Sleep posts

You know what I think is funny about the comments on sleep posts here?

That different posts totally bring out commenters with different situations. Some posts draw tons of "try co-sleeping!" comments. Some draw "read Pantley!" comments. Some draw "read Ferber!" comments. Some draw "do CIO!" comments.

Which just goes to show you (or me, at least), that there is no one right answer for everyone. I've been fumbling toward trying to find some classification system so that we could make some kind of checklist and you could observe different aspects of your kid and then know which "method" (can you really call anything that makes you cry at 3 am a method?). Wouldn't that be awesome? Observe and answer these 50 questions about your kid, and then you'll know exactly how to proceed. (The "tension increaser" vs. "tension decreaser" observation was the first step in my plan for a taxonomy of sleep personalities and issues.)

Unfortunately, all we have to go on now is trying to figure out exactly what the problem is (going to sleep initially? staying asleep? nursing at night? waking early? all of the above?) and then trying different things to fix it until you either find something that works or pack the kid off to boarding school.

Remember that there are tons of things to try before you resort to doing something that isn't in your comfort zone (I'd put co-sleeping and true CIO--letting the child cry alone until s/he falls asleep no matter how long it takes--in those category of things that people might not be comfortable with). The Ferber method (not that he made it up, of course, but no one's great-great-great-great-great-great grandma wrote a book about it) of allowing the baby to cry for short chunks of time and then going in to check and make contact is one of them. In fact, the surefire way to tell if your baby is a tension decreaser who needs to cry some to fall asleep is to walk out and let the baby cry for 5-10 minutes and see what happens. That sounds a lot like Ferber to me. (If the baby starts to lose steam and quiet down, you've got a tension decreaser.)

If you've got the baby in the same room with one of you, try switching who the baby's with. A baby who nurses all night on mom might sleep the whole night through with dad. If the baby's in the same room, try switching the baby to a different room. Or vice versa.

In other words, if the pattern is bad, figure out exactly what part is bad, and try changing the structure of it. Sometimes just small changes will break the pattern.

The other thing that's really important to know is that no matter what you do, it's not going to stick. If you sleep train, you'll have to do it again, after sleep regressions and big teething spurts. If you co-sleep, you'll have to re-evaluate every time your kid goes through some developmental spurt and starts kicking you in the kidneys all night. So don't feel too smug or too desperate, because there's always someone better off and worse off than you are right now.

Anyone want to post something that either helped or hurt your kid's sleep that surprised you?

I'll go first.

Son #1: Went through a phase around the age of 2 in which he'd go to sleep just fine, but would then wake up screaming an hour later. It took a few weeks, but eventually we figured out that he was having heartburn/indigestion from eating tomato products at dinner! We put the kibosh on all tomatoes after 3 pm, and he stopped waking that first night.

Son #2: Wanted to nurse all night long with me. I went to sleep out on the couch and left him sleeping with his dad and he slept the whole night through. Occam's Razor in action: if I was there, he'd nurse; if I was gone, he wouldn't.

Now you go.

Comments

[Victoria]

Great post, Moxie! Sadly, no tips here, but I really look forward to learning from the community here. All of a sudden, my 8.5mo is waking after 8 hours, exactly, and wants to be With me for an hour or two (flutter sucking) before going back to bed for 3 hours.

[hedra]

G:
1) neck not in line - seriously, the x-ray was scary. Probably life-long from the bad position during a very long labor. Chiropractic isn't the answer for every problem, but it was the MAIN answer for him. The cues for discomfort at night were: Active sleeper (ended up in odd positions), sweaty at night, snoring/congestion.
2) Low body temp - room was too warm. He runs 95-96 degrees. I can't sleep when it's too warm, either, and his too warm was just colder than my too-warm.
3) Thirsty, not hungry, on the night nursing. Swapping in a bottle of water (trying it before every night nursing) allowed me to figure out if he was hungry (would refuse the bottle, in which case, back to nursing), or thirsty (in which case he'd suck down the water and roll over). For a while we put bottles of water in his bed like some people do pacifiers, so he could always find one.
4) Silent reflux. The active night sleep and congestion can also be related to reflux. He never refluxed far enough for us to tell that was happening. Didn't dx it until he was five years old, and having serious eating/feeding issues as well.

B: Sleep issues, what sleep issues? Except he had a long bout of 'scary' everythings - dreams, monsters, darkness, noises - was in our bed to almost 6 years old. (Peak of cosleeping worldwide is 2 - 5 years old, BTW.) Not much helped other than cuddles, or staying with him while he fell asleep.

M: Chocolate. Like the tomato products reaction, chocolate would make her reflux. She's also the one with the very fragile attachment process - glad I noticed because she really would cease normal function if I'd pushed on some of the night stuff. Zero to catastrophically traumatized in 3 minutes. Sigh.

R: No significant issues other than twin-jealousy stuff (*I* want to sleep on that side of mommy!). Still cosleeping.

Moxie, thanks also for the reminder that every answer requires revisits and repeats, and may take swapping solutions, too. G coslept, slept separately, then slept with me in his room, then coslept (on my lap in a recliner, before we had the physical stuff worked out), then slept on his own, then coslept again, then back to his room on his own again. B coslept, did hiccups of sleeping separately, coslept a LONG time, then off on his own with very rare 'scary dream' or sick cosleeping. M and R cosleep, but the night management (night weaning, etc.) has varied all over the place, and where they sleep in our (admittedly HUGE) bed has changed and changed and changed again. What works one time won't work another - but that stopped bothering me a long time ago. It is the 'figuring out' that stays the same.

For steps, what I end up doing is making at least a mental note of the times and durations of wakings, and what the waking is 'for' (comfort, nursing, settling help, etc.). I can look at that for patterns (G had a two light one major waking cycle - I got rid of the light ones). Then I can try to pick the least ugly waking to get rid of, etc. It sounds methodical, but it ends up being rather seat of the pants - I can't read his mind, so I'm still guessing even on a pattern.

Something I think I got from an interview with Dr. Ferber is that if a method takes more than three nights to see a change, you're trying to fix the wrong thing or use the wrong method. That was rather reassuring, because I figure we can survive three nights of blowing it totally and recover, but I don't want to give up too soon if it would work on night four. In three days, you'll SEE change if it is changing.

