what is my mistake? please help!

[Maru]

Hi Anna,
Our little daughter is 6,5 month, we started the Cure for 8 days ago. Here is the schedule we set up for her:
Night: 20.30 – 08.00 (11,5h)
Breakfast: 08.00
Nap1 outside: 09.30 – 11.00 (1,5h)
Lunch: 11.30
Nap2 outside: 13.00– 14.30 (1,5h)
Dinner: 15.00
Nap3 outside: 17.00 – 17.45 (45min)
Supper: 18.00
Bath, last meal, fun: 19.30 – 20.30
Good night: 20.30

I started the Course right after I read the book (several times, but obviously not enough)), because I understood that that was my only choice – I couldn’t keep doing all the wrong things…
Because of the fact I was in such a hurry to begin, I missed the point of staying up the first two nights, especially the first one. I did not come into her room after every sound she made, but on the contrary used the second/third night strategy – the jingle as much as possible, if the crying gets worth – only then go into her room. Strangely enough – but it worked that way, at least in the beginning.
Before I started my angel was awake… well not awake but complaining (and crying and waking up afterwards if not getting breast) more or less every second hour more or less each night. I would never even think that it can be different if the last couple of weeks I suddenly noticed that she doesn’t eat so much at night, sometimes no eating at all, just using me as a huge pacifier…. THAT I didn’t like!!))
After the Cure started we have the following:
The schedule during the day is being followed. (we had it more or less before the Cure too, except for the feeding, and I’m still not sure it is correct…. She seems hungry before she gets the opportunity to eat, and that feels wrong!! What do you think?)
The day naps are ok – I walk with her and the dog, and then she just keeps sleeping until I wake her up. Sometimes she is awake when I come to pick her up, smiling and happy.
She sleeps more or less fine through the night (some complaining here and there but calms down quickly to the jingle, sometimes even without). BUT – this night is over for her by about 06.00. THAN the nightmare begins! The complains quietly first, but it gets more and more intense, and she doesn’t seem to react to the jingle. It seems to me that she doesn’t even hear it. (I tried louder and angrier – she gets very upset, so that is obviously wrong tactic… or?..) She stops for a while, and starts over, and over… I even go in the room and hold her down (she is already down – what’s the point?...)… that has moreor less no effect. I even pat (even though I know I shouldn’t… but this is the only way to get her quiet). When she is quiet or just “singing” I stop, hold her down and go out with the jingle. And she starts over again!! Crying upset, getting more and more frustrated and not listening to the jingle at all. I tried to go downstairs and leave her alone – but the baby is NOT supposed to cry??? Isn’t it the whole point??? Nothing helps, today she cried until 7.30,(almost nonstop –I was running back and forth(the oldest kid needed to be sent to school too!!!) then I waited until she got quiet for a second, went in and “made a good morning” by turning the lights clapping my hands and “being happy to see the girl that slept that well” ((((
I feel stuck in the situation, this happens not every night, but pretty often!! Please help me Anna, what do I do wrong?
You are free to ask all the questions you need, please don’t hesitate.
Looking forward to your answer,
Olga

P.S. Pappa gets out of the house before the morning starts for the girls, so he can’t help me there…((

[Maru]

Feel like i spoiled my chance... Is it possible to correct? I would do anything to get good night sleep for my little girl! (and for us too)

Forgot to tell about the go-to-bed rutines: the little one takes a bath, then she gets the final portion of milk (normally she is not so hungry, but takes the breast anyway, and enjoys)))
Then the laughing procedure follows, we try as hard as we can to make her laugh, but we do not always sucseed... sometimes she just wouldn't laugh... Smiling the the best we get from her sometimes.
so I put her to bed, turn off the light - and she starts complaining. so I pat her a little, do the pressure and go out with the jingle. She would normally react. So I wait and listen, sometimes answer with a jingle, sometimes, if she starts crying louder, i get in and re-do the whole thing again. Tap, press, out. She reacts again, but this time she would normally calm down pretty quickly and fall asleep. It takes from 10 to 20 min. .... is it too long??
i started last saturday night....

[annawahlgren]

Dear Maru,

Please do not fall into the trap of impatience You are doing fine. Just keep up the good work, looking forward instead of losing yourself in details. The cure is a process. It is not fully implemented yet. Keep going! Read the book again and again - during your work you will understand more and more as you re-read it.

Dont forget the section Questions and Answers.

As for the traffic in the morning, hold your horses - if you go in repeatedly (or at all!) you are surveying one of two messages, or both:

Morning has come.
The wolf has come, so the child must be rescued.

Neither is true, is it? (And yes, it is all in the book.)

You can do this, and you are doing it!

O:)

[Maru]

thank you for the support Anna!

regarding the traffic: i agree, and that's exactly why i feel stuck!!! what do i do with the "the baby is not supposed to scream" part??

and what do you think about the schedule?

