Crying long before going to sleep

[Magdahelsinki]

Good evening!

We've been following Anna's GNS method for 10 days now, and we're really greatful for the help - our boy sleeps in his own room now, 11,5 hours per night! He used to wake up once an hour between 3-7am before… so - we're very happy now.

There's still one thing that is bothering me. When we put the boy to sleep, he usually cries for 10-20 minutes.. and it' is breaking my heart to listen to it every night… will this pass, soon maybe? Or are we doing something wrong? Should I go in and put him down, or should I just listen… ?

We stopped doing fanning when putting him to sleep after the first 5 nights. it made him so angry, he is very strong and I can't hold him down, so we only take him to his room, position him kindly on his stomach and (while he gets up to sit or stand) I leave the room jingling. I haven't repeated the jingle again except yesterday and today needed to say 1 extra jingle after the first ones (4) when he sounded too sad. We're talking and listening music in the next room, to have something for him to listen and calm down to. Thank you so much for help!

Our daily schedule is:

7.00 - 7.30 Waking up + breastfeeding
8.00 Fruit breakfast
9.15-10 Sleep (45min)
11.00 Porridge + breastfeeding
12. - 13.30 Sleep (1,5h)
13.30 Snack + breastfeeding
15.30 - 16.15 Sleep (45 min)
17.00 Vegetable + Porridge
18.00 Finger food
19.00 Snack + breastfeeding
19.00 - 19.30 Laughs + Sleep

Magda & baby boy (7,5 months)

[Sarisparis]

Hello and welcome to Anna's forum

It's great to hear how much your nights have been improved and I bet your son is the one who benefits most from it as he's the one who really needs to sleep to be able to grow and develop as he's supposed to. Well done =D>

There's still one thing that is bothering me. When we put the boy to sleep, he usually cries for 10-20 minutes.. and it' is breaking my heart to listen to it every night… will this pass, soon maybe? Or are we doing something wrong? Should I go in and put him down, or should I just listen… ?

Some questions to make sure I understand your situation correctly.

Is it like this every time you put him to bed, night and day?
Do you put a Very Happy boy to bed every time, night and day?

When such a 'habit' has been created, it's natural to 'expect' it to continue, even if it is in fact the opposite of what we think we're doing. In other words, your attitude might not be as 'supreme' as it used to be as you 'know' that he will cry when you put him to bed. If so, your boy reads you as an open book and responds by crying - is not everything all right ? Can't I go to bed and just lie down and relax ?

I would advice you to re-read the Security chapter in the GNS-book. And also the following chapter that might be called Pleasure in English.

Generally, to know what to do you have to carefully LISTEN to your son. HOW does he cry? Is he upset as in angry? Let him be and use the jingle when he's 'coming down'. Is he upset as in sad? Intervene.
When you put him to bed you leave the room with the jingle x4, right? Listen to your son when you jingle and adapt your jingling to how his crying (if he cries). It might be a good idea to do more than 4 if he's crying intensely. The objective is to have a dialogue, to communicate.

So, take a careful look at the parts of the book I mentioned above and meditate. We'll take it from there.

[Magdahelsinki]

Thank you so much for your advice!

In the book it says that you shouldn't intervene too much, so we were afraid of doing it over, as the rest of the nights still worked fine. Mostly he's crying very tired. OK - We'll allow more jingling tonight, and listen and answer if he's sad or coming down... First 4x leaving the room, then listen and more if needed.

We do a lot of laughing in the parent's bedroom, and then fly throught the air laughing to his own room. He doesn't protest before we position him down. He's been very exhausted in the evening already at 19, so it feel's he's asking for me to take him to bed already earlier. Maybe the last naps is too early?

He goes to naps in the prams, on the balcony or on walks so there's no problem/crying there at all. So this happens only when going to sleep in his cot.

In the morning he's started to play in the bed, sounds so adorable when we wake up!

M

[Sarisparis]

We do a lot of laughing in the parent's bedroom, and then fly throught the air laughing to his own room.

:thumbsup: seems like a really nice way of getting to bed!

He's been very exhausted in the evening already at 19, so it feel's he's asking for me to take him to bed already earlier. Maybe the last naps is too early?

I wouldn't hesitate to put him to bed earlier than scheduled if he's tired. Remember you always have 15 minutes of margin, which you can extend to 30 minutes when you put him to bed for the night (without him waking up too early in the morning). I guess his protests in the evening is a mixture of being too tired and of a 'bad habit' as there's no problem of getting to bed (ok, prams, balcony ... ) during daytime. There's a question about this in the GNS-book; a little girl who gladly goes to bed all day but who protests in the evening. I do not have my English copy by hand, but this questions is situated just in the middle of the Q&As chapter, just after the question about curing twins. Annas word about negative expectations might be interesting for you as well.

Generally, whenever you have a doubt, remember the GNS cure is process, can be one step forward and two steps back sometimes. Re-read the Security-chapter over and over again and remember all the improvement you've made in such a short while.

In the morning he's started to play in the bed, sounds so adorable when we wake up!

Lovely to hear. O:) Pure evidence that he's convinced he's bed is a good place to be and that he's starting to get all the sleep he needs. You should be very proud of yourself, it's a very precious gift you're giving your son. Waking up confident and happy is in my opinion a very important piece of general well being and a sign of a good attitude to life in general. Life's a party and your son is getting the message.

