Trying again with 6.5 month ild

[janjo]

Hi all!  We are just trying to tackle NW with our 6.5 month old DS again.  I have had him on as near to an EASY routine as possible since he was 3 months old, but have been absolutely rubbish at being consistent with letting him cry to tackle sleep issues.  I absolutely hate it :-(. But enough is enough, 1.5-2 hourly nw's and inconsistent nap lengths cannot go on as I am returning to work in 7 weeks so need to get it sorted.  We started in the New Year and by day 3 he was putting himself to sleep independently, and he slept 7pm-12am, then went through to 4:40, which was the best night's sleep we'd had in months!  Then he decided to cut a tooth.  How inconvenient :-/. So it was back to the frequent nursing again as it was the only thng that soothed him at night, and I couldn't not do it knowing he was in pain.  But now of course we're back to the too frequent NW's again.  So we've decided to give it another go, as I think we can rule out teething as he's so happy during his A times.  I just have a couple of questions.  He is bf but we started solids just before he turned 6 months and he now eats small quantities at breakfast, lunch and dinner time.  He is nursed 4 hourly (ish).  My first question is to do with the DF.  I've always done it, but it's turned into him waking for it when I go to bed, which I suppose isn't strictly a DF, more of a habitual waking?  Or maybe we just disturb him awake (he still room shares with us)?  And this DF has never resulted in him sleeping any longer than 4 hours (on a good night!) after it so is it worth it or should I drop it?  Second question: I was planning on continuing one NF for the time being, but tonight we agreed I wouldn't feed him unless it was at least 4 hours fated his DF.  He woke 3 hours after so we did shhing with him, he hates patting, and he's just gone to sleep now after and hour and 40 mins of crying :-(. So he's past his 4 hour mark.  But if I feed him when he next wakes will he be confused as I made him lie there crying this time and just fed him straight away the next???  Is it too extreme to cut out all NFs???  Sorry, hope this doesn't all sound to garbled, my brain is fried after all those tears and it's nearly 3am now!!!

[Bex09]

Hi there, hugs on the bad time at the moment.

but have been absolutely rubbish at being consistent with letting him cry to tackle sleep issues.

Does this mean that you have previously let your LO CIO? If so there could be some trust issues there now that need to be built back up. CIO is most definitely not the BW way and the shushing that you are now doing is a much gentler and kinder approach. Have you tried a hand on him or rubbing his back while you shush? Are you now staying with him until he falls asleep?

I would say that ATM keeping one NF is a good idea, it isn't uncommon for a BF baby of your DS's age to still be having a NF. It doesn't seem to confuse LOs not feeding before a set time. It kind of sets their body clocks so they learn there is no point in waking earlier than when they are hungry as they won't get fed yk? So yes I think not feeding until the 4 hr mark if he wakes is a good idea.

The DF question is a tricky one because Tracy says it can be dropped around 6-7 months once LO is established on 3 solid meals a day. But if you are also dropping other NFs it might reduce his milk intake too much leading to hungry NW. It might be worth getting down to one NF first and then gradually weaning the DF. So reducing the time he nurses for and bringing it 30 mins earlier every few nights. This is how Tracy suggests weaning the DF anyway not just cutting it cold turkey.

If you are having nap problems then the NW could well be down to this and your EASY routine. DO you want to post it for us to take a look at? Can I also just ask how did your DS learn to fall asleep independently? So what method of sleep training did you use?

[janjo]

Hi, and thanks for the reply    We've never let him CIO alone, we've always done a version of shh-pat or PU/PD.  But when that doesn't settle him quickly enough or the crying escalates I've got a history of caving in and nursing him as I can't bear to see him cry!  So the poor little guy has likely gotten confused I'm afraid and I know that's my doing    But I'm determined this time to stick at it as I only have a certain window to get it sorted before I go back to work, so my motivation is considerably higher!

Anyway, night one (night of my original post) went like this:
E - 7:00 (nursed both sides)
S - by 7:30 after a little fussing and moaning, but after a bit of shhing was calm so I left the room whilst he was awake and he went to sleep independently.
DF - 10:30.  He woke for this so I fed him and then went to bed myself, having agreed with DH that I wouldn't feed him before 2:30am so if he woke before this DH would try to settle.

