Sleep training help

[estakis]

So, I’ve convinced DH to try sleep training (see what happens when I communicate with him like an adult?!). We’ve done SleepEasy in the past, and are hopeful she’s more ready for it now. My question is about offering food and dream feeding. Right now, C wakes on average 5x/night. She always wakes at least 3 times. Every time she wakes up we’ve been offering bottle or nursing to get her back to sleep because nothing else seems to settle her. When I BF her I can’t tell how much she’s eating. And, honestly, I’m too tired to pay attention and listen for swallowing.  I'm not even certain she's eating much at all when offered breast.  So, as we revisit sleep training, how do I know when to offer food and when to let her work it out? Obviously I don’t won’t to leave her crying if she’s actually hungry.


Usually, her first wake up is within an hour of being put to bed so I can safely assume she’s not hungry. But, her next wake-up varies anytime between 8:30pm-2am, with no real recognizable pattern. How do I even know where to start with offering a dream feed?


Part of why we abandoned sleep training in the past is that we never felt sure about when she was hungry or not. We would let her cry, try check ins, and she would often ramp herself up to being inconsolable. So, we would end up offering milk…and likely reinforcing the idea that if she cries enough she’ll get picked up, fed, etc. But again, I don’t want to not feed her if she’s hungry…but also understand that at her age she can be night-weaned.


I feel like her sleep is such a disaster that I don’t even know where to start with feeding vs not feeding, and when to try dreamfeeding considering she wakes up hourly sometimes. Words of wisdom?

ETA: if this helps give a good picture, our night last night:
Bedtime 7pm
Wake up 1: 755pm
Wake up 2: 1125pm
Wake up 3: 1240am
Wake up 4: 115am
Wake up 5: 425am
Wake up 6: 450am
Up for the day at 6am
We gave 2oz formula at 1125pm, all other wake ups she was offered boob

[charliefox]

How long does she go between meals during the day? Since her wake ups are inconsistent maybe you could set her normal between time as your goal (within 30mins or so). It sounds like she is definitely using you as a pacifier at night (does she use a regular pacifier?).

I read something in Bringing Up Bebe (I know, super reliable) recently that lined up with what I had been thinking all along. According to the book, French babies STTN early on and one gal interview said that sure, babies might be hungry when they wake in the MOTN, adults are too, but we don't eat because our bodies need that rest and time to digest. Just something to thing about.

Eta: that first wake up is rough. C was doing that for a while about a month and half ago. Once we re-trained he not only slept through the first wake up but was down to waking only once or twice. Hopefully she catches on quickly!

[estakis]

I will have to ask my mom how long she does between meals during the day since she's around her more often during the day than I am. She sort of takes a pacifier, tends to chew on it when she's playing with her toys. We haven't tried to use it for soothing yet. That's definitely worth trying. I was getting myself amped up to start training tonight, but my mom let me know she thinks she's about to pop a tooth. Been a drooling, cranky mess all day. So, we might be waiting a little bit start.

[emejay]

Echoing charliefox a little here - she doesn't need to eat at night and does it per habit. I was having the exact same feelings when we did it because he took the boob everytime I offered it at night.

But we sleep trained with 2 dream feed and soon dropped one and within less than a month we dropped them altogether.

We had a pattern similar to yours and I set my 2 dream feed for 11 pm and 3 am. This made a 4 hours pattern and felt good to me.

Other than the dream feeds, SO was doing the check ins. He eventually started to do the dream feed with a bottle when I got surgery and A quickly was disinterested by the bottle in the MOTN.

Good luck!!!

[ladymary11]

I know it's hard to pay attention to the night feedings when they happen so often but for me it was worth it because it gave me peace of mind.

Sleepeasy says that any feed where the baby doesnt actively nurse for more than two minutes is for comfort more than anything. I logged our feedings for 5 nights and felt comfortable starting her off with two dream feeds since she really only nursed and drank milk twice a night. The other times she fell back asleep very quickly after latching.

All that to say that the sleep journal is really important IMO to make sure you start your sleep training the right way. It really gave me a sense of control.

[estakis]

I've been toying around with the idea of exclusively pumping just to try to get a better idea of how much she's actually eating at night when only offered bottles. Might be worth experimenting for my peace of mind.

[London]

We did SleepEasy as well and adhered to the idea of "feeding windows". We established times when I would go in and feed, usually about 4 hours apart. This felt like a reasonable gap based on how long her stretches had been. At first, I fed her only when she passed the feeding gap (for example, I would feed her at 10:00 and then 2AM or later, if she woke before 2 we did checks). This helped us get to a rhythm where she wasn't waking up, so the feeds were all dream feeds. We then slowly dropped them.

