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Offline puffingirl

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refining NWs
« on: January 07, 2008, 13:50:11 pm »
It has been completely amazing---in 3 days we have gone from rocking DD to sleep up to 10 times a day to doing a wind down, putting her in the crib and doing one cribside reassurance before she puts herself to sleep.  I am so incredibly grateful I could cry.  We are all finally getting better sleep here and the mood improvement for DH and I is immense.  I can't thank Tracy and everyone here enough. 

While we have had major progress, we're still dealing with a fair amount of NW.  We don't have to do pu/pd, just shush her for a moment (and sometimes help her find her paci--she's so close to being 100% independent with it that we decided to keep it) and she goes back to sleep.  She does wake once a night to nurse and is truly hungry (she'll take both breasts in about 10 minutes) and goes back to sleep easily afterwards so I don't have any problem nursing once a night.  The short NW visits aren't exhausting us as they had been when we were rocking her for 20 minutes each time, but we would like to work on reducing them even more.  Is this just something that gets better as baby continues to get used to putting herself to sleep or is there something else we should be doing? She also gets up earlier than I'd like (6:00 instead of 7:00) but she played by herself for the most part until 6:30 and then was really ready to get up.  I'm figuring that she's getting so much good rest now that I may have to just suck up the earlier start to the morning. 
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Offline Bryony

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Re: refining NWs
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2008, 16:19:29 pm »
What's her routine like for naps  / bedtime etc?  Then we can see if that wake-up looks realistic or not!

It sounds like you are doing GREAT!  I would just keep doing what you are doing as it sounds like it's fantastic  :)

Bryony
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Offline puffingirl

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Re: refining NWs
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2008, 17:44:38 pm »
We've just started getting her on a 4 hour EASY this week, and started pu/pd to help her learn to fall asleep on her own.  Prior to this it had been a loose 3-3.5 hour cycle based on her varying nap lengths (they were typically 40 minutes but we never knew).  So right now because we're getting her on a real routine for the first time, we're going by the book for the week and watching the clock.  Yesterday she was right on track: up at 7, eat, play, nap 9-11 (she didn't really get to sleep until about 9:30 because of pu/pd), eat, play, nap 1-3, eat, play, catnap 5:15-5:45, play, eat, bed at 7:30, df 10:00.  Then the little NWs started.  At 2:30 she was really hungry and nursed.  A couple more little NWs until 6:00 when she was really up.  She might have drifted in and out of sleep and play because there were periods of quiet from 6-6:30, and then she was up and crying.  We got her up to start the day then just quietly hanging out with her until 7 when I fed her and started the day for real. Yesterday's ideal timing of the day was not normal for her though---like I said, she had previously been doing several short naps/day. Her morning nap started well today but she only slept 40 minutes or so--there's a whole post on the Naps board about that one.... We did pu/pd and such for the remainder of the nap period, but she never went back to sleep for that one.  Thankfully, she's napping now and went to sleep very easily for her afternoon nap.  The initial going to sleep has gotten very easy, but it seems like she's still working on what to do when she wakes up and isn't really tired anymore. 
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Offline Bryony

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Re: refining NWs
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2008, 17:47:46 pm »
How old is she?

That wake-up may be how she is - or she may be a little OT if she is getting some 45 min naps. Do you adjust the rest of her day if she only naps for 45 mins?

Bryony
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Offline puffingirl

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Re: refining NWs
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2008, 18:28:11 pm »
She's 6 months old.  Prior to this week, we'd move the next nap up if she'd had a short one, basically putting her down for a nap whenever she showed sleep signs (usually about 2 hours after getting up from the last nap).  This week, we're trying to stick to the schedule just to introduce the new routine times. So, while she stopped sleeping around 9:45 for her morning nap, we did pu/pd for an hour until 10:45 and she didn't start her afternoon nap until 12:45.  She's been sleeping almost an hour now though, which is great. 

We think she's naturally a bit of an early riser since she tends to want to get up sometime around 6-ish pretty regularly.  Sometimes she'll be up earlier (5:30) and we can get her to go back to sleep. 
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Offline Bryony

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Re: refining NWs
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2008, 19:39:13 pm »
Well that all sounds good!  Just be careful she doesn't get overtired if you are really extending those A times if she's had a short nap

B
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Offline puffingirl

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Re: refining NWs
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2008, 02:28:38 am »
Thanks!  We'll keep on eye on the A times to see how that plays out.
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