[Sarah]

Hah! This is perfect because I just moved my dd from the "family bed" to her own futon in her own room. She is 9 months and had slept every night since birth in our bed, nursing all night long. I recently kicked out dh to the guest bed because I thought his movements were keeping her up all night, but she still woke up every two hours to nurse without him there. It's my presence that makes her want to nurse every few hours. So I had the great idea that, without me there, she would sleep. Instead we are now co-sleeping on her futon as she nurses all night long. I tried sleeping in my bed and going to her only when she woke up and cried and then returning to my bed after she fell asleep again, but I'm finding I can't stay awake during her nursing sessions.
So I'm highly anticipating everyone's comments on Moxie's post.

[Elizabeth]

Thank you, Hedra, for Dr. Ferber's comment that if a method takes more than three nights to see a change, you're trying to fix the wrong thing or using the wrong method. My husband and I have a tendency to persist with strategies, even when they aren't working, just because they have worked in the past.

We are living through the 9 month sleep regression right now, and this past weekend was awful. S is learning to crawl, is teething, is learning lots of new sounds, and his grandparents visted over the holiday. This was not a recipe for restful sleep. After we tried cosleeping and after my husband replaced the binky and rubbed the baby's belly a billion times Friday night, I finally went in and, horrors, picked him up and rocked him for 45 minutes. He then slept through the rest of the night and did progressively better each night thereafter with a little rocking around midnight. I think he just wants some comfort and reassurance that something is the same, even if all this other stuff is different.

Of course, at Easter lunch my mother commented that babies learn quickly at this age and that I am setting myself up for middle-of-the-night comforting until S leaves for college.

[SUE]

L - now three years old, has mild reflux/heav spitting. co-slept the first 2 months, then transitioned to a crib. Commenced waking up every 1/2 to 1 hour screaming her head off all night (every wake-up would mean an hour of rocking back to sleep). Naps were either nonexistant or in the sling while I went on a "death march" around town to keep her asleep (death marches were labelled by mommy friends who would see me trudging past their houses, oblivious to friendly waves) At 9 months, snapped and bought Weissbluth. The problem was largely solved within a week. We never had to "let her cry" for more than an hour (in the initial sleep training period, at the beginning of the night) and usually only 1-2 minutes (seriously, we'd freak out and run for the door, and the other one would hold up a watch and say "no. it's only been 20 seconds") Turns out, she jut makes lot of noise in her sleep, and we would wake her up when we rushed in to soothe her. Has slept on her own ever since. Now that she's 3.5, has the occasional night of scary monsters and climbs into bed, but that's less than once a week. And never now that we gave in and let her sleep with the lights on. Oh, L was bottle fed, if that matters

W - now 12 months old, has co-slept and nursed throuhg the night from birth. His sleep is far from perfect, but is so much better than his sister's was that I have a hard time motivating to change things. Plus, husband is up for tenure at th end of the school year and doesn't want to make big changes (that would mess with his sleep - currently he's mostly off the hook) until the end of the semester. The big problem right now is that he won't take a nap unless he's actively nursing through.the.wole.nap. I don't mind much in the morning when my daughter is at preschool (free nap for mommy!) but in the afternoon, L ends up parked in front of noggin for an hour or two, and I hate that. I've tried leaving him with my husband for weekend naps (after an inital nursing to sleep period, I sneak out and husband sneaks in to be a warn body) but he wakes up after 10 minutes, freaks out, and is a mess the rest of the day (this worked a month ago, by the way). Suggestions?
Our other sleep problem is that I use a lact-aid ABS (basically a tube connected to a baggy full of formula that you stick on your nipple.) and have to remember to stay a little awake and keep an eye on it. Usually, I fail at this and it leaks all over the place. Then I'm laying in a nasty pool of formula. yuck. and it's ruining my mattress. I've been trying to cut back on the lact-aid at night, but every time I do, we don't get enough wet diapers. sigh. suggestions?

wooo- that was long-winded!

[Moxie]

Elizabeth, if babies learn quickly at this age, then won't S be able to learn to sleep through again once this stage is over? Your mom trapped herself with her own logic.

I definitely think the "three nights" guideline is a good one (although I thought I came up with it myself). By the third night you can tell if something's starting to happen or if you should retrench and try something else.

[Shanna]

No real advice to offer, sadly. Our 14-month-old twins are still waking to nurse 1-3 times per night, but with the added attraction over the past two months of also wanting to either play or be rocked back to sleep. We can expect one or the other (or both) of them to provide us with about two hours of wee-hours entertainment every night now. "Sleeping" in our bed doesn't work except as a way to separate them so the awake child doesn't wake up the still-sleeping one (they start the night in separate cribs in their shared room). We're kicking around the idea of nightweaning and/or using Ferber's method for night wakings, but either solution will involve lots of crying and it breaks my heart just to think of it. Not to mention I hate the thought of making one kid sleep in a Pack N Play in a different room...

[rudyinparis]

Eldest and Younger share a room and this has a number of rather unexpected benefits. Just last night, as a matter of fact, Younger was fussing and not falling asleep as she normally does (too much dang candy). She cries as a tension release, and we will usually let her fuss for about 10 minutes. She usually will drift off at that point, if she didn't conk out immediately. 10 minutes went by. We're on the couch with Eldest, doing the bedtime reading. It's obvious to us that younger is not going to fall asleep. So DH went in to hold her while I finished with Eldest. When Eldest and I went in, we made sure Younger saw us. We all sat together for a moment, tucked Eldest in, put Younger back in her crib, and left the room. Immediately heard chirping and giggling, just as we had wanted. Yes, they were awake later than usual (again, undoubtedly keyed up from the Easter festivities) but did drift off without any intervention from us. I'm very pro-room sharing!

[Pamela]

Here's something surprising that's worked for us:
Our daughter, from the time she was 18 mos old, stopped being able to "put herself back to sleep". She started calling out for us in the middle of the night for the first time since she was 4 mos. old. At my wit's end one night, I told her that if she woke up, she should have a drink of water from her sippy, snuggle her doll, and go back to sleep on her own. Mommy wasn't going to come back in for more snuggles while it was dark. I've told her this every night since (5 mos. now) and she has not called out for us again. It may be a fluke or it may be that she just needed to be reminded of the tools that helped her fall asleep in the first place.

[Katy]

I know I'm going to jinx myself by posting this, but we've had a breakthrough with BJ - for the past 3 nights he's slept through the night, for the first time in his life (he's 21 months). We've always despaired that he's just a "poor sleeper" (as I was) but hopefully, we've actually figured out some of the problems and now they're fixed, he's doing so much better. Here's what we've done:

1. For a long time, when BJ woke one of us went into his room and got into the single bed with him. This way he'd go back to sleep and we could too. However, even though he'd technically "gotten what he wanted" (ie. getting to sleep with mummy or daddy), he would STILL wake frequently, sit up and need a drink of water and even arch his back over our chests. This suggested to me that something was waking him and giving him discomfort.

