About to cure my baby

[Sleepymomma]

Hi!


I am so happy I found my way to AW sleep cure and that I'll be able to get my baby (and myself) to sleep good at last. So far I have read the English GNS book + read almost all of the English forum + I am now on my second reading of the book.

My baby was born 06.03.20 so she is 5.5 m old. We will probably start the cure when she is 6 m old. I need the time until then to introduce and get her to eat lots of solids.

I have a couple of questions I would like to iron out before starting with the cure, hopefully some more experienced curers can help me


• Living arrangements

We temporarily live in a rental apartment until our home is being renovated and here we only have one bedroom. So far baby has been sleeping with me (mom) in the bedroom (together in big bed) and dad sleeps in the living room (btw there is room for only 1 person to sleep in the living room).
For the cure I have ordered a fold-up wall and big blackout curtain - with these things I will separate baby's crib so she has her own "room" in the bedroom. I have made the bedroom pitch black.
After the first 2 nights where I will stay awake behind the bedroom door (dad will go sleep away in summerhouse), I have to move back to the bedroom (like I said, only room for 1 in the living room).
Question 1: When I have to jingle, can I do it IN the bedroom behind baby's "room" (behind the fold-up wall) or do I have to get up from bed, go to living room where dad sleeps and jingle OUTSIDE the bedroom door?

• Naps

So far she has been sleeping her naps in the stroller while I walk (in standing stroller she doesn't fall asleep and also usually wakes up when I stop walking).
If I want her to sleep her nap inside at home, I rock her in my arms until she falls asleep and then put her in the bed.
For the past 2-3 months all of her naps have been 30 min exactly.
I know it says in the book that sleep periods that coincide with natural sleep rythms are 5; 20; 45 min and 1.5; 2 & 3 h, however 5 times a day she wakes up exactly after 30 minutes, I can put my watch right after her. Sometimes in her stroller I can get her to move on to next sleepcycle if I rock the stroller hard enough at the right time, but usually that doesn't work and she stays up after her 30 min nap.
Question 2: does it even make sense to schedule for example 45 min nap for her? Should the sleep cycle somehow change after the cure?

• Schedule

So far her "schedule" is that she wakes up any time between 6.30 - 8.30, is then awake for 1.5 hours and then we go outside for her 30 min nap. Usually she falls asleep in the stroller when I walk/rock within 5-10 minutes.
This we do 5 times a day. Sometimes the first nap she has inside so I could sleep some more aswell.
She goes to night sleep any time between 19-22 depending on when her last nap was.
So there is no schedule at the moment other than that she is awake 1.5 hours and then sleeps 30 min, then again awake 1.5 hours and sleeps 30 min and so on until it's time for night bath and sleep.
At night she wakes up about 6-7 times and I always "put her to sleep" again with giving breastmilk. So I have never really heard her questions at night, because I always immediately "silence" her with the breast.

During the day she eats breastmilk every ~3 hours + I am introducing solids now too. I want her to eat solids on top of BM every meal before I start the cure.

We exercise a lot on her stomach and I try to have lots of social participation.

Question 3: I am at the moment unsure how to create the schedule because of the nap length question, so I don't have a proposal yet.
I only know I would like night to be 20.00 - 08.00.
If someone has a schedule proposal in mind for us, I would be very interested.


• Tools

Question 4: What is sun feather? I see this phrase in the forum, but not in the book. Is it the same as fanning?


Looking forward to curing my little one!

[Sleepymomma]

Forgot to mention - she sleeps 12.5 h / 24 h (usually 5 x 30 min so 2.5 h in total during the day).
I know it's way too little and she should sleep 15 h in total.

[Sleepymomma]

Is there anyone still active on this forum who could share their thoughts with me?
I'm especially confused about question 2, as I don't know how to go on with creating the schedule otherwise..

[Tin]

Hello and welcome,
sorry I missed your thread, yes we are active in this forum still, but its volunteer work. but anyway, huge welcome.

