I just talked to my pediatrician today about night weaning. She doesn't recommend doing it until they are 15 lbs. Then she says night wean away. I hadn't heard that guideline before, so that was interesting. She seemed to think my two feedings a night were OK, which I am ok with too. (For now).
Thanks for the encouragement ladies! Last night went okay. She's still waking a number of times, but only ate twice. The other times I sent DH in to deal with her and he was able to get her back down. I limited nursing to 4-5 minutes a side and was planning to cut back by a minute each night for the next few nights, but then I realized that I can't exactly pull her off mid-letdown. So now I'm not quite sure how to cut back other than to only nurse one side, but then the other side is probably going to be super painful by the morning.
noname, What does the sleep lady book say about dropping MOTN nursing?
zonagirl I hadn't heard that weight guideline about night weaning. At the rate that my peanut is gaining, it could take her until 8 months to hit 15 lbs! I asked my pediatrician specifically if she should proceed with night weaning given her weight (only 13 lbs 11 oz now), and he encouraged me to drop the MOTN feedings. He said that she's big enough now to sleep for at least 8-10 hours without eating, and also said that sleep training becomes harder as babies become more mobile. There is so much conflicting information out there it's hard to know what to do! I think I'm going to attempt to sleep train and if I'm running into a lot of problems may re-evaluate when she gains a bit more weight.
aydee DS is mobile and sure he moves around a ton in his crib I wouldn't say it was harder bc of it? I think it's a bit easier bc the Moro reflex is gone.
One way to drop feedings slowly is to push them out. So if LO is eating at 11, 2, 5 start by pushing them to 11:30, 2:30, 5:30 ( or whatever interval you're comfortable with - I dove in head first here and pushed a full hour). I added an extra feed during the day to make sure he was eating enough. Push again every other night. I'm now down to one feed at 5ish. I'm not pushing it anymore right now bc I think he needs it despite him being almost 19 lbs. My Dr said its not weight that matters most it's how distributed the feeds are. LO needs X amount of milk a day so if you cut one meal you need to make up for it.
I have read about reducing time at the boob at night and then pumping to relieve pressure. I was just to lazy to pull out my pump. My boobs were super full the first 2-3 nights but they regulated pretty quick. I wake up full but not painful.
aydee I agree w 45parallel about pushing the night feedings back. That may be easier than reducing the time nursing. If she doesn't wake up at set times to eat, then you could just push it back by time spent between feeds. Right now I do 4 hours. When I wean her I'm going to kick it up to 4.5, then 5, and so on . I'm glad last night went well!
RandomNamezonagirl How do you push a feeding back? Let her cry until it's time to eat? Try to soothe her in other ways for a half hour? Also, she doesn't always wake at the same times each night. I guess I could pick whatever the earliest time ever is and not feed her until a half hour after that initially.
aydee this is what I do: I always feed her for bed at the same time. She finishes eating at 6:30 every night. So with that there is no guessing- the earliest I am ever going to feed her after she goes down is 10:30. Then whatever time it ends up being (it may be 10:30, or she may not wake up until 12:30) but whatever the time is, I then add four hours and that is the next time. If I feed her at 11:30, then I won't feed her again until at least 3:30. My lo is not predictable at all, so we have to do it that way.
As far as what to do when she wakes up but it isn't time to eat, I think that depends on what sleep training method you are using. We are using Ferber, so MH goes in to check in on her and give her her lovey at set times. We will be on night 4 tonight, but so far she hasn't needed a check in since night one- she has always put herself back to sleep before he goes in to check in.
aydee, I was similarly confused about how to shorten nursing sessions, especially because sometimes she nurses for 5 minutes and sometimes 20. I'll post the Sleep Lady pages in a minute.
Last night was disastrous for us. Her first wake-up to eat is usually around 12-1am, but she woke up a little before 10pm last night. I was letting her fuss to see if she was actually awake or would fall back asleep (fussing with eyes closed, not full crying) but after 30 min she started to cry so I went ahead and fed her. Then she woke up at 1:45, again after 30 min of fussing she started to cry so I sent DH in. That did not go well. She started screaming like crazy but he was able to calm her down a bit. Then she fussed intermittently for another hour. Every time I'd start to get up to go to her, she'd get quiet and I'd think she was asleep. But after and hour and a half I went and got her. I felt horrible because if I had just gotten her when she first woke up the whole ordeal would've lasted 10 minutes, so I basically made her fuss/cry for 1.5 hours for nothing. She had scooted all the way up into the corner, so maybe she got stuck. I'm not sure how to proceed. I'm thinking I'll put it on hold for awhile. One complication is she has started pooping overnight over the last week. I haven't changed her MOTN in months, but after a few days in a row with her waking up with old poop in her diaper I've started checking her and changing her at least twice overnight. So it makes it difficult to just shush and pat her, I think it's confusing to get her up to change her then put her right back down. I also don't like just letting her fuss that long without checking her diaper because then I think she's up because she has pooped. We just started solids (the pooping started before that) so maybe that will slow things down a bit.