Keep up the good work! =D>

[Magdahelsinki]

After 3 nights with more jingling, my boy went to sleep playing tonight!! Not crying but happy! I'm amazed.

He's going to bed at 19.00 already so it means he's waking up too early, at about 6.15 - 6.30, What could I do to change the rhythm?

He's 8 months old in a week.
This has been our timetable for the last week or so:

6.30 Waking up + breastfeeding (11,5h)
7.00 Porridge
8.15-9 Nap (45min)
10.00 Fruit pure + breastfeeding
11.30 - 13.00 Sleep (45 min- 1,5h)
13.30 Lunch + breastfeeding
15.15 - 16.00 Sleep (45 min)
17.00 Porridge
18.00 Finger food
18.30 Snack + breastfeeding
19.00 Laughs + Sleep

M

[Sarisparis]

After 3 nights with more jingling, my boy went to sleep playing tonight!! Not crying but happy! I'm amazed.

=D> Great job, well done! =D>

He's going to bed at 19.00 already so it means he's waking up too early, at about 6.15 - 6.30, What could I do to change the rhythm?

He's supposed to wake up at 6.30, or do I get your schedule wrong? If so I wouldn't mind if he wakes up at 6.15, it's within the 15 minutes margin.
Generally, my main advice for early mornings is to check that his room is PITCH dark all night long. Go in to his room during the day, and close the curtains and whatever else you do at night. Wait. After a while, when your eyes have adapted, you should not be able to see anything. Not your hand in front of you, nothing. The thing is that even a little little light is enough to get the kids brain all started, light signals daytime.
To get the room pitch black, even during the early summer mornings, you can use aluminum foil on the windows. Spray the window with water roughly, and then add the foil. This is not a very esthetic option, but very efficient. In my kids room, there's an outdoor roller shutter that makes the room almost black, and inside there are curtains in blackout curtain fabric - darkblue. Very efficient too!

[Magdahelsinki]

Thanks for the tips! We've been travelling this summer so we've got experience of making different rooms as dark as possible and tried different beds too... and it has been ok mostly, he's sleeping through the night, going to bed without crying - but - some nights he woke up at 4.30! On a good night he woke up at 6.

So now we're back home and the problem seems to be the same as in my last message a month ago: early rising. Also as the schedule has been the same for so long, how could we push the sleeping time a bit further in the evening? It's still about 19.00 sometimes 19.15 to and sometimes even 18.30. Waking up at 6.00, sometimes 30 mins. earlier. I would be so happy if he slept until 7.00!! It makes a big difference in the morning.

Any advice?

Here's our schedule: (9 months)

6.00 Waking up + breastfeeding (11h)
6.30 - 7.00 Porridge
7.30. - 8.30 Nap (1 h)
9.00 Milk
10.00 Fruit pure
11.30 - 12.30 Sleep (1 h)
13.00 Lunch + Milk
14.30 - 15.30 Sleep (1 h)
16.30 Porridge
18.00 Finger food and pure
18.30 Laughs
19.00 Sleep

[Sarisparis]

Hello again

Very sorry that you have been waiting so long , I guess you and I are not the only ones who have been travelling around this summer.

So how are things going?

[Magdahelsinki]

Hi!

We're very good nowadays. The old problem hasn't dissapeared though.
Waking up at 6, sometimes 5.45! AND It's still dark at 6 AM in Helsinki... so it seems really too early.

We've been waiting for him to fall back to sleep but he usually continues to cry for over 30 min, so it seems he's not sleepy anymore so we go and get him up. Sometimes he falls back to sleep, but only for 15 minutes. He goes to sleep at 19 quite sharp. We haven't been able to move it later.

This is our schedule now / He's almost 10 months old

6.00 Waking up + breastfeeding (11h)
6.30 - Milk bottle
7.30. - 8.30 Nap (1 h)
9.00 Porridge
11.30 - 12.30 Sleep (1 h)
13.00 Lunch + Milk
14.30 - 15.30 Sleep (1 h)
16.30 Porridge
18.00 Finger food and pure
18.30 Laughs
19.00 Sleep

[TorsMamma]

Hi

So when I look at the schedule we will need to replan that a bit.

1. A 10 month old needs to have 2 naps. Natural sleep patterns are 5 min, 20 min, 45 min, 1,5 hour, 2 hours.

2. So you will need a morning nap of about 45 (can be 20 min for a few at this time) min and a lunch nap of about 1,5 hours.

3. Then make the night 12 hours is my advice. Also, I understand that it is still fairly dark at 6 in the morning, but not dark enough, you really need to get it pitch black so you can’t see the hand in front of you.

It will take you 3 days to implement the new schedule and 1 week for it to get in place. But no sleep after 14.30 is my advice.

If you want to you can post your schedule here before implementing if you want me to look it over.

[Magdahelsinki]

Thanks for your help Torsmamma!

Here's a new schedule we've had for two days now. I'm amazed how long he can stay up without naps. He's been very picky about food lately, except morning and evening porridge it's hard to feed him any pure, so he only drinks a lot of milk and little finger foods daytime (11-14)
Any comments on this schedule?

6.30 Waking up / Milk
8-8.45 Nap
9.00 Porridge
11.00 Snack + Milk
13-14 Nap (trying to make this longer 1,5h)
14.00 Snack + Milk
17.00 Porridge
18.00 Snack +Milk
19.00 Sleep

[Sarisparis]

Hello magda

How are things going at your side?