So yes you want to cure your darling, reading your thread that makes absolute sense. the cure is about teaching the baby to fall asleep on her own, when you are able to fall asleep on your own waking up isn't a problem anymore either.......

So your questions:
1. Yes, it is better during the cure (especially the first two nights) for you to sleep in the living room and jingle outside the door. If you can do the whole cure like stat for best possible result, is your husband doing night 3 and 4, he should sleep in the living room as well,

2. Yes, it makes sense to use a schedule with other sleep cycles, your baby will unlearn what happens when you wake up and relearn how tp fall asleep herself without moms help (rocking, strolling or breast-milk).

3. Schedule, most babies on a schedule wake up earlier than 08 so I would recommend a schedule starting earlier, some babies can do 20.00-08:00 but its rare. The standard schedule for a 5 or 6 month old has a 12h night, a 45 minute morning nap, a 2 h lunch sleep, and then a 20 minute afternoon nap. Try and make a schedule out of that starting 7:00 and see what you get, Ill help.

4. Yes sun feather and fanning are the same. A tool for calming (not falling asleep), a weaker tool is the jingle which is what we are aiming for in the cure. But first night you might have to start with fanning, buffing etc.

So, so far in your little darlings life you have taught her that she needs you in order to fall asleep, day or night. At daytime, she needs you to push the stroller or rock her in your arms, and at night she needs your breast-milk. Now here is the trick, no baby needs a parent to all asleep. They need plenty of other things from us, warmth, safety, food etc. The purpose of the cure is for you parents to help the baby unlearn what she knows now about falling asleep and relearn that she can do it herself, at the beginning of a nap, if she wakes up at night or after 30 minutes. You need to convince her that she can do it herself, so study the cure. Read the book and the forum 5 times before starting. Ask us any questions.
I was scared when I cured my first one 10 years ago, but it truly does work. you baby will protest at first, "whats going on mum, you are supposed to help me fall asleep, that all I know mum". And you will be there to tech her a new way.
After the cure you will have a baby that sleeps enough, happy in between, wont need you during the night at all (she will still wake up sometimes as do grownups, but will roll over and carry on sleeping herself), easily falls asleep at home in her cot.

Also last thing, regarding food.
Do it the other way around, first real food (lots of it) and then top up with breast-milk as dessert if she still wants it. At least for lunch and dinner, that way you know for sure that shell get enough food in her to stay asleep a whole night. She is big now.

big hug Tin

[Sleepymomma]

Hi Tin!

Thanks for your reply, I do appreciate that it comes out of your personal time.
It's very reassuring to read that every parent really gets personal treatment here on the forum, not just copy-paste replies, it makes the journey so much better and makes me more confident knowing that someone is here thinking together with me and helping when needed, thank you for that .


Ok what do you think of the below schedule:

7.00 morning
7.05 BM (breastmilk)
7.15 morning hygiene
8.00 porridge (100 g)


09.00 - 09.45 NAP (45 min) inside in crib
11.00 BM


12.00 - 13.30 NAP (1.5 h) outside in stroller or inside...?*
14.00 vegetable+meat puree (100 g) + BM


15.45 - 16.30 NAP (45 min)** inside in crib?
17.00 porridge (100 g)***
18.20 bath
18.40 BM
18.50 laughter


19.00 night



*I'm unsure about the location of this long nap as autumn & winter is coming and it's maybe not so nice to be outside for so long with rain and cold.. but on the other hand it's the only nap time that gives me a chance to be outside during daylight in wintertime, as 9 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon it's still/already dark.
Or maybe I should schedule all naps indoors and go outside only during awake time.
My stroller is very narrow so I think not the best for tummysleeping btw.
But of course I would still like to have the chance to have her nap in the stroller when needed so I should probably schedule at least one nap outside so she would be used to still sleeping in stroller? Heeeelp, very confused


**I was thinking of scheduling last nap 45 min instead of 20 so that if she takes longer to fall asleep I still have more buffer room to let her get some decent sleep before the long evening awake time.
Or why do you think 45 + 2 + 20 is better?