2. We decided we had to break him of the habit of sleeping in the bed with us as he started waking earlier and earlier in the night and crying for us (he started at 3 or 4am but after a few months was waking as early as 11pm). We decided to try this first so that if that worked, we knew it was just a "behavioral" thing and not something else. So when BJ woke, my husband would go in (not me as he would get fussy to nurse) and would just give him a drink (he definitely gets thirsty in the night) and then pat his back till he went to sleep. This took up to 2 hours the first week which was pretty rough on DH. But BJ soon learned that there was no more getting in the bed with us, just "boring" daddy patting his back, so he started going back to sleep faster and waking less frequently.

3. Then the final piece of the puzzle. BJ was still waking 3-4 times a night, drinking water, then going back to sleep with dad patting his back. Knowing that BJ had suffered terribly from reflux as a baby, I asked the pediatrician if we could try an antacid for a while. We started BJ on Prilosec and also put his mattress on an incline. Immediately he started waking less and then, magically, 3 nights ago he slept from 8pm to 8am - absolutely unprecedented. He did it again the next night. Then last night, we heard him wake twice, fuss for about 10 seconds and then go back to sleep.

It really was a mixed effort of a bit of "training" - ie. changing the standard scenario and letting BJ adjust to that and then adding a problem-fixer -the antacid and mattress inclination. Of course, this may not last long, but for right now, it's pretty awesome! I don't expect it to be a permanent fix - we've found that no pattern lasts long with BJ, but we feel more confident that we can figure out what to do next time around.

[Kelly]

Just how effective an exercise ball (aka baby bouncer) was in getting ours to sleep. We would have died without it!

I was also pretty surprised at #2's dependancy on footie pajamas. Not socks. Footies. He *has* to have his feet enclosed, but not too tight, when he sleeps. (he's 14mo now and this summer we're weaning him off). Room temperature and noise are a big thing for him too (and he's not even the sleep-sensitive one!).

[Nancy]

Not really anything helpful, just a comment on what we've done with our 17 month old. He was born at home in our bed and he's slept there ever since! He sleeps in his room on a futon on the floor for naps, but at night he's with us (or just me, sometimes)and I love it! Every once in a while we put him to bed in his room to see if he'd make it throught the night without "the boobs" nearby, but he doesn't. I don't really know how often he wakes up since I don't really have to wake up to feed him (which is awesome). My partner and I just love that he doesn't have to start balling when he wakes up hungry, and we all like the family snuggles. Oh, and this is my first post, and we love moxie!

[andrea]

My waker-upper is a refluxer. Had him on Zantac, did nothing. Put him on Prilosec, did a little. Combined the two... voila! He still wakes up occassionally but 99% of the time puts himself right back to sleep as hes no longer in pain.

[Katy]

P.S Just to explain, when I said that I don't go in to BJ at night as he gets "fussy to nurse" I didn't mean that he wants to nurse but I don't want him to. He's actually pretty much self-weaned - we're down to just one nursing session before bed - but even then he justs wants to lie in the nursing position and play with my breasts most of the time. When I go into him at night he wants to put his hand down my shirt to play with my breasts which actually seems to keep him awake longer than if I'm not there. It's as if it's a soothing thing but also stimulatory. Anyway, just wanted to explain as when I reread my post it sounded like I was denying BJ the chance to nurse when he was requesting it.

[pnuts mama]

(can you really call anything that makes you cry at 3 am a method?)- OH, I thought you were talking about ME crying at 3am...

elizabeth, i mean no ill will towards your mom, but when i hear comments like that my blood pressure spikes...yes, all habits are formed and firm at 9 months...sigh.

no real advice because what we went through was just follow-your-gut trial and error stuff til something stuck, but my biggest support for the concept that you have to adapt and change as your baby/toddler changes over and over again- we/she sleeps NOTHING like she did 6 months, 9 mos, a year, 1.75 yrs, 1.5 yrs, 2 yrs, etc etc. sometimes the changes are dramatic but more often they are gradual for us- we start changing little things (having one book in bed with her as a special treat is now is now 6 books to read as she settles down for the night/nap) which seem to work/phase out things that don't.

i will say the other night as we went to bed i realized that just as soon as we have the rooms upstairs ready for occupancy and pnut out of our room, we'll have the new babybean to replace her. as sad as i'll be to not have pnut so close to me at night, i will say i sort of miss being alone with my husband in our own room. i guess that's what the empty nest years are for.

[SarcastiCarrie]

I LOVE hedra's mentioning that co-sleeping peaks from ages 2-5. That has been my own observation as well. Now that child can get out of his big boy bed on his own, he will wander into our room at 2,3,4,5,6, etc and crawl in between us to finish off the night. One night, I put him in his bed and went to take a shower, when I went to go to bed at my bedtime, he was on my pillow!

[Alison]

Really interesting post, Moxie. We've gone with a fairly firm CIO (though I prefer the term sleep training) plan over here. We tried cosleeping-- bad for baby and mom; NCSS-- just not effective; and Ferber-- got her more and more riled up. The sleep training hasn't been a magic bullet, and hasn't been effective in 3 days, but it is definitely working. She has gone from waking ~4x a night to waking 0-2, and those are usually less than 5 minutes. Sometimes (2.5 weeks in) she's still up and fussing for 40 minutes, but the volume is turned way, way down. When I went in one night to check on her, she was lying down, head on her lovely, just wriggling and trying to get comfy. Not apparently upset, just kind of loud. Last night was interesting-- she started HOWLING, and DH and I looked at each other and said, "that's not the usual noise!" so we went in, gave her tylenol, and cuddled for a few minutes. Not sure what the cause of the hollering was, but I learned that we now know the difference between a cry of protest and one of real distress.

In addition to much better night sleep, since starting the training her naps have gone from 45 minutes to 1hr20min or even 2 hrs! And her total sleep is 1-3 hours longer per day.

It's not for everyone, but it can be effective...

