Kiwispiers:old thread about introducing routine?

Kiwispiers you have mail as well :-) thanks so much

great news bc! Sherryd you have mail :)

Hi kiwispiers Can i please request you to email me the pdf as well at sherrydang at gmail.com Also can you please give me your email as have few questions and you have great advises

She's asleep! Let's see for how long.... like :)

PDF sent ladies, you can remove your email addresses if you want. :) Keep us updated BC, it can be a long road but you'll get there! I could only fix the 45 min naps with extreme effort (major soothing just before he was due to wake), so in the end we had 4 x 45 minute naps plus early bedtime and eventually they became longer of their own accord. These days we have one 3-4 hour nap and I often have to wake him from it!.

kiwispiers , could you please send me the PDF at imolinar at hotmail dot com?, thanks

by the way I am also very much an APish parent and actually have started an AP group in Doha via Doha Mums and yet have had a sleep schedule going since the 4 month mark, its totally do-able even in conjunction with co-sleeping, breastfeeding on demand and never ever leaving your baby to cry. My way of getting there was very much baby-led and research based but I would have to admit the nap times we ended up with were often very similar to those of my Gina Ford friends. have you read the no-cry sleep solution? I have a copy as PDF if you can't source it.

ok I def remember my post in the thread now but I searched and searched and even using exact phrases I would have typed I honestly can not figure out the search function on EW, in the ended decided it was faster just to write down what came to mind. I find the book "healthy sleep habits happy child" by Dr Weissbluth really good in explaining the development of natural sleep rhythms and how to use these to set your child's routine. He's quite a fan of CIO type techniques and I am not but his info applies even if you cuddle your baby to sleep and co-sleep. The book the babywhisperer is really good at discussing tired signs in newborns (just ignore her breastfeeding info if you are breastfeeding, its not very accurate esp in regards to foremilk/hindmilk/snacking etc etc) and the book "the no cry sleep solution" is great at explaining how to set up positive sleep associations (and eliminate sleep props if you've accidentally created them) without resorting to sleep training. In a nutshell: Prior to 4 months, watch your child for subtle tired signs and work on a maximum awake time (including time it takes it to feed), from about the 4 month point (on average) sleep patterns become more predictable. Pick a wakeup time and a bedtime (say 7am wake-up and 6pm bedtime) and stick to those (waking your child if they sleep past that time in the morning). Then figure out a morning nap time based largely on tired signs. It might work something like this, your baby usually wakes around 630am, if they wake before 6am you try and get them back to sleep, if they sleep past 7am you wake them up. First nap might be at 8am, even if they woke up early, rest of days naps may vary depending on how well they slept for first nap, how tired they seem etc etc but will probably involve 2 or 3 more naps before bedtime. If bedtime is 6pm then don't let them nap past 4pm at the latest. Naps seem to work best with increasing gaps (so the shortest gap between wakeup and first nap and the longest gap between end of last nap and bedtime. You need to experiment a little to get the nap times right, once you have the first nap sorted (your baby generally goes down easily and wakes up happy) you can work out the best time for the second nap and then the third until that point you might have a loose idea but be quite flexible. Don't be afraid of an early bedtime, for quite a while bedtime was 5:30pm for us as DS took quite short naps by day. Early bedtime is usually better than adding an extra nap too late in the day. It helps to have a wind down routine before naps, which for some babies needs to be quite long (up to an hour, but more commonly 30 minutes and in an older baby once they are used to the cues it might be only 10 minutes), its basically a sequence of events that let your baby know its nearly time for sleep. For us it was moving to quieter playtime, speaking in a softer voice then going upstairs into a darkened room and cuddling for while, finally swaddling and the dummy, more cuddling and then laying him in his cot still awake. You could add cues like white noise if you wanted. Dummies, feeding to sleep and rocking to sleep can be a problem in many babies as they will wake expecting the same conditions as when they feel asleep. . Sorry I know I wrote that stuff much more clearly in the old thread, I just can't remember who the OP was and I can't find it via the search here are a couple of old threads that might have some helpful advice too (not the thread you're after i know but I found them when searching) http://www.expatwoman.com/qatar/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=159407 http://www.expatwoman.com/qatar/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=166739 <em>edited by kiwispiers on 08/05/2012</em>

I think I might know the one your talking about, I would have bee rabbiting on a bout tired signs and switching from a cue based to a more clock based sleep schedule from around the 4 month mark starting with wake up times and the first nap as well as bedtimes. Unfortunately I have no idea what the thread was titled and the search function in EW has a mind of its own (even when I search sometimes for exact phrases I remember from a thread it can come up with zero results, or really odd ones). I'm about to host a playgroup in about 10 minutes but give me some time and I'll either try and dig it up or come up with a whole new ramble for you. BC where are you at now, do you any kind of routine/system in place or do you just wing it?

hi...just want to request that if u find the thread can u please post the link here.... would be very interested in reading that... thanks :)

Lol, BC I've posted on so many threads about introducing routine, Im not sure exactly which one you mean. Did you post on that thread, if so then the easiest way to search for it might be to click on your own user name and go through all your old posts that way. I have about a million posts so its harder if you search via my username ;) If you still can't find it let me know ( do you remember any more details) , I'll have a think and see if I can remember it.