***What do you think of the food quantities?
Pediatricians association in my country recommends 50 - 100 g per day for 6. m old babies - I don't know it seems way too little to me... But maybe the 300 g I scheduled is too much?


Thanks!

[Tin]

HI again,

Sleeping in a crib/strooler
Yes, you should schedule all the sleeps inside and be out playing during awake time. Excellent.
Your job is to give the baby the best pre requisites for sleeping, and a narrow stroller isn't it. Yes babies can sleep in prams, big ones where they can sleep on their tummy, and they still needs to fall asleep in a pram that is standing still. When the baby is asleep you can move it and go for a walk. Get it, you are not supposed to help the baby fall asleep by moving the stoller/pram.
I say focus on nailing the sleeps inside, in the crib, in a dark room, sleeping according to schedule first before you venture into anything else. You can still go for a walk outside with the stroller, but make it an adventure where your baby can see and experience the world.

Food quantities
You cant feed your baby enough, and that is universal. It will come out again. NO need to weigh food, only to make sure its not to little food. Other than that shove in as mush as possible. Let food be joyous. The more you eat when you are this little the better you sleep, their need for food will go down when they stop growing as much as they do now (around 1 year old). But 6 months old can eat insane amounts of food, let them, you cant give them too much at this age. Also choose real food over porridge for dinner. There is already lots of porridge in your schedule.

Made some tweaks to your schedule:
7.00 morning
7.05 BM (breastmilk)
7.15 morning hygiene
8.00 porridge (as much as he would like)
09.00 - 09.45 NAP (45 min) inside in crib
10.00 outside time, practicing crawling
11.00 vegetable+meat puree (as much as he would like) + BM
12.00 - 13.30 NAP (1.5 h) inside in crib
14.00 porridge or yogurt or avocado/banana (100 g) + BM
14:30 outside time, practicing crawling
15.45 - 16.30 NAP (45 min) inside in crib
17.00 vegetable+meat puree (as much as he would like) + BM
18.20 bath
18.40 BM
18.50 laughter
19.00 night

Last nap
Well weather you do 45, 1.5, 45
or 45, 2, 20
is up to you and what works best for you and your baby.

You are on the right track.

hugs Tin

[Sleepymomma]

Thanks for the advice!
I started the cure 2 nights ago. Btw I updated the schedule to 7.30 - 19.30, just moved everything by 30 minutes.

Night 1 was better than I had expected - it took me 1 hour to initially get her to sleep, but after that she woke up just 4 times during the night, the toolbox worked well to get her back to sleep.

Day 1 was quite hard. She was very tired and whiny throughout the day, also probably not yet used to being awake this long between naps. It was very hard to keep her entertained between naps. She didn't eat her morning porridge, in fact she is only willing to eat one type of puree at the moment, so she got that for the rest of the 3 meals. I hope her appetite will improve soon.

Night 2 was amazing!!! She fell asleep after just 8 minutes. So far I have had to rock her in my arms 30-60 minutes before she falls asleep, so this is major improvement.
During the night she woke up just 3x.
1st time 20.08 and fell asleep again on her own 20.17! I didn´t have to jingle even. I was so proud of her.
2nd time 4.26 so after 8 hours of sleep! She has never slept so long in her entire life. Amazing.
The trouble here was she had gotten her arm stuck between the railings of the bed and banged her head against the bed when trying to get her arm out. She started crying hard, so I went in, repositioned her, did a quick fanning and left with jingle x4.
3rd time she woke 6.46. At 6.58 I gave her jingle x 4 and 7.03 she fell asleep. I forgot to do the confirmation here before falling asleep ! Is it bad or this early in the morning maybe it´s better not to disturb them much?
since she fell asleep 7.03 and morning is 7.30 - should I wake her up at 7.30 or also here follow the sleeping patterns and wake her up after 20 min at 7.23?

Thanks!

[TorsMamma]

Hi, very well done!