[JessA]

My 9.5 month-old has never been a good sleeper, but the past week has been *brutal*. For whatever reason, I've been unable to put him to sleep at night for the past 6 nights straight. DH can rock him to sleep in 10 minutes, but if I try, he just lies in my lap and babbles at me, or plays with my sleeve, or just STARES...and if I put him in the crib, he instantly stands up and screams and screams until someone comes in to get him. (CIO was never really an option for us anyway, since we live in an apartment building and don't want our downstairs neighbors coming after us with flaming pitchforks, but since he started pulling up, CIO is REALLY not an option since he can't fall asleep if he's standing up!) I've tried nursing, not nursing, bottle, bottle of water, pacifiers, different arm positions, bouncing instead of rocking...I'm at my wit's end. In a perfect world, I'd just let DH take over nighttime baby duties until this phase passes, but in the meantime the nights he has to work late have been some of the most bleak and hopeless I've ever lived through. Is there anything more shattering to one's self-esteem to have seemingly lost the ability to put your baby to sleep? Am I less comforting now than I was two weeks ago? What's going on???

To add insult to injury, he goes down for naptime with no problems whatsoever. Story, bottle, rocking chair, SLEEP. Like clockwork. Just not at night.

I just keep rereading the other posts here on the 8/9-month sleep regression and telling myself it won't last forever. It won't, right? 6 weeks from now I'll look back on all this and laugh?

[Alison]

One more thing I forgot to post. I have found this website:
http://www.trixietracker.com
INVALUABLE for keeping a sleep log. I love it! My nanny keeps it while I am at work, so I can see what's happening, and it lets me see my little one's progress.

I highly recommend it, no matter what sleep approach you're taking, for keeping track of data.

[JB]

We adopted our daughter when she was almost 9 months, and we didn't want to let her CIO because we were afraid it would disrupt the attachment process. We co-slept until about 16 months, until it just wasn't working for any of us any more, and then she went to her crib and we sat with her, quietly, in the dark, until she'd fall asleep. After a little while we moved the chair closer to the door and finally all the way out. Recently, during the 2 1/2 year sleep regression, we had to do that again (and told her that when she turned three we would stop!) Now she's a champion sleeper.

Our 5-month-old is another story. This is all new to me because we never had our daughter at this age. He mostly wakes every hour, occasionally sleeping longer, occasionally less, and not (that I can tell) predictably. I've tried co-sleeping, crib, white noise, formula (my milk supply has gone down since I went back to work). Haven't found the magic bullet yet. He just learned how to roll over, and that seems to have resolved some of the flailing, and I think he may be starting teething. But oy veh. I'd love to hear what works at this age for others.

[Rivka]

1. At around 1 year old, literally overnight, my daughter switched from needing my presence to go to sleep to needing my *absence* to go to sleep. One night I was trying and trying to soothe her to sleep and nothing was working. I started to get angry and left the room to collect myself. I told myself I'd go back in when she cried. Ten minutes later, I realized that she was asleep.

2. At 2 1/2, we went through a long irritating stretch of "Mommy, I need..." after she was in bed. I'd have to make 6-8 trips back upstairs after lights-out every night. One of the things she insisted she needed was a book to read in her crib. I thought it was just another delaying tactic, and refused. Then one night I gave in. And instantly, the "Mommy Mommy" stopped. She looked at her book until she fell asleep, night after night after night. Now sometimes the first sign that she's awake in the morning is that I can hear pages turning.

[Nutmeg]

I like to say that the definition of insanity is doing something you know isn't working, and just keeping on doing it.

So... when we were dealing with our son who never has slept well, we decided something had to change when he was about 9 months old or so. Our problem has never been going to sleep. In fact he can more or less put himself to sleep with just a little tummy rubbing. I had mostly night weaned him around then, because of the constantly waking up, nursing for 2 minutes and writhing around, but not actually falling back to sleep. We had been co-sleeping prior to that, but it seriously wasn't working because he was remaining awake and wanting to play all night long.

We had dealt with severe reflux for most of the first year and a constant chronic cough (all day and all night from about 3 months on) and repeated ear infections. I think all those things so consistently interrupted his sleep for REAL reasons when he was learning to sleep, he just never learned how. He is a SERIOUS tension increaser. So much so that if we let him cry for more than a few minutes it takes an hour to get him calmed back down to sleep. This hasn't been a case of just a noisy sleeper though, and we don't rush in at the first noise. He basically wakes up, starts screaming his bloody head off and jumping up and down vigorously. If we get in there right away, we just lay him down, pat his stomach and he usually falls asleep quickly. If we wait, it's a mess.

A few things have helped at certain points.
1. No one picks up the little man in the middle of the night. He just gets patted etc. This rule took several weeks to be anything other than a horrible middle of the night screaming fest with me/dad patting his chest and him screaming and writhing. It eventually caused nightwakings to SHORTEN, though not decrease.

2. Something happened and things got worse again and what used to be just helping him resettle for 5 minutes turned into 45 minutes of screaming and patting until he finally falls asleep.

We have had the added difficulty of any type of sleep training we would want to do that might involve crying for any length of time (ferber, weissbluth, what have you) to be made impossible by the fact that we had a kid who was genuinely sick, and who genuinely could barely breathe at BASELINE, let alone when he worked himself up into a fit. It's even harder to deny comfort to your child when you know they are in pain from chronic earaches and can't fall asleep because they can't breathe and are coughing constantly.

Sigh.

So here we are at 15 months, still waking up (and staying up) several times a night. I think the no picking up the baby theme we tried is a good one and would be pretty effective with a kid who wasn't sick all the time.

Things I know. Nothing is going to work forever. Someday I'll get a full night's sleep (just not this week.)

[onehappycow]

We coslept for a glorious 8.5 months. I loved it (not having to be awake to nurse, snuggling, etc) until she started kicking and nursing every 30-60 mins throughout the night. Often she just wanted the boob in her mouth and would stop fussing immediately without nursing. Rolling away or any "gentle" methods did not work. Then I used Ferber at night, one night, when I was at my wit's end. She screamed bloody murder for 1 h 45 m. My mom did most of the checks, but we did still check her. I found I only riled her because she didn't understand why I wasn't going to get her or give her the boob. Every night got less and less with hardly any night wakings (I had no idea my child could even sleep longer than an hour at a stretch honestly). We always had a great routine for bed, and now she still sometimes cries or fusses, other times not, and goes to bed great (knock wood). Seriously life altering for me, I actually get some "me" time. Naps were always a struggle as before she wanted to be held and nursing, then after sleep training, she would fall asleep fine and wake after 30 mins on the dot. Now she is starting to stretch them so we will see (again with the wood). She is almost a year now.

Hedra, thanks for the 3 day comment. Just yesterday I was sitting here for some reason all of a sudden feeling guilty for not doing a more gentle approach with sleep training (I have a very high-needs spirited girl). Thinking how cruel and confusing it must have been for her when I just left her in her crib. Granted she was checked on, but still. I was getting all emotional and feeling really bad (hello, she is still attached and doing great now almost 4 mos later, so wtf?). I was one to never want to hear her cry. Anyways, some weird hormonal blip or unresolved issues on my part, but your comment helped alleviate that as we did see remarkable change within that time frame. Thanks so much for that, you have no idea how it helped me!