RandomName, I think what the pediatrician meant about it being harder when they're more mobile is that when they can pull up to a sit or a stand it leads to a whole new level of protest when it comes to sleep training.
noname, Thanks for posting all those pages. Now I just need to find the time to read them! Hopefully tonight. We're having the same problem with MOTN poops, and it certainly does complicate things. I don't want to risk letting her CIO if she's crying because of a dirty diaper. And unfortunately there's no way to know without going in there and picking her up. Ugh.
aydee this is what I do: I always feed her for bed at the same time. She finishes eating at 6:30 every night. So with that there is no guessing- the earliest I am ever going to feed her after she goes down is 10:30. Then whatever time it ends up being (it may be 10:30, or she may not wake up until 12:30) but whatever the time is, I then add four hours and that is the next time. If I feed her at 11:30, then I won't feed her again until at least 3:30. My lo is not predictable at all, so we have to do it that way.
As far as what to do when she wakes up but it isn't time to eat, I think that depends on what sleep training method you are using. We are using Ferber, so MH goes in to check in on her and give her her lovey at set times. We will be on night 4 tonight, but so far she hasn't needed a check in since night one- she has always put herself back to sleep before he goes in to check in.
This was us too. After his before bed feed (6:30) I'd say no feeding for 4 hours. So no matter what if he woke up before 10:30 I wouldn't feed. We did a schedule, worked up to 10 mins crying, went in for 1 min. We didn't pick him up, have him his paci rubbed his back (patted bum) and left. Repeat until feed time.
If he didn't wake until say 2:30, I'd feed him and then add 4 hrs to 2:30. He caught on pretty quick. It helped to have my BF go in so boobs weren't an options. But we very strict with not picking him up. We went into his room in the dark, minimal engagement to avoid waking him up.
RandomName, I think what the pediatrician meant about it being harder when they're more mobile is that when they can pull up to a sit or a stand it leads to a whole new level of protest when it comes to sleep training.
Oh boy. I completely forgot about when the can learn to stand. That was quite the hurdle with my great sleeper. Not looking forward to this again. I must have a mental block about the whole learning to stand and walk business!
Nap training is the worst. She just cried for thirty minutes. She is asleep now, but that was awful. She is an overtired mess when she doesn't nap, doesn't nap well in my arms. I repeat this to myself, and yet I still feel so shitty when it is going on. I think part of the problem was she fell asleep in the car on the way home from sign language class. She stayed asleep when I brought the car seat into the house so I just left her in there. So she took a thirty min snooze in the car seat, woke up, I fed her some avocado, and she was still clearly tired. So I did a crib nap. She is out now, so she needed a nap, but that was rough. MH works from home and I honestly don't know if I could do this without his support. He is upstairs working and I am downstairs stress eating and we we text each other to keep each other strong.
We mostly talk about nights on this thread. Is anyone else dealing with naps? For us, it is much worse than nights, and according to Google, that is normal.
Post by RandomName on Feb 18, 2016 13:06:12 GMT -5
zonagirl we are still figuring out naps. For us, I'm convinced if I catch the first nap just at the right time the rest of the days naps are good. If I miss it, it's going to be a struggle all day. One way I've been working on this is to make sure he's in bed for nap 1 within 1hr 30 mins of being awake. If we hit 2 hrs it's too long and he's over tired.
Right now our schedule is (ideally): 7-7:30 wake up 8:30-9 put down for nap 1 10:30 up 12:30 put down for nap 2 2-2:30 wake up 4:30-4:45 put down for nap 3 5:30 wake him up 6:30 down for bed
Eta: I can't wait to drop nap 3 and push nap 2 until 1 pm
RandomName I am in awe of the length of those naps. She woke up after thirty mins in the crib and I am nursing her now, but she has basically fallen back asleep.
I will try to out her down for her first nap a little earlier tomorrow. Car seat naps are the worst because I see her in the mirror falling asleep and there is nothing I can do to stop it!
Post by RandomName on Feb 18, 2016 15:18:13 GMT -5
zonagirl don't be too in awe, it doesn't happen like that every day that's what I'm working toward. He naps 45 mins to 1.5 hrs. He does what he wants lol.