I think you should secure the bed a bit more so that she cannot get arms or legs stuck in the bed. We like to use "sleeping mat" you use for camping and cut them up and weave around the railings of the bed.

If she falls asleep even 7.25 give her no more than 5 min an wake her up. Try keeping the schedule down to the minute of walking up these 2 first weeks. The only time I use the 15 min margin is before a nap if I know they need time to calm down and get to sleep, especially during the day in the cure. Day 3 is the most common day they start eating again. So hang in there and keep the goal in front of you!
Re-read the chapter about security in the book!

Keep up the good work and let the jingle do its work now and don't miss the confirmation jingle, even if you think it disturbs more than it does good, it will be that, that does the magic in the long run.

[Sleepymomma]

Hi TorsMamma!

Thanks for your answer and reassurance good tip about the sleeping mat!

Night 3 was Amazing! My baby fell asleep in 8 minutes after being put to bed and slept through the entire night until I woke her up in the morning today!!! I was just ecstatic where can I send the flowers?!

I re-read most of the book yesterday, because what else was there for me to do when she was sleeping like a log? (Turns out my body does not understand or believe that I could actually sleep when I have a chance. Maybe I too need the cure ).

I have one more technical question (I wrote this before your reply, so I THINK I know the answer, but would like a confirmation ):
During a scheduled 45 min nap, my baby right now sleeps 30 min and then wakes up (crying).
The cheat sheet here on the forum says "The schedule should be strictly adhered to with a maximum margin of 15 minutes in either direction. (This does not apply to the short naps. Check the time when the baby falls asleep and then wake the little angel after exactly 20 or 45 minutes.)"
So the problem is I don't have a chance to wake her up after 45 min, she wakes up herself after sleeping for 30 min. What should I do here?
Jingle for her to calm down and then pick her up?
I'm thinking if I pick her up after the 30 min, she will not learn that this is in fact supposed to be a 45 min nap.
Or I should try to jingle her back to sleep? But then she will very likely go over the 15 min margin even if I allow her just another 20 min of sleep. So the schedule will be off. Or jingle back to sleep and allow just 5 min of sleep?

[Tin]

Hi again,
what a joy to read your night stories so far...... You did this! We are just helpers.

When it comes to the 30 minute naps, first I have a question, what happens during the long daysleep? Does she do that one without waking up?

When I have little early wakers I go through the list:
- content (ie full of food, just ate massive amount close to nap time)
- sleeping on her tummy?
- dark in the room
- used well known tool the settle baby when waking up, ie jingle
- baby can fall asleep on her own

I will end by saying, there are babies who have different sleep cycles, although very rare. I would extensively do everything on that list before assuming that this is 30 min baby. So do that first. So yes, aim for 45 min. Jingle her to tell her its still sleep time. Do not pick up earlier than 45 min. When 45 min have passed go into the room when she is quiet and make a very happy reunion pretending as if everything is awesome, no comforting, just smiles and fun times. If baby misses out on sleep, put her down 30 minutes earlier that night.

Do this for a loooooong time until you actually are convinced that she is a 30 min baby, in which case you redo the schedule to suit that. But go at it for at least 2 weeks. Also a tip is to change your mindset to: "oh no she woke up again, sigh" to " ok, here we go, this is when she needs me to be her teacher/leader, Ive trained for this, Ive got you baby, now we are going to sleep". So every wakeup becomes an opportunity to teach her to sleep.

You've got this!

hugs Tin

[Sleepymomma]

Hi,

Thanks for your input!
I secured the bed, so she hasn't gotten stuck anymore.
I am really happy with how the nights are going, she mostly sleeps through the entire night, wakes up around 6-6.30, and goes back to sleep after 10-15 min, until I wake her up 7.30
But without trying to sound like a cliché... we still have problems with daytime naps.

When it comes to the 30 minute naps, first I have a question, what happens during the long daysleep? Does she do that one without waking up?