[Today Wendy]

My daughter is now 16 months old, and just a few weeks ago she finally started going to sleep on her own with the "leave for 1 minute, then 2 minutes, then 3 minutes..." (we've never gotten past 5 minutes...I'm not sure I could take that). We tried this periodically when she was younger, but leaving her alone to cry for even 2 minutes would just result in frantic screaming baby who was no longer functioning and wouldn't sleep for at least 2 hours. Then suddenly she was old enough to understand that "Mama will always come back" aspect of it rather than the "I'm all alone".

I noticed the same thing Rivka mentioned, around 1 year she went from needing my presence in order to sleep, to needing my absence. That was a bit scary and hard to cope with. Like someone else said, that feeling of not being able to get your baby to sleep is just one of the worst feelings ever.

One of the weirdest things I've had to do is to completely ignore all suggestions of a bedtime routine. For us it backfires. E was just so upset at the thought of bedtime, that bathtime turned into a giant disaster. So I had to do stealth bedtime. Every night is slightly different...same components: bath, pyjamas, signing time video, brushing teeth, reading a book...but never in quite the same order. It has worked surprisingly well, she seems to get the idea that it is getting close to bedtime so she is generally ready to sleep once we get there, but she knows that it isn't inevitable and if she needs a little more play time she'll get it. I'm sure this will start to backfire at some point...but right now it works. And I guess that was the hardest thing for me to accept. The fact that what works now isn't going to work next week, or next month or next year. It is so hard to feel like you have something totally figured out and working great and then it all just falls apart on you and you have to scramble around until you hit on the next thing that works.

[hedra]

@Rivka, we had that at one point, too - the 'must go away to sleep' thing (only with G, but hey, one!) - around 4 years old, if I stayed with him, he'd stay up and chatter forever. So I did basically the Ferber approach without crying - just said I'd stop back in every 10 minutes to check on him. Usually by the second he was out.

Oh, I also started timing how long it took each child to fall asleep when they were 'trying to' but weren't totally wiped out. It differs. G takes 12 minutes like clockwork, B varies nearly every day but usually 10-15 minutes, M takes maybe 5-10 if she's not refluxy, and R takes about 15-20.

@Moxie, I'm pretty sure you and Dr. Ferber both observed the same thing - because I remember that from when the twins were just a few months old, and I wasn't over here then. (I remember vividly because one twin mom had been trying to sleep train her 8 week old preemies, and said that it had just caused crying for extended times every night for the last 21 days straight, and they were now afraid to stop on the grounds that with this much pain invested, they didn't want to stop too soon and not get the results. I wasn't sure who I felt worse for, the babies, or the parents so desperate to do things 'right' that they were putting everyone in the family through hell for four weeks.)

And for those who took more than the 3 day cycle, the reference really wasn't that you had RESULTS at day 3, but that you saw change. It might take a week or more to complete, but there was change in the appropriate direction by day 3, and usually there was substantial improvement by day 6. I think most parents can't even hold out to a fourth day on their own if the third day doesn't give them any hope, though obviously some can.

[Julie]

I have to say first of all...we've been very lucky with Alex's sleep, so I don't have *much* to offer re: concrete suggestions. The biggest window of trouble happened between about 5 months and 10 months where he was pulling that catnap shit and just so so so tired all the time and having trouble sleeping at night because he was exhausted. So if catnapping and frequent wake ups during the night is your problem (as opposed to difficulty getting to sleep initially) read on. If getting to sleep is your issue, skip my post. I have nothing but hugs for you and I have no idea why Alex falls asleep without crying most nights on his own.

For us, what worked was Weissbluth's book - not the CIO part of it (because I already knew he was a tension decreaser....except when he was a tension increaser and for some reason only I can hear the difference - my husband things I'm full of shit).....but the big lightbulb moment for us was realizing this kid needed a more firm schedule of sleeping. That meant doing the following:
-A set wakeup time of 6:30 AM.
-A set morning nap of 8:30
-A set afternoon nap of 1:30 which should not last longer than 2 hours
-A set bedtime of 6:30 PM.
(now that he's 2, I don't have a set wakeup time....he usually wakes between 6:30-7 on his own and his single nap is around 1:00 and should not last longer than 2 hours. Bedtime is 7:30)

Once we did this, within a week he was sleeping 12 hours without waking, and then the next week his naps elongated from 30-45 minutes to 2+ hours.

Weissbluth also says that the best place to sleep was in his bed, not out and on the go (I know I sleep better in my bed than I do in the car or in a hotel). While I agree with that for the most part and tried to be consistent with that, I was not rigid about it. If I needed to be out, we would make do and I would just bump up bedtime to some ridiculous hour like 5:30 to compensate if the nap was crap. I chose not to make myself crazy about this. But deep down I knew that was not our issue so the location of sleep was not as important as the timing of sleep.

The set wakeup time really sucked. Who wants to wake up at 6:30 on the weekends? But if it meant I got some good rest time during naps that I could count on....it was worth it.

As for all those nosy people who decide to totally f*ck with your head threatening *bad habits* if you do/don't do what they think you should do......forget about it. With kids it takes doing the same thing multiple times (anywhere from 3-5) in a row before even a semblance of a habit is formed......and really, things change so much *nothing* can be considered a habit until they pick up that first cigarette. THEN you should worry. The rest of it? Consider it a phase, and those are finite. They change constantly. So stop worrying and tell your mother, your MIL, or the old lady next door to f*ck off.

[Elizabeth]

What we found is that even if you don't do anything, it eventually gets better. We are cosleepers and I am adamantly against CIO for my baby. My husband was starting to talk about it, but then I realized that he was only doing that because I was complaining about my lack of sleep, and he wanted to help me. If I didn't want his solution, I needed to be quiet. That worked. I complained to my girlfriends instead. And then suddenly, at about 13 months old, my baby finally was convinced to really eat solids. Now she eats a big dinner every night and only wakes up once to nurse. So she wasn't just waking up every two hours because she wanted some attention, or because we were cosleeping and I was right there (we're still cosleeping), but because she was honestly hungry. There are still rough nights with teething or when she doesn't want to eat a real dinner, but things are much improved.

[Alicia]

A. definately is a tension releaser so Ferber has worked for us at night. Naps are a completely different story though. SHe can scream for HOURS during the day without going down.

