seeking advice regarding sleep

Hi Presam How are things going?? I had 2 months of no sleep and ended up so over tired it was awful. I saw Cecile and she was brilliant - I highly recommend you go to her and just talk to her and tell her everything you have done and what is going on - she can tailor a way which will suit you- we weent for teh crying out method as i was beyond anything else and i have to say it worked - though it waws tough - she even has helped me with my toddler... Hoping you get some sleep soon - there is nothing worse than lack of sleep xxx

Presam, I want to share my experience with you.... My baby woke up every hour at night for months and months and I was miserable. He was bottle fed and in his own cot but every time he came into a light sleep he cried out for his bottle followed by a dummy, and I was the waittress. At 11 months old, I had just had enough and didn't want to start his 2nd year like this. I had 1 consultation with a post natal doula (via Skype together with a group of other mums). I was initially very skeptical of her approach, as was my DH (who wasn't supportive of the idea at all), but desperate enough to consider it. Her approach was to initially put the baby on a very strict routine, which for babies 8 to 12 months old was as follows (off the top of my head): 7 a.m. wake up & breast / bottle 8 a.m. breakfast - solids 9:30 a.m. nap - breast / bottle 11 a.m. (or 10:30 at the earliest) wake up 12 p.m. lunch - solids 2 p.m. nap - breast / bottle 4 p.m. (or 3:30 at the earliest) wake up - breast / bottle 6 p.m. dinner - solids 7:30 start bedtime routine - bath, book or whatever you normally do 8 p.m. bedtime. breast / bottle Also, at all sleep times you have to do everything in a specific order, close curtains (I invested in black out curtains and a small night light as prescribed by her), feed baby, switch on white noise (she is a strong advicate of white noise, the louder the better, but I never got round to finding a source of white noise so just did without), put baby to bed and leave the room. And at wake up times the reverse... so that baby knows, if curtains closed & white noise on, it is sleep time, so always open curtains & switch off noise before taking baby out of bed. If the baby wakes during sleeping times (day or night) you should pat & shush and give him only water from a bottle, dont take him out of his cot. In fact she said to never take a screaming, hysterical baby out of bed, calm him down a bit first before taking him out. I am sure there were other rules mentioned but this is all I remember. I had never had my baby on a routine before (put him down when he looked tired & fed him when he looked hungry, basically he just snacked all day) and was extremely resistant to the idea. But after yet another horrible night I decided to just DO IT. I stayed home for a week to get my baby on the routine clearing everything off my calendar. Within days he was self soothing, going down easily for all sleeps / naps & waking only once or twice per night and after a month (he is 1 year old now) he was sleeping through the night. For the past 2 weeks he hasn't woken at night once and sleeps through 11 hours per night as well as 2 naps. He actually LOOKS EXCITED ABOUT going to sleep when I draw the curtains etc. I never had to let him cry but perhaps I was just lucky, no idea. I am telling everyone that I wish I had tried putting him on a schedule months earlier but I just couldn't see it working for us. But if I have another baby, I will definitely do things differently. And now that he is sleeping well and well established on a routine, and I understand the basic principles, I am able to manipulate his day to an extent, manipulating sleeping and feeding times a bit to fit around excursions, playgroups etc without affecting his night sleep. I used to think having a baby on a schedule would be very restrictive but now realise that it has actually given us freedom - not only in terms of being well rested but having control over our day and having an equally well rested, well fed, much happier little man to spend it with! My baby was bottle fed and sleeping in his own cot at the time, but another mum in the group was breastfeeding on demand and cosleeping... she was told to move the baby into his own cot at the same time as starting the routine. I didnt stay in touch with her though so have no idea if she went through with it or how it worked out for her. Just thought I would plant the seed in case it lands on fertile ground as this routine thing has really improved my life. Good luck!