Olga

[Maru]

Thank you, TorsMamma, i'm looking forward to hearing from you:)

While wating, i would like to share smth positive: my little girl fell asleep completely on her own for the first time today!
No buffing, just put her down, little pressure, and right out with the jingle.... she made just a couple of small sounds, and fell asleep!!

[TorsMamma]

Hi Maru,

I paste the aswer in this thread that I just gave another mother. If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask them.

Hi Visser,

Having problems with early mornings, are you not the first to have. The child is now sleeping more than ever and thinks that when they wake up at 5 am they are done sleeping. But we as parents know this is not true.

We have different strategies with early mornings but one thing to have in mind is that by running in and out the room using the tools you’ve now been given sends the signal “morning is here” . So in early morning cases “less is more”.

You give the jingle only once (always x4) as an information that the morning is not here yet. Then you do something difficult, YOU LISTEN. How is the sound? Most children get angry, very angry that morning is not here yet. Other get a bit sad but stops shortly. The angry kind can’t be used the tools on as you have experienced. They are too angry and angry you get to be, we can’t forbid our children to have a reaction. So let them react out and calm down or they get sad and you can once again use the jingle to calm down or do the “sun feather”.
Most children if this don’t solve it in a night or two we say “play Mozart”. You say the jingle once (x4) and then you play Mozart LOUD. They need to listen to something else than their own despair. Some have a tendency to get “stuck” as they just SCREAM (not crying this is different and needs to be calmed using the tools you have) then we break this behavior with Mozart. Classical music without singing. You can even use a cheerful Strauss.

Remember to do the laughing before going to bed and then remember to do a happy morning. No feeling sorry for the child, they will pick up on this and start feeling sorry for themselves. Also I would like for you to repeat the chapter “An attitude of Supreme Confidence” starts on page 166. Also repeat the chapter 3. Enjoyment page 83.

[Maru]

Thank you TorsMamma,

and yes, i have more questions

1. What do you think about the schedule?
2. the morning thing: my kid doesn't sound angry at all, she wakes up unhappy, complaining... she says smth like "ai-ai-ai-ai-ai..."... in the beginning, and then this complaining becomes crying after a while, which sounds frustrated.
i've heard "angry" from her, that she gets in the evenings sometimes, when she knows she needs to sleep but not able to fall asleep on her own. That's different, and that goes on for just a short period. Mornings sound to me more like sad, getting from "sad" to "unhappy", and she hangs up in it, so she doesn't hear me talking to her...

playing loud music is not an option in our house, we have others sleeping at night...((

3. Today she woke up at the exactly "wake up time", a second before i was going to get in and wake her up, and she woke up crying!! what do i do in this case?...

looking forward to your answers
Olga

[Maru]

and more questions:

4. When she wakes up in the mornings, she is VERY hungry, and very impatient to get breast, can it couse that she is so cranky when she wakes up?.. Ideas?

5. Just to make sure about the day naps: is the actual amount of time she sleeps still more important then the schedule?.. If she - just an example - falls asleep 10 min after schedule, do i still wake her up 10 min later too? Or was it like that just in the beginning, and now i need to stick to the schedule?

6. We are going to travell by plane in the end of the month... What do we do with the schedule...?

thanks again

p.s. the more i read, the more quiestions i get... is it normal?

[Maru]

7. if after the day naps she wakes up before time... like 10-15 min before? happy and smiling? is that ok to pick her up ?

8. what if she doesn't fall asleep at all? how long do i try then? )) does it mean we should cut some sleeping time down?

[TorsMamma]

I put my answers in red below.

Thank you TorsMamma,

and yes, i have more questions

1. What do you think about the schedule?

I think it looks great, just make sure it works for you.

2. the morning thing: my kid doesn't sound angry at all, she wakes up unhappy, complaining... she says smth like "ai-ai-ai-ai-ai..."... in the beginning, and then this complaining becomes crying after a while, which sounds frustrated.
i've heard "angry" from her, that she gets in the evenings sometimes, when she knows she needs to sleep but not able to fall asleep on her own. That's different, and that goes on for just a short period. Mornings sound to me more like sad, getting from "sad" to "unhappy", and she hangs up in it, so she doesn't hear me talking to her...

playing loud music is not an option in our house, we have others sleeping at night...((

I think in this case perhaps you have a flock of wolves running around your legs and you need to chase them away. Here it is the "attiude" that is making the diffrerence.
You are afraid of wakeing up the house and then you won't be able to calm any child. So you need to find some time where you really can work with this without any worries of all sort.

3. Today she woke up at the exactly "wake up time", a second before i was going to get in and wake her up, and she woke up crying!! what do i do in this case?...

You calm her down in the bed and pick her up happy.

looking forward to your answers
Olga

[TorsMamma]

and more questions:

4. When she wakes up in the mornings, she is VERY hungry, and very impatient to get breast, can it couse that she is so cranky when she wakes up?.. Ideas?

More food during the day. How many real meals do you give? My son got oatmeal for breakfast and real food for lunch and dinner and then oatmeal again before bedtime. Let me tell you, there is no bottom to what a 6 month old can eat. So LOAD it in.