My biggest problem has been that she wakes up to nurse so often. She is up every 2-3 hours to nurse. At 6 mos, everyone is telling me that she should be able to go all night, but I have not seen any signs of this. The longest she has ever gone between nursings is 4 hours and then the nursings after that have been very close together. So I am torn about trying to night wean because I am not convinced that she can make it that long without nursing. Plus, do I really want to spend so long getting her settled only to wake up again in a few hours when nursing gets her down and sleeping in less than 10 mins? (As a single mom, this sounds like torture that has at least a week long ramification of mommy being tired.)

[alice]

we have a 6 month old, and for the past 2 months he's been sleeping in the ambybaby (a sleep hammock). i don't think it really reduces his wakings (he wakes all the time), but they're definitely shorter (we just bounce him in the hammock, and sometimes sing, & he usually goes right back to sleep). the hammock makes it easier to comfort without picking him up. he also seems comfy in it, & it elevates his head slightly, which i like. i also do the "dreamfeed" thing before going to sleep, & he goes 5-7 hours without a feed. oh, & it's portable, so we bring it into a darker room during the day for his naps.

[Allison]

My daughter couldn't sleep with footie pajamas on, after about 6 months old. She also doesn't like to have a blanket on her feet.

She was having trouble napping at daycare until it suddenly occurred to my mom to tell them to try taking her socks off. Then, no problem.

Not that getting her to sleep is easy, even now at almost 3 - but we're working on it. Weaning her off nursing recently was easier than I thought it would be - she was still nursing at night and cosleeping. It required only reasoning and rewards - and a special sippy cup. She asks to nurse about once every two days now and is not in the least upset when I remind her that we don't nurse anymore.

But getting her to sleep without a parent lying down with her, or in her own toddler bed in our room, is trickier. I wonder if the book trick would work with her - she might look through one till she fell asleep! I might try it.

[stacy]

The biggest surprise for me was how well the "Sleep Lady Shuffle" worked for my son. It's in the book "Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West - I never hear other parents talk about that book, but it was a lifesaver for us.

We tried *everything* beforehand. Weissbluth-style CIO (let the kid cry alone for as long as it takes) got me so upset I actually broke a chair into pieces in the middle of the night. And the kid never went back to sleep, anyway, he just kept crying. Ferber helped a lot with night weaning, and with getting the child to sleep at the start of the night. His book was also fabulous for general sleep information...but the go-in-every-5-minutes routine did not work for my son. I think he quickly learned that if he cried long enough, we'd come back, and he never went back to sleep. NCSS helped me develop a good bedtime routine, but otherwise it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

We've co-slept as a family, co-slept with just mommy, co-slept with just daddy. We've slept on the floor with the baby in the crib. We've used an Arm's Reach, we've had the crib in a separate room and the crib free-standing in our room, and we've turned the crib into a sidecar. We've done white noise, humidifiers, every possible room temperature, bedtime, and nap schedule.

But nothing worked for more than a few nights - even once we had him night-weaned thanks to Moxie and Ferber, he was still waking every couple of hours - until the Sleep Lady Shuffle. It's simple...you let the kid cry, but you stay in the room with him. You start out right next to the crib but slowly move across the room over several nights. The child is supposed to get the idea that yes, you are there for him, but you're not going to let him out of bed. It worked like magic for my son, as there was no waiting for us to walk in the door as there was with Ferber. And it was so much easier for me to handle than traditional CIO. I didn't shed a single tear during the shuffle, because I didn't feel like I was abandoning him.

Anyway. My only beef with Moxie's sleep advice is that I've found my son does NOT fit into either the "tension increaser" or the "tension decreaser" categories. He still does sometimes need to fuss for a minute or two before bedtime or naps, but just letting him cry made him cry more, rather than "wind down." I don't know. He's somewhere in between the two.

[stacy]

Also, I have a good friend whose son is the same age as mine. (They're both 15 months).

My friend's son has been an excellent sleeper from Day One. Some parents really are so blessed. Anyway, last week my friend made a post in her blog - a cute little thing about what she'd learned as a parent - and one of the items was, "babies can be trained to sleep, and the sooner you start, the better!"

This woman is not a bad person. But...she just doesn't know what it's like to have a child who doesn't seem to respond to your efforts to "sleep train." Sleep is the one topic I'm reluctant to discuss with other moms, unless I know they've had problems, too. Because the people who had it easy tend to be so smug about it...

[hedra]

Stacy, G was also both. For the times when he was sleeping in his room and I wasn't in there with him, there was a distinct pattern - if he was going 'down' he'd be down within 6 minutes. If he was going 'up' I'd usually know within 2 minutes, but at the 6 minute point it was really obvious. I could hear the difference between 'awake and mad that I'm not asleep but going back on my own' and 'awake because I'm mad about something else and I'm not sleeping until the other problem is solved' pretty fast.

Dreams seemed to play a big role in that, too, for all my kids. If the arousal was after a good dream, it was like they were fighting the waking, not the sleeping. B will still wake up really pissed off because he was leaving a good dream, and he'll tend to crash fast back into sleep after those. If it was a bad dream, they didn't want to go back down until they felt better inside, whatever that took (generally more time).

Oh, yeah, another thing that surprised me:

M: How easily she goes down when she's got a nice idea for a good thing to dream about. (And likewise, how bad I am at remembering to prompt her for that... sigh.)

[Nutmeg]

@Hedra... yeah with the dreams.

I am convinced that in addition to all the physical ailments the poor bub suffered he also had/has night terrors. Occassionally (and less often now than previously) he would "wake up" screaming. He would scream inconsolably, despite being held, patted, walked. And it would last for a really long time until we turn the lights on. Then he'd rub his little eyes, look around and immediately stop screaming. Five minutes actually awake and he'd be able to go back down to sleep.

It is very hard to distinguish this from other things, and not wanting to encourage his tendency to want to have play time in his room at 4 am keeps us from turning the lights on and talking to him (beyond singing) unless it's become an obvious hysterical situation.

Night time is hard. The best advice I ever read on nighttime parenting is maybe from the West book mentioned above (but maybe not). 3 am is not the time to come up with or alter your family's night time plan. The next morning or over dinner when you have some breathing room is the time to analyze and change the plan. Add that to the three day rule and I think you've got a ground work for HOW To change things, if not WHAT to change.

[attiton]

What I hope I remember for any and all subsequent children that I might have is the following:

This too shall pass.

As long as I am doing something that makes me comfortable (i.e., not maintaining a pattern that I don't like and that Rabbit doesn't like), the children come out the other side eventually. Sure, you may have to change tactics every few days...but as Moxie has mentioned before sometimes the phase is just over after six and nothing you did was the cause of it. I just need to make sure that I am not getting *more* upset and neither is Rabbit.