It is not going to be easy Presam, but basically when he wakes up at 11pm, don't play with him, don't turn on the light or even talk. I would suggest starting this in the weekend so that you can sleep in the next morning while your husband looks after him. Just feed him and do whatever you when you put him to bed, I'm not saying let him cry alone , you can rock him, hold him whatever but don't talk to him or turn the lights on. Eventually he will go to sleep. In the morning get him up, feed him and take him into bright light and noise, when he has his nap at 9, wake him after only 1 hour and again take him into the bright light. Try to avoid situations in this time where he could go to sleep like being in his pram or carseat. Do your normal bedtime routine in the evening, but time it so that by 6:30 he is ready for bed. Again, do what it takes to get him to sleep and no conversation or playtime until the next morning. Its up to you but personally I would happily give up the evening walk in the park in exchange for being able to sleep between 11pm and 2 am. Its important to expose him to as much daylight as possible to reset his sleep clock. It could take a couple of weeks to completely shift it so don't give up too soon.

I was reading recently (actually this morning) that there are times to do sleep training and 9 months old is not one of them (I think the next patch was beginning around 12 months) something to do with emotional developmental stages, not that I'm into CIO anyway, I'm not sure if they meant things other than that as well. Presam as far as routine, you might want to try earlier uptimes and bedtimes, it sounds a bit like he is mixing his night and day up. Try getting him up at 7, taking him outside into the daylight (I know its hot but even briefly, or with an open window under the AC) first nap at 9am, 1 1/2 hours maximum then second nap around 1pm and try no more naps before bedtime 6:30pm. (Don't keep him up late just so DH can see him after work).

Not from what I've seen of her! I didn't want to go down that route either. I found her warm, caring and - most importantly - very knowledgeable and reassuring. Having her support made all the difference.

From my experience with Cecile, she only advocates an approach that you're comfortable with, so she won't tell you to leave the baby to cry alone in the room - CIO - if you're not comfortable with that. Our solution involved us sitting next to his cot and patting him. He wasn't happy that he wasn't being picked up, but he was not left to cry it out alone. ETA: Perhaps this is just a blip while he sorts himself out with his new routine/sleep training? If you're leaving him to self-settle in the night, perhaps he needs longer naps in the daytime to make up for this until he sleeps through? I know if Will's tired he doesn't sleep as well at night as when he's well-rested from the daytime. It's so, so hard to know what's the best thing to do. They don't come with a manual! :D <em>edited by DubaiCat on 19/05/2011</em>

i dont recommend cecile. she advocates cio. i been reading elizabeth pantley's no-cry sleep.. maybe u can give it a try.

I'm no expert but it sounds like he might need to start and finish his day earlier. He's around 9-10 months now, right? When we changed DS's bedtime to a little later, we picked a day when he had a particularly long nap in the afternoon so he wasn't too tired to stay up a bit later, so maybe it would work if you picked a day when he napped earlier? Then you could start his bedtime routine earlier, have him in bed by 7/7.30, and then start his day around 7.30am. That's probably not that helpful but I just wanted to post because I know how horribly isolating sleep difficulties can be - you honestly feel as though you're totally on your own and totally helpless to fix the problem. I credit Cecile with solving our sleep issues when DS was 7 months. Now we have the odd blip, but I'm confident I can sort it before it gets too out of hand. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Try Cecile De Scaly she may be able to help you out. Best of luck!

I could have written this exact post about my first DS. I have nearly every sleep book written out there went to see Dr Brain Symon (who worked with Cecile) ad basically drove myself potty. In the end, I gave in and continued cosleeping and soothig DS with a breast when he woke. Yes, it was tiring...but it doesn't last forever. Probably not the advice you're looking for. But I really couldn't do CIO and quite enjoyed havingy baby snuggled up with me, so I pushed the books aside and just got on with what worked for us. Now he's a great sleeper. Will fall asleep on his own and pretty much anywhere (since he turned 2). He's in his own bed, in a corner in our room. I'm constantly told by family visitors that he needs to be in his own room, but honestly. Both him and I love this set up. So for now, it's how it's staying. DS 2 on the other hand. Also exclusively BF, also started with co sleeping. But he loves being in his own bed, in his own room. All children are different and I think pushing them all into the same mould to follow a certain method just doesn't work for some and is more hassle then what it's worth. This is obviously just my story, but I thought I'd share it as like I said, your situation sounds similar to mine 3 years ago and I was beside myself. All the best, and if u want some books on sleep...just shout ;-)