The book explains it better than me, but I found the key to STTN was getting to the point where I was feeding her before she had a chance to wake up. It took a lot of adjusted by small increments, but it was a worthwhile effort.

[eliza040502]

Per sleep easy, you have to be consistent. That means no feeding when she wakes, just soothing / checks. You only feed via dream feed. That way she doesn't get confused about eating upon waking because it never happens.

I would start with two or three dream feeds (I did three but J quickly dropped the first one). Try dream feeding at 10:30 (or right before you go to bed), 1:00 and 4:00. Time each feeding. If you want to wean, drop a minute or two each night from all feedings or just one. I dropped the 10 pm first, then the 3am, and kept my midnight for a while.

It helped me to use a timer app MOTN. Then I could hit start and stop without thinking about it. And then I knew what happened the next day.

[tapthathank]

I just wanted to add that it sounds like a nurse/suck to sleep association. If you can move nursing 15-20 min before bedtime and help her learn to fall asleep at bedtime it may take care of some of the other wake-ups.

How does your bedtime routine look? Is she falling asleep on the boob? Or super drowsy?

[cowplanet]

Jun 22, 2016 19:50:57 GMT -5 estakis said:

I've been toying around with the idea of exclusively pumping just to try to get a better idea of how much she's actually eating at night when only offered bottles. Might be worth experimenting for my peace of mind.

This gives you the added bonus of DH taking a feeding. And if he's staying up late, well, he can have the first feed!

[estakis]

Jun 23, 2016 13:03:44 GMT -5 tapthathank said:

I just wanted to add that it sounds like a nurse/suck to sleep association. If you can move nursing 15-20 min before bedtime and help her learn to fall asleep at bedtime it may take care of some of the other wake-ups.

How does your bedtime routine look? Is she falling asleep on the boob? Or super drowsy?

Yes - we are planning to reverse her bedtime routine, and offer bottle or nursing as the first step instead of the last. She falls asleep while eating - either boob or bottle. So she definitely has that association.

[charliefox]

Jumping back here to say that it sounds like you have all the right things in place...be confident, you'll both do great!

[estakis]

Thank you charliefox - I think we're going to start tomorrow. She had a shot today at her 9 month check up so we figured tonight probably wasn't the best night to start. I'm hoping the teething won't prevent us from getting going tomorrow night.

[radiantly]

Just want to say that I FEEL YOU. And we are in pretty much the same boat. Except that I bring her to bed with me when she wakes post my bedtime. I usually can't fall asleep until she cries anyway. She tends to wake up a couple times in the evening, and then will have a bunch of nights where she stays asleep from bedtime to 11 PM or so. I have been reticent to start training because she teethed early – 4 1/2 months – and when I went back to work at six months, I felt it was important to keep cosleeping, for attachment purposes. Whether that's more me or her – I'm not sure – obviously my gut tells me that it's better for her to be attached to me in a comforting way, and I've been trying to pay attention to when she nurses for comfort versus nurses for hunger. Like anything, it varies from night tonight. She wakes up with a really wet diaper and I know this is because she nurses a lot. She doesn't drink that much during the day when she's at daycare – maybe seven or 8 ounces. She eats a decent amount of solids and I have no complaints there because she loves texture and doesn't have any allergies.

Anyway, I don't have any suggestions at all – I read tons of sleep books when she was about four months old and we did Ferber for about two weeks, but continued with cosleeping, and then she teethed and I didn't want to continue confusing her… This has been a real rambleand it's a testament to how torn I am over the situation. It's hard not to compare myself with others, and to compare babies who sleep through the night. I guess I'm used to it now – some nights are better than others and I feel rested. Other nights I don't feel rested but at least I feel good that I was there for her when she was upset. I'm also lucky regarding cosleeping because she doesn't usually take up too much space, and when she's done with the boob she pulls off on her own.

I did have a really exciting revelation last night – so, we've been using a floor bed with a gate across the door. The floor mattress goes almost up to the gate but there is a gap where she can fit and on the monitor I see that she gets stuck, and I go in and get her. This has been preventing me from letting her cry very long. But last night, we were watching Game of Thrones and it was an epic battle scene – I didn't want to pause, so I let her cry even though she was wedged into the gap. Then, miraculously, she pulled herself out of the gap back onto her mattress and fell asleep! This is awesome because now I know that when she falls into the gap I don't have to go get her right away. I'm going to start really letting her cry 15 minutes before any check inns from now on.

I'm going to stop rambling now because this isn't helpful for you except perhaps it's helpful just to know there's someone out there with a baby that wakes up just as much.

Here's a potentially useful tidbit: I've been using the app sleep cycle which is really interesting and tracks what time we were awake. It might be worth downloading it and using it as your journal. You don't have to do anything besides put the phone down near your head on your nightstand. It's really cool.

Signing off