He then woke at about 1am and cried for an hour and 40 minutes.  DH stayed with him for the first half of that and then we swapped.  It was hideous but we managed it.  I didn't feed at the 2:30am point as he was still crying then and I thought that would appear that he was getting rewarded for his crying IYKWIM?  I fed him when he next woke at 5:30 - so he actually went 10 hours between feeds!!!  He went back to sleep then and I woke him at 7:15 when I got up.  So yesterday went like this:

E - 7:30 (nursed both sides)  No solids this morning as we were in too much of a rush as we got up late!
A - til 9:30  We have a 4 year old DD who is in school.  DS sometimes falls asleep in the car on the way home and has his nap in his car seat, but was still awake when we got back yesterday so I put him to bed in his crib.  He fussed a little but didn't actually cry so I left him to it and he went to sleep  
S - til 11:00 (1.5 hours).  Woke up happy.
E - 11:30
A - til 1:30.  Had solids at 12:00.
S - til 2:10 (40 mins).  Woke up crying.  I think I'd pushed his A time a little too much. and he was OT???  I tried to re-settle with shhing but he was having none of it.  We have to leave the house before 3pm to pick up DD from school, so I couldn't spend more than 10 mins trying to extend as I would've had to get him back up to get him up and changed and bundled up to get in the car!
E - 3:30
A - til 5:15
S - til 5:45 (30 min cat-nap started in the car on the way home from the library).  Had solids on waking then wind down for bed started.
E - 7:00
S - by 7:30.  He went straight into bed happy and I left the room.  I went back into him twice when he cried but he settled immediately as I went to him so I left the room as soon as he was calm.
DF - 11:00.  He didn't actually wake for this, which is an achievement in itself as he hadn't slept through from BT til I went to bed since the start of the month    
E - 2:30.  I felt that was close enough to the planned 3am feed to not put us through a load of crying.  He woke at 4:30 but settled within minutes of sshhing from DH.  
E - 5:30, a little earlier than planned.  When he woke the crying escalated quickly so I fed him a bit earlier than planned hoping we'd all get that last couple of hours sleep.  Unfortunately DD came in and woke us all up early at 6:30.  She hasn't done that for months, typical!!!
E - 7:00
A - til 9:30.  I was expecting him to fall asleep in the car on the school run as he'd been awake earlier, but he was still awake when we got home and shattered!  As soon as we walked through the door he was looking to nurse.  I tried putting him straight to bed but he went nuts, so I gave him a quick feed to settle him but made sure he was awake going back into his cot.  He cried when I put him down but then rolled onto his side and went to sleep.
S - til 10:05.  Woke up crying.  OT again I guess.  Tried to extend for 15 mins.  He cried initially but that turned into smiling and gurgling and desperately trying to pull himself up to me to play!  So I brought him down and gave him the solids he missed this morning.
E - 11:00 (nursed)  He's a right greedy guts, had both sides immediately after eating his solids :-)

So that's we are so far.  I'm aiming to have him sleeping again by 12ish, as he doesn't seem to be handling A times of any more than 2 hours.  Or should he be by this age and should I persevere with pushing them out a bit more???

[Bex09]

Phew so glad that you haven't ever let LO CIO, sorry that I misunderstood that.

Sounds like you are doing everything right and making great progress hun. You are so right that you just need to stick with your plan and be consistent. One thing that may help is if you and your DH don't swap when trying to resettle your DS. I know it is so hard when the NW go on and on and the crying is bad, but often swapping during the settling can distract LOs too much. So suddenly Mummy comes in and it is like "oh hello now you are here let's play!" lol. Maybe you could take it in turns a night about, or one of you takes the first NW and then the other takes the next one and so on. Does that make sense?

As for the A times, average for a 6 mo is 2.25-2.5 so he is only just under that which is totally normal for some babies. Plus some OT and therefore slightly shorter A times needed are to be expected when sleep training. Good luck and keep us posted lovely.

[janjo]

Well, after what appeared to be a promising(ish!) start, I think there are more teeth on the way :-(.  He cut 2 through in 3 days at the beginning of last week, so I thought we'd have a good window of opportunity to get some sleep training under our belts, but we're back to red cheeks, snuffly nose  squishy poos and disturbed nights again!  How can he be getting more through so soon, it's such a swizz!!!

[Bex09]

Oh HUGS hun, my DD was like this. She was a really late teether and then literally popped a new tooth every week for months! She is a terrible teether too, bless her and it really messes up her sleep. Have you been giving pain meds before BT, that can help to keep sleep on track?

