I've just put Pops down for her nap, which is the commencement of stage four of our sleep training. Because....the cot is in Pixie's room! A day of naps in his room followed by them rooming in tonight. Yikes.
Stage three went really well. She now has her last milk during the story, we all say goodnight and as Daddy and Pixie leave the room she goes into her cot wide awake. There's sometimes a bit of grousing but it's rarely all out crying and not for more than a few minutes. That might change tonight when she knows someone else is in the room with her (especially as Pixie has a tendency to chant 'shh' at her if she cries), but, well, we'll sort it.
Best of all we get to go back into our ACTUAL bed. Amazeballs. Although I'll miss watching films in bed ;)
Monday 10 September 2012
Thursday 6 September 2012
Third Stage of Sleep Training
Last night was night 7 of the sleep training regime. We've been taking a slowly, slowly, catchy monkey approach and made minor changes for 3 nights before introducing the next stage.
Night 1-3 - Introduced the '10 minute' rule of not going in to her, and even then only for a cuddle.
Night 4-6 - Began putting her to bed awake after her last feed instead of waiting for her to feed to sleep
Night 7-10 - Bring last feed forward slightly it's during story time, then putting her into the cot awake and all leave the room together (usually the boys leave and I stay to give a last feed in the dark and quiet)
I really expected this change to cause problems as she NEVER gets put to bed at night like that, it's always been just me and her for a final feed. But I turned the light off, gave her a cuddle, sang the going to bed song, and popped her in. There was maybe a minute of babbling, no crying at all, and that was that until SIX AM! Not a single peep from her.
Amazeballs.
I mean, 7am would be better, but... ;)
Hopefully the next two nights will go as well as last night, and then we'll move the cot into Pixie's room (again!). I'm undecided whether to go straight to leave them both in the room together as she falls asleep, or have 3 nights of him leaving the room for another story and then coming in while she's asleep.
I think because we're habit breaking, the very slowly routine changing is working really well for us. Sure, it takes longer, but it's not so much of a change in one go.
How's your sleep been?
Night 1-3 - Introduced the '10 minute' rule of not going in to her, and even then only for a cuddle.
Night 4-6 - Began putting her to bed awake after her last feed instead of waiting for her to feed to sleep
Night 7-10 - Bring last feed forward slightly it's during story time, then putting her into the cot awake and all leave the room together (usually the boys leave and I stay to give a last feed in the dark and quiet)
I really expected this change to cause problems as she NEVER gets put to bed at night like that, it's always been just me and her for a final feed. But I turned the light off, gave her a cuddle, sang the going to bed song, and popped her in. There was maybe a minute of babbling, no crying at all, and that was that until SIX AM! Not a single peep from her.
Amazeballs.
I mean, 7am would be better, but... ;)
Hopefully the next two nights will go as well as last night, and then we'll move the cot into Pixie's room (again!). I'm undecided whether to go straight to leave them both in the room together as she falls asleep, or have 3 nights of him leaving the room for another story and then coming in while she's asleep.
I think because we're habit breaking, the very slowly routine changing is working really well for us. Sure, it takes longer, but it's not so much of a change in one go.
How's your sleep been?
Sunday 2 September 2012
Sleep Training An 8 Month Old: Continued
We're on night 4 of sleep training and we're still camped out on the airbed!
Night 2 we had exactly the same plan. It was favourable when she didn't wake at the recently expected 10pm-ish, so that was nice. She didn't stir til 2am-ish when I think she'd have gone back to sleep except it turns out the not unsubstantial amount of noise an airbed makes when you roll over, could be heard in her (our!) room. I think our noise woke her up just a bit too much so I went to give her a cuddle and after a couple of minutes more crying she went back to sleep. There were a few more stirs but nothing of any consequence, although they increased in quantity from 6am til getting up time (6.50am, still a vast improvement on 5am!).
Night 3 brought a disagreement between me and the hubby. He thought there was no stirring until early morning, I beg to differ*! Regardless of who was right (me, obvs), nobody went up to her so it mustn't have been anything of any note. Slightly earlier wake up this morning of 6am, although when you've had nearly a full night's sleep that'll do, donkey.
Tonight (night 4!) I ended up putting her into her cot while she was still awake (normally we feed to sleep) and I expected a long, long screaming fit. BUT, 3 minutes later she was asleep. Hurrah! I suspect there might be an unsettled night ahead of us but she needs to be able to go into her cot awake so that she can share a bedroom with Pixie. We'll work on that - she goes in her cot awake for naps so there's no reason why she can't.
*In the interest of transparency it's only fair I point out that I just asked him if he had thought there hadn't been any awakenings and he said no, he wasn't sure which is why he'd asked me. So I was definitely right ;)
Night 2 we had exactly the same plan. It was favourable when she didn't wake at the recently expected 10pm-ish, so that was nice. She didn't stir til 2am-ish when I think she'd have gone back to sleep except it turns out the not unsubstantial amount of noise an airbed makes when you roll over, could be heard in her (our!) room. I think our noise woke her up just a bit too much so I went to give her a cuddle and after a couple of minutes more crying she went back to sleep. There were a few more stirs but nothing of any consequence, although they increased in quantity from 6am til getting up time (6.50am, still a vast improvement on 5am!).
Night 3 brought a disagreement between me and the hubby. He thought there was no stirring until early morning, I beg to differ*! Regardless of who was right (me, obvs), nobody went up to her so it mustn't have been anything of any note. Slightly earlier wake up this morning of 6am, although when you've had nearly a full night's sleep that'll do, donkey.
Tonight (night 4!) I ended up putting her into her cot while she was still awake (normally we feed to sleep) and I expected a long, long screaming fit. BUT, 3 minutes later she was asleep. Hurrah! I suspect there might be an unsettled night ahead of us but she needs to be able to go into her cot awake so that she can share a bedroom with Pixie. We'll work on that - she goes in her cot awake for naps so there's no reason why she can't.
*In the interest of transparency it's only fair I point out that I just asked him if he had thought there hadn't been any awakenings and he said no, he wasn't sure which is why he'd asked me. So I was definitely right ;)
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