BEFORE you have them! My second pregnancy was twins, and i don't think i have 3 great sleeping kids by chance, i think it has something to do with what i did with them when they were babies.

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy child you used with your twins? I am having twins soon!

Right now I am reading Happiest Baby on the Block. I heard the dvd is better? Yes, No? If so I will buy it. TIA

Get the dvd. I read the book as well, but watching the dvd a few times was very helpful (I borrowed it from the library.)

Hi Turtle!!! thanks, will do

 

[Mara]

We got HBOTB on dvd but never looked at it, then just YouTube'd it after J came to see the techniques, haha!!

 

[Skippy123]

We got HBOTB on dvd but never looked at it, then just YouTube'd it after J came to see the techniques, haha!!

I will check out youtube! Awesome idea Mara!

 

[Pandora II]

Ditto Dreamer on the just nurse them to sleep.

I tried all the putting them down awake stuff and it was a nightmare - my sleepy baby just woke right up the second her head touched the pillow and then wouldn't go back down again for another 2 hours.

Ultimately I tied her to me during the day so I could get things done whether she was awake or not and kept her in bed with me at night.

The main sleep training I did was to myself - I now function very well on disrupted sleep and find the 'breastfeeding in bed' position extremely comfortable (at first it was hell).

For the most part, Daisy is pretty good at night now unless she is unwell. We've had months and months of hell with her waking every 30 minutes screaming in pain - eventually it came down to silent reflux and she's now being treated and the screaming and waking has totally gone. However she's currently got Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease and is wanting to eat all night long as she's got a fever.

IMHO just do anything that gives you an easy life even if the book tells you otherwise. Babies regress and change so much that I don't think you can really set bad habits even if you were to try to.

 

[HOUMedGal]

-Routine is key. Babies and children thrive on consistency and structure. Doing something different every night confuses them and frustrates them.
-When in doubt, follow your gut to get that sleep. Focus on a routine from birth but understand that newborns need to learn to sleep and it is totally acceptable to let them nap 2 hrs on a swing if that's the only way that you can fight sleep deprivation.
-If it's been 2 hours, your baby may be ready for a nap. If it's been 3 hours, get them to nap. If it's been 4 or more, do everything possible to get them to sleep[/color
]- know that there are children in this world who STTN at 7 weeks but it is NOT the norm so try not to get frustrated if baby is still waking every 3 hours at night. Sleep when they sleep and keep at it with your routine.

My only adjustment on this is:

If it's been 2 hours, you're stretching it with a newborn. If it's been 3 hours, all bets are off...do whatever you can (including swing) to get them to sleep, and pray to the sleep gods while you're at it. If it's been 4 hours, forget it, you're f*cked. Make a pot of coffee and prepare to deal with a cranky, awake baby for the next 9 hours.

 

[beesha77]

-Routine is key. Babies and children thrive on consistency and structure. Doing something different every night confuses them and frustrates them.
-When in doubt, follow your gut to get that sleep. Focus on a routine from birth but understand that newborns need to learn to sleep and it is totally acceptable to let them nap 2 hrs on a swing if that's the only way that you can fight sleep deprivation.
-If it's been 2 hours, your baby may be ready for a nap. If it's been 3 hours, get them to nap. If it's been 4 or more, do everything possible to get them to sleep[/color
]- know that there are children in this world who STTN at 7 weeks but it is NOT the norm so try not to get frustrated if baby is still waking every 3 hours at night. Sleep when they sleep and keep at it with your routine.

My only adjustment on this is:

If it's been 2 hours, you're stretching it with a newborn. If it's been 3 hours, all bets are off...do whatever you can (including swing) to get them to sleep, and pray to the sleep gods while you're at it. If it's been 4 hours, forget it, you're f*cked. Make a pot of coffee and prepare to deal with a cranky, awake baby for the next 9 hours.

Totally true, and IMO 2 hours is usually too long. It's more like 1 1/2 hours of wake time. Keeping them on the 2 hour rule is key. They sleep better during the day and at night. And I EBF'd all 3 of my kids, including twins.

Skippy--Yes, twins are a lot harder and were harder than my first born but they did great. I started the 2 hour rule when they were about 2 months old.

 

[Skippy123]

I am going to re-read through this for the near future. Right now my little one home has his days and nights confused. He is still very little but I think I should be reading some books to look for sleep cues and tips to get them more relaxed at night.

ETA: I did read the Happiest Baby on the block but someone irl recommended Healthy Sleep Habits so I might read that one too? etaa: DOH! I see others have recommended it too in this thread!

 

[Lanie]

FYI--healthy sleep habits is a hard book to read. Good book, but hard to read. His thing is that naps are sacred and do everything you can to preserve their schedule. He basically tells you in about 200 pages that your kid will be messed up if you don't preserve his sleep. I personally don't recommend the book.

I really liked Baby 411 for sleep advice. They summarized the most popular theories and gave a Cliff Notes version of each. So I took one approach and tweaked it a bit. Anderson has been sleeping 12 hours a night now for more than 2 weeks! I'm sooooooooo happy!!! When you are on the other side, it's so nice. Hang in there!!!

Skippy, day/night confusion is so hard. I'm sure you are trying the usual: when they wake up in the night, don't talk to them, look at them in the eye, etc. Feed them, hold them for a bit, but make it as business-like as you can! At that young of an age I'd always bring him in bed with me so I could at least sleep and if he wanted to stay up and party, then have at it. Momma's gonna sleep!

On an unrelated note, have you girls seen the book Go the F@&k to Sleep? It's so funny. They have a YouTube version with Samuel L Jackson narrating it. I was crying from laughing so hard.

 

[Puppmom]

Lanie, we've seen Go the F to Sleep. I think it's kinda cute!

...as for naps. We are VERY careful to stick with N's schedule. He naps extremely well and on a pretty tight schedule. Guess what? He STILL doesn't sleep well at night!

I think I'm gonna try that Cliff notes version and see what I find. N slept really well from the beginning but we've really been struggling on and off for a few months. I think he's having a hard time with his teeth. Right now we're just powering through but we really need to come up with a plan.