[janjo]

I did give him calpol at BT for 2 nights but it made no difference so stopped.  I've also tried teething powders but they don't seem to make a difference to his sleep either.  Nap-times on the other hand have improved significantly - he had 2x 2hr naps yesterday and I'm about to wake him from a 2 hour nap now as he's still snoring!!!  How has this happened???  He woke at 7 this am fell asleep in the car on the way home from school at 9am but woke as soon as we got back to the house    so I took him straight up to bed, gave him a quick feed to settle him and then put him down awake, with which he was less than impressed and spent the next hour having an absolute paddy!  So when he eventually fell asleep I was expecting an OT 40 mins as he'd been awake for 3.5 hours and now he's slept for 2!!!  So this has totally messed up our routine for today.  I should've woken him at 11ish I suppose and had our usual day from there, but then he only would've had a 30 min nap.  I wonder if he'll have another 2 hours this pm???  And maybe his nights will improve if he starts taking 2 hour naps consistently???  Who knows???!!!

[Bex09]

Teething can make LOs more tired hun, so it could all be related. Also if short naps were a developmental thing then he may have grown out of them. My DD suddenly started taking lovely long 2 hr+ naps at around 6 mo and we never looked back! So fingers crossed for you. I take it you haven't changed anything in his routine?

As for the calpol not helping we found that ibuprofen works much better for teething than paracetamol did. Just a thought. Hope those teeth pop through soon and don't upset things too much.

[janjo]

A little update.....no more teeth have made an appearance and DS is much more settled now so hopefully he'll have a little break from all this teething business!  This last week he's continued to mostly take 2 hour naps and a 30 minute catnap, although our next project will be to work on independent day sleep as he mostly goes to sleep in his car seat or the pram :-/. We're going to wait until ww move him into his own room in the next couole of weeks amd start this then.  BT is fab, he puts himself to sleep independently most nights, occasionally DH has to go back in and re-settle but he always goes off pretty quickly :-).  And he then sleeps through til I go to bed at 11 when i give him a DF, although tonight he has just woken at 5 to.  A few weeks back he was waking by 9:30 so this is a vast improvement.  He's waking at 2:30ish and 5:30ish and at the moment I'm feeding him at these times and he's then sleeping through til 7am.  We're gong to have to work on dropping one of these feeds soon, but at the moment I'm happy as previously he was waking every 1.5-2 hours so now only feeding twice after I've gone to bed seems like a breeze!

He turns 7 months tomorrow so I guess I should think about increasing his A time (still 2 hours at the mo) and aim to drop the catnap pretty soon?  I wonder if that'll affect his nights any???

[Bex09]

Sounds like you have made brilliant progress.

To be honest when we dropped the CN around 7 months (because we were getting long NW) it actually made sleep so much better. The CN was causing DD to be UT and robbing from her NT sleep. So you might find that things get better.

That said, I wouldn't be in any rush to drop it unless you think that your DS is showing signs that he is ready to increase those A times. Have you seen this link... http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652 If you move too early you risk an OT LO and that brings it's own issues! Lol.

[janjo]

Well I tried without a catnap today and he's just woken at 9:30 (he was asleep by 6:45) and he is totally freaking out with DH up there!!!  I'm gonna give him 5 more mins and then go up and feed him if he doesn't seem like he's going to settle.  Hope this doesn't mean we're in for a shocker of a night :-(

[janjo]

Yyeeeccchhh, what a rubbish night!!!  It's amazing how a visitor staying for half an hour longer than expected can push the whole day out!  His second nap was later than it should've been so we didn't have time to fit in the cat-nap.  The plan was to get him to bed earlier but DH wasn't home last night so I had the 2 children on my own, so I only managed to get him to sleep 15 mins earlier :-(. Back to routine today and a better night hopefully!  I'll have to try increasing his A times very gradually I think, although how I'm going to fit longer A times and different nap times around the school run is anyone's guess!!!

[Bex09]

Oh hugs hun, hate it when things get messed up. You will get back on track though. Good plan to add A time slowly, I would just try 10 mins every few days. You want to avoid OT. There is a support thread for dropping from 3:2 naps on the nap board. Can't post the link as I am on my phone sorry. I think you would find that really useful, post back if you can't find it and it will remind me to post the link!

[janjo]

Thanks Bex, I've found it so will pop a little post on there now x

[Bex09]

Great. I think you will get some brilliant support from the others Mums on there struggling with the same issues. Good luck and keep us posted.