5. Just to make sure about the day naps: is the actual amount of time she sleeps still more important then the schedule?.. If she - just an example - falls asleep 10 min after schedule, do i still wake her up 10 min later too? Or was it like that just in the beginning, and now i need to stick to the schedule?

We use 15 min to flex with. So if your child falls a sleep 10 min late you can let them sleep over 10 min. But if they fall asleep 20 min late on a 45 min nap they only get 20 min to sleep.

6. We are going to travell by plane in the end of the month... What do we do with the schedule...?

Se the travel day as an exemption to the rule, get back to the schedule the next day, right away.

thanks again

p.s. the more i read, the more quiestions i get... is it normal?

[TorsMamma]

7. if after the day naps she wakes up before time... like 10-15 min before? happy and smiling? is that ok to pick her up ?

I would let her stay until the nap is over but here you can still use the 15 min flex time that I wrote about. But if she wakes up ealier than that, let her stay.

8. what if she doesn't fall asleep at all? how long do i try then? )) does it mean we should cut some sleeping time down?

If she doesn't fall asleep on a nap, she has the rest for the WHOLE time. You have given the prerequisite to sleep, that is all we can do. If she misses a nap for more than a week in a row it is time to look at the schedule.

[Maru]

Thank you so much TorsMamma, i'm very grateful!!

the pieces are starting to fall into places now, thanks to you!
the only thing to do now is to keep working with the case 8) I do see the progress every day, so :thumbsup:


i hope i haven't used up my limit on the questions though you never know what comes up:)))))

[Maru]

hi again

we've made a lot of progress with the Cure now, so thanks again for your support!

what i wonder about is how much time is the kid supposed to use to fall asleep at night (i mean the time baby goes to bed)? I wonder because mine can keep whining during up to half an hour, tonight it took 35 minutes.

Could you tell me the procedure again? May be i do smth wrong there and do not let her sleep???


so this is how it goes:
she takes a bath, then she gets breast, then we try the laughing. This part does not go so well, by the way, she is not a big laughter! normally she would just be smiling to anything (and i mean ANYTHING) i do..

so we go happy to bed, we say hello to her sleeping buddy, I put her down. Off the lights, she gets a kiss, then hands, legs and head are parked.
Little pressure down (her but would often try to go up again), and out right away with the jingle.

It is quiet in the room for a while, then she starts complaining like ai-ai-ai... or a-a-a-a... hard to describe I do nothing until she starts crying. if she does, i say the jingle. Sometimes i get confused about whether she cries or not, so i say the jingle wrongly(?)... If she cries harder, i get in, park her, press and out again. (i try not to go in at all, but sometimes i do, because she sounds frustrated) shouldn't i?

As i said, she can keep up with that in about 30 min. Isn't it too long? I thought she is supposed to fall asleep almost right away after i get out of her room.

please advise!

Olga

[TorsMamma]

Hi Olga, nice to hear from you again.

Please go in under ”Profile/signature” and put down your child’s birthdate. I.E 26 Sept – 2006 (my child) so that I can see what the child’s age is.

What great job you have done! Great progress.

I think she has reached 7 months and at this time it is supposed to be 14,5 hours sleep on the schedule. So if you shorten the morning nap to 45 min I get the correct amount of hours on the new schedule.

I think the procedure you have sounds great. Not all babies laugh out loud but the fun should be for at least 5 min not just a short smile, if you catch my drift? You know when you’ve seen a great comedy on TV or been to stand-up comedy at the club you laugh so hard that you have a tommy ache and your cheeks hurt from laughing. You think that if I laugh any more I will burst. When you go to bed that night and falling asleep you have this GREAT feeling inside that you had a good day and so on; this is the feeling you want to give your child EVERY night. Not just a smile. So whatever it takes to get that feeling that is what you want to do. Some people have the laughing a bit earlier and some in the bed. We have ours in the hallway outside the bedroom that is already pitch dark. Have him fly like an airplane in to the bedroom straight down in the bed.
You don’t need to park her any more if you don’t want, if it works for you great! Keep doing it.

Some children just take a long time to fall asleep, others need to complain a bit, and some get quite angry that they don’t fall asleep at once, it is the “putting to bed” that never takes more than 2 minutes like the book says. So don’t stress over this. You give your child the prerequisite to sleep. Calm and easy are the key words here.

Some take more time if the schedule needs change and by changing yours now with 30 min less perhaps this will help her falling asleep easier. So give it another week or so and see what happens. Don’t overwork her with the tools, let her hear you making a lot of GREAT noise outside the room. Some like the vacuum cleaner others driers, mine liked when I cleaned the bathroom or having the TV on loud. So don’t leave your ears at the door, go about your business and only jingle when she is really sad. She knows the routine by now.

How are you doing with early wakings?

Ps. Soon your child will reach the 8-month anxiety age and this can also inflict the sleep. You can read more about this in the book “for the love of children” and how to handle the time when it comes. Ds.