[MO]

Hi... we did a version of the CIO with help from a night doula for sleep training for our twin boys. Best thing we ever did - worked in modified forms for the two boys based on their personalities. One was a "star" (I think without sleep training he would have learned to sleep through the night on his own naturally pretty quickly) - he valued sleep over everything, including eating. The other was definitely not a star and we had modified results - not necessarily sleeping through the night but better sleep for him and for us. It is interesting looking back as the "star" is still our better sleeper by a long shot and always needs his beauty rest or he's a complete grump. The other still has sleep issues but can go on less sleep and still be relatively pleasant.

We were pretty consistent with the CIO method (I guess a modified version as we would go in if it lasted more than 15 minutes, which was very rare) and both boys learned to go to sleep on their own. We hit 2 - 2 1/2 and we hit a major bump - both need a lot more "help" to go to sleep. The good sleeper gets vamped up (not crying but more excessive loud talking and goofing around and can't seem to settle himself down so well anymore); the less good sleeper lays there and calls us in at least 4-5 times. We can't seem to stomach the CIO at this age so we just keep going in the 4 or 5 times.

One thing that's been having pretty good results for getting them a little calmer is I've started doing a "rendition" of meditation with them (we just close our eyes and take deep breaths and slightly wiggle different parts of our bodies while taking deap breaths). They really like it and it does sort of take some of the edge off and prepare them mentally that it is time to wind down.

Shanna - do your twins actually wake each other up or are you just worried they will. It is still amazing to me how much my boys can sleep through - at least in terms of each other. One could be crying and carrying on and the other would sleep through it completely - what would wind up waking the other is when we came in. Maybe try letting one cry while the other is sleeping and see if the other is affected at all. You may not have to deal with the whole pack n play thing...

Sorry for the winded reply.

[Cathy]

With my 5 year old, she was in panties and a toddler bed the same weekend (at age 2 + 9months) and ever since, she has needed someone to be next to her while she falls asleep (otherwise she was making a break for it). There are nights when she's out in about 2 minutes and there are nights (less often) when she's out in 2 hours. I think her average is about 20 minutes. Only this weekend did she declare that she didn't need company anymore, she could go to sleep by herself and just have us check on her. Didn't quite work out that way, but we're getting there. Also I've begun knitting while keeping her company and she said that the needles clicking was keeping her awake.

One thing she has started doing recently was pointing and saying "abracadabra. Tonight I'm going to dream about..." and naming something nice to dream about (not too exciting, like Santa Claus. Usually it's her baby sister.)

The other thing is that one night she was fighting sleep for a long time and complained that her eyes hurt. I had her "rest her eyes" by closing them and she was asleep in 5 minutes. So, now as she gets settled she says, "mama, I'm going to rest my eyes" and rolls over and usually goes to sleep.

[Laura]

One thing that helps me is learning what my child is developmentally capable of doing at a certain age. If I know that one year olds are developmentally capable of going twelve hours without food, that helps me not give in when they want it. I know they want it, but I know they don't need it, so I don't feel so bad not giving them a bottle at night. And once they stop expecting food when they wake up, it's much easier for them to go back to sleep.

Oh, and for newborns, NOTHING beats swaddling! I don't believe in co-sleeping, so my kids go to their own bed in their own room from the day they are born, all swaddled and comfy. It works. Pacifiers work for me too, since it gives babies the chance to self-soothe. IF the only way a baby has of soothing themselves is you, then that's what they will need every time they wake up. Find something that soothes them, or train something like a blankie to be soothing by always having it near when the two of you are together, and teach the child to soothe with the object instead of you. You are giving them skills and you sleep!

[Laura]

One thing that helps me is learning what my child is developmentally capable of doing at a certain age. If I know that one year olds are developmentally capable of going twelve hours without food, that helps me not give in when they want it. I know they want it, but I know they don't need it, so I don't feel so bad not giving them a bottle at night. And once they stop expecting food when they wake up, it's much easier for them to go back to sleep.

Oh, and for newborns, NOTHING beats swaddling! I don't believe in co-sleeping, so my kids go to their own bed in their own room from the day they are born, all swaddled and comfy. It works. Pacifiers work for me too, since it gives babies the chance to self-soothe. IF the only way a baby has of soothing themselves is you, then that's what they will need every time they wake up. Find something that soothes them, or train something like a blankie to be soothing by always having it near when the two of you are together, and teach the child to soothe with the object instead of you. You are giving them skills and you sleep!

[therese]

Hedra-
Was it easy to set those nap times? I'd like to try this because Marie's nap times and lengths are so irregular (sometimes 2 hours, the next day 25 minutes) but I'm not sure how to do it. Did you just put him down a 1/2 hour before the time you wanted his nap to start? I'm guessing their clock will eventually get set to those times but it seems like an impossible task! Marie sleeps well at night (she's 10 months old) with one wake up for nursing between 2-5am. Appreciate any help offered!

[meggiemoo]

@stacy...ah, yes, I know exactly what you mean. My friend has 2 boys who were good sleepers from day 1. When my DS's nightwaking was at its worst (every 45 minutes), I didn't confide to anyone other than my sister and my DH. I was desperate for sleep, but I felt we were doing all we could, and didn't feel like defending our choices (nursing, no CIO, etc.).

What worked for my non-sleeper (mostly sleeps through the night now, at 2 years old):

- white noise
- blackout shades
- now that he's older, talking about the good things that will happen the next day, and "implanting" some thoughts for good dreams
- if he starts fussing as I'm leaving the room, telling him I'll check on him in a few minutes. If he cries during that time, I check back in on him and repeat that it's time for bed, and I'll check on him again soon. If he doesn't cry during that time, I check back at a later time. By then, he's usually asleep.

The new twist now is that if DH puts him to sleep, it takes at least twice as long as if I put him to sleep. DH is very softhearted, and DS knows this. He tries things with my DH that he won't try with me, like one more story, more milk, etc. So I'm always torn between putting him to bed myself, which is more efficient, and allowing the two of them to have their own routine.

[&BabyMakes75]

@meggiemoo -
funny you posted that for *I* am the opposite. I wonder how my husband does the bedtime routine in 10 mins for our toddler yet it can take me up to 40. I blame it on working-outside-the-home mother guilt, not being a softie, (although that certainly is part of it!) Honestly, I like the relaxed time together. But sometimes I wish I could flip the switch sooner. Oh well.