Post by sweetsyrup on Feb 18, 2016 20:12:38 GMT -5
We started tonight. My heart hurts listening to him cry, but I need to sleep on my own. He refuses to sleep on his own after the first wake up and I'm so tired. Unfortunately her didn't stay asleep after his nursing session, so we're starting early. H isn't home, so I'm distracting myself here and watching Mickey with DS1.
He only cried for 20 minutes going to sleep (with checks). So that part was way way way better than it went with DS1 when we did it with him (he was one of those kids that it never worked with).
H brought him in for the first feeding and I never put him back in his crib. So it didn't go. I think I need to be the one to get up and get him, otherwise I don't actually wake up. H also didn't know that I started last night, so now that he knows, he'll remind me to put him back tonight.
Arya is sleeping in our room in the pack n play tonight since we have a guest in town this weekend (and her room is also the guest bedroom). I told H we should just move to the guest room ourselves, but it's only a full bed in there so he vetoed me. A is currently asleep, fx she keeps it up!
noname I finally had a chance to read through the Sleep Lady pages you posted and I think we're going to give it a try tonight. I'm desperate and exhausted. After considering the options, I think we're going to go with a dream feed for 3 nights, but attempt to drop any subsequent feeds until after 6am. I like the idea of still going in and reassuring her when she wakes, and I'm hoping that it won't agitate her more that we're there but not feeding her or picking her up. At least tomorrow is Sunday so if this fails miserably maybe we can all nap tomorrow!
I just wanted to give an update. We sort of flirted with different methods/ our own for about a month. Things got better, then worse. It was stressful. Well a week ago, we decided to follow the seven day Ferber plan. We just finished night 7 last night and the only night mh had to do any check ins was night one. She still wakes up 1-2 times to eat, and occasionally wakes up other times, nut always puts herself back to sleep within a few mins.
For naps, we follow the Ferber schedule, but call the nap if it has been over an hour in her crib or if she has cried for more than 20 mins. Also, I only do this for her first two naps. Her third nap I think of more as a "rest" and we nurse and rock in a dark room for that one. Her naps are getting so much better, although not as good as night sleep.
I have seen such a dramatic change in her personality. She is ridiculously smiley and happy where before she was a pretty serious and cranky/ fussy baby. Restorative sleep has made such a difference!
Thanks for sharing zonagirl. I think the change in demeanor was key to convincing myself sleep training was worth it. I can feel guilty all I want for letting her cry (because really, no matter what method you use crying is involved), but once you see the change in personality it's pretty clear that it is what's best for them. I felt like I was doing the right thing by going to her every 1-1.5 hours when she cried and rocking her back to sleep, but really I was depriving her of learning how to sleep and getting that solid restorative sleep. Even though my LO is still getting up a few times at night, I can see a huge improvement in her mood compared to when she was getting up ~7 times at night.
Post by trudytrudy on Feb 22, 2016 13:45:24 GMT -5
Does anyone have any testimony for sleep training a baby that uses a pacifier? Mine seems to like the pacifier but I don't give it to her at bedtime. Last night she had a tough time going to sleep she fought it for about 30 minutes and calmed with checks. She slept until 2 I nursed her and she had trouble going back to sleep I think bc of her cough. I rocked her and gave her a pacifier and she slept the rest of the night. I'm also giving a pacifier for naps. We haven't done much in the way of nap training yet. Our focus has been on a consistent bedtime. I think our technique kind of falls under the Jodi Mindell style.
How's it going aydee ? We put sleep training on hold until DD2 stops pooping overnight. I guess it gives me more time to figure out my strategy.
We've done 2 nights, with something pretty similar to sleep lady shuffle style. I've been dream feeding at 11pm and then not feeding again until whenever she wakes after 6am (it was 6:45 this morning). DH has been going in when she wakes (2 wakeups each night so far) and trying to shush, comfort, or reassure her until she falls back to sleep in her crib. I haven't gone in at all because I don't want her to expect to nurse.
It's going okay. The first night she cried for about an hour at the first wakeup and 15-20 minutes the second time. That felt pretty awful. Last night is was about half an hour of crying at the first wakeup and 10-15 minutes the second time. I'm curious to see what happens tonight.
zonagirl,noname, Thanks for sharing the successes you've had. It's helpful to have that kind of encouragement when I'm in the trenches and feeling like a mean parent for letting my baby cry. I'm so glad your LO's are starting to sleep better and are happier during the day because of it.
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