[Cloud]

Great post! I am going to have to come back and scour the comments for new ideas. I have a so-so sleeper (I know of babies that sleep worse, but I can count on one hand the number of times my 11.5 month old has slept for more than 6 hours in a row).

One really surprising thing that has helped us: whenever I think Pumpkin needs to learn to sleep through to a new time (like when she transitioned from waking up between 5 and 5:30 to waking up between 6 and 6:30), things went better if someone held her while she slept for the new chunk of time. We do this for a couple of weeks, and then she can do it herself in her crib. If we just put her back in her crib without the "training" period first, she wakes up every 30 minutes.

We're up 2-3 times/night now. She nurses at the last time (which is 4 a.m., and she's very regular about that) and then sleeps until between 6 and 6:30. We've tried just about everything we can think of to get rid of the wakings, with no luck. Like I said, I'll be back later to look for new ideas...

[hedra]

@Therese, I think you mean Julie (name is at bottom of post). I am totally sucky with naps. So I'll pass that one to Julie:

@Julie, see Therese's question, above.

[wealhtheow]

I was totally and utterly letting him cry at all at night until the one night when nothing--NOTHING--we did got him to go to sleep. At 2:30 am, out of desperation, we let him cry. He was asleep within 16 minutes and slept through the night. Now he goes down semi-awake and cries for maybe 10 minutes at the most--although very often he goes down with just a whimper. He sleeps 7-9 hours straight, We started this when he was 3 months old--previously I was swaying him for hours, and never knew when I'd get to go to sleep. Now we all go to bed together at 10 pm--and when the whole family gets the sleep we need, our lives are so much better.

[Sherry]

I was completely set against letting the girl cry. At 8.5 months, I would spend up to an hour getting her to the point that I could put her down half-asleep with no crying. My mom came to stay with me, took a look at my bleary eyes, and declared herself in charge of bedtime for the next two days. The girl cried (fussed) for 30 minutes that night while Mom sat near her bed. I thought I might die. The next night, it was 12 minutes. Then four. For the next couple of weeks, it varied, but was never more than 12 minutes of fussing. Now, at 11 months, typically she cries as if her heart will break when I put her down, but when I say "night night" and quickly leave the room, she stops crying. Some nights she fusses for a few minutes after I leave, and some terrific nights she lies down with no crying.

Simultaneously with this "sleep training," the girl started sleeping through the night. I think she had to learn to put herself to sleep, which helped her learn to put herself back to sleep after waking up in the night.

I don't have a hard and fast rule. I can tell if she's more upset than usual when I put her down and leave, and I will go back in to her right away. But for the most part, I can now put her to bed after nursing her and walk away. If she wakes up at night and cries for more than a minute or two, I will go in to her and nurse her. It doesn't happen often though. Incredible. Life-changing. Wonderful.

[Cynthia]

What surprised me was how differently my guy reacted to sleep training at different ages. He was a all-night nurser, waking 5 - 6x even when we co-slept, and I couldn't get him back without nursing. We tried Ferber at 6 months and it was a disaster - he puked within 5 minutes, and screamed his head off, and we gave up in a couple of days. Two more months of no sleep went by, and we finally got brave enough to try again...we were all SO miserable, and if anything he was waking even more often at that point. He responded very differently at 8.5 months...cried hard for about 20 minutes the first night, then tapered to whimpering, and by the fifth night was going down with only a minute or so of crying and sleeping most of the way through. I couldn't believe this was the same kid that CIO didn't "work" for a few months before!

Ironically, now, just a month later, he *can't* fall asleep nursing or while sleeping with us...which is a bummer at 5am (wish I could just bring him to bed and get a delicious extra hour, but alas. At least I'm getting a solid 6 - 7 hours per night, so I'm not complaining!).

[onehappycow]

Sherry - same for us now. She usually cries heartbreakingly until I either get out the door or down the stairs and then she is asleep. Funny because I always thought she was a tension increaser. I think maybe she was/is both depending on circumstances.

Stacy - I wish I could have done the by the bed thing, but my very presence p*ssed her off and she was so mad I didn't get her and hold her like always or feed her. Oh well. It was hard, but at least we still checked on her every 1,3,5,10,15 mins. And then 5,10,15, etc. So she still knew.

Someone (can't remember who) described the stealth bedtime. We went through a bathtime disaster too (even after having a strong routine previous to sleep training) about a couple weeks in. She caught on. It worked for sleep, but she used to love her bath and I hated seeing her scream like we put her in acid. It was horrible. I noticed when we traveled she didn't cry when we did her bath in the sink. Not an option in this house. So, we got a tote bin and use that on the kitchen table and now we are back to loving bath time and she is our little showgirl now. Who knows why? Do what works, I tell you!

[Shanna]

@MO - sometimes yes, sometimes no? If the sleeping baby is in a lighter phase of sleep, or has just recently resettled, the other one crying can wake hir up and get them both crying. (We know it's the crying, not my presence or my husband's, because this happens when we're slow to respond overnight, and by the time one of us gets to the room they are both up and crying.) Of course, at other times we've had one sleep through half an hour or more of the other fighting sleep, loudly, in their room.

[Maura]

@Stacy re: Sleep Lady Shuffle - I read that one too and felt like it was basically a modified Ferber, whose original book I had read. My son was actually a pretty good sleeper, in retrospect, though it sure didn't feel like it at the time. I found the most helpful parts of the Sleep Lady Shuffle books didn't actually have to do with ways to get him to go to sleep, but ways to set up the daily sleep schedule. Wake up times, play times, etc. It was also the book that explained a good way to avoid always having to nurse him down for naps. Since our schedule was so outlined, we could nurse, change a diaper, read a book, then put him down for a nap. We always nursed as soon as he got up from sleep instead of directly before. Probably if we had coslept I wouldn't have felt as against nursing him down to sleep, but I really didn't want to set us up for that. It was also really good for breaking up the first 2 years into developmental chunks so that you could know (sort of) what to expect sleep-wise.

The best thing we did when we went through rough sleep patches was come up with a game plan well in advance of the anticipated problem. My husband and I hammered out what to do beforehand so that all we had to do in the middle of the long, long, long night was implement it. Saved us many arguments and much heartache. We didn't have to debate about who was doing what - it was all in the plan.

And PS
I think that in the meager little packet of information that they send you home from the hospital with there should be a red page with big, bold lettering saying,
"DO NOT keep this baby awake for more than 2 HOURS for at least a month." As a first time mother I remember trying get him to wait until 10am-ish for his first nap when he'd woken up for the day at 6. Stupid, I know. But I didn't know then.