No, she still wakes up (crying) after 20-30 min. I jingle several times and she falls asleep again after 15-30 minutes. Sleeps again 15-30 min. Wakes up crying.
So on a good day she sleeps through the nap in 3 cycles. On not so great days she sleeps 2 cycles and doesn't go to sleep anymore despite my jingling, vacuuming, playing Mozart. E.g. today she woke up 13.18 and didn't fall asleep anymore, just kept sad crying. I kept jingling pretty much every other minute, but it just didn't help.

- content (ie full of food, just ate massive amount close to nap time)

I can't really say that she's eating massive amounts. She is still willing to eat only eggplant puree + meat and does not eat her porridge in the morning at all. I've tried different brands; with water; with milk; with pear puree - still nothing.
I also try other type of purees every day but so far no luck.
She has BM every meal after the feeding.
I copied our schedule below aswell so you could see if you think the meals are appropriately close to naptime.
I'm thinking maybe it would be better to push the mealtimes forward by 30 min, so she would have them closer to naptime? (09.00, 12.00, 15.00, 18.00).
If you think it's worth doing, then when can I make the change? (We started with the cure 11.09 evening)

- sleeping on her tummy?

Yes, since night1 of the cure.

- dark in the room

Yes, totally dark. Can't see anything.
But Im thinking maybe she would like it better if there was some light in the room for naps..?

- used well known tool the settle baby when waking up, ie jingle

Yes, I use the jingle when she wakes up.

- baby can fall asleep on her own

Yes, after starting the cure, there are a lot of times when she falls asleep on her own when I put her down (only have to do the initial jingle when going out the bedroom and confirmation jingle before she falls asleep). Also during the night she wakes up and goes to sleep on her own again, so she clearly can.

Do not pick up earlier than 45 min.

Just to clarify - you mean I should keep her in the bed 45 minutes from her falling asleep, yes?
Or 45 minutes from putting to bed?

go into the room when she is quiet and make a very happy reunion pretending as if everything is awesome

this is another big problem I have. 90% of the time, she starts crying as soon as I enter her room and turn on the lights. I know it says not to pick up when crying and I totally get the point, but for some reason she cries really really hard when I go in and happily announce that it's time to wake up, although she was just quiet before I entered (even for several minutes maybe). I have tried talking to her, showing her something interesting to distract her (toy, my phone, etc.) but she keeps screaming with tears running down her face So several times I have actually picked her up when she was screaming because no matter what I did she did not calm down.
I usually content myself with a second of silence when she's catching her breath and quickly pick her up while pretending everything is great.
Do you please please have any advice on how to calm her when she is in the bed so I could pick her up from her nap/night sleep?

Do this for a loooooong time until you actually are convinced that she is a 30 min baby

2 naps now during the last days she has managed to sleep 45 min straight until I woke her up. So it seems it is possible for her to sleep longer than 30 at a time.
She has not slept so long during the long afternoon nap though.


Our schedule:

07.30 - wake-up
07.30 - BM
08.30 - porridge (doesn't eat) + BM

09.30 - 10.15 - morning nap
11.30 - puree & meat + BM

12.30 - 14.00 - afternoon nap
14.30 - puree + BM

16.15 - 17.00 - evening nap
17.30 - puree & meat + BM
18.50 - bath
19.10 - BM
19.20 - laughing
19.30 - night

Thanks a lot for your help!

[TorsMamma]

Hello,

Thanks for your report!

Now first thing, Please go to the top of the forum where you see your name and a small arrow. Click on it and choose profile. Try to enter under signature the baby's bithdate and the startdate of the cure!!

So now you KNOW she CAN sleep 45 min. When you said she wakes up around 30 min but then I read a bit more, I would say she wakes up at the 20 min. The natural sleep patterns are 5 min, 20 min, 45 min, 1,5 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours.......

So with this in mind try to get the 45 min sleep to be 45 min. I used the room pitch dark even during the daynap, so that my son would get the sleep he needed.

Now when it comes to food. I always do it this way no matter what age. 1 thing they love, 1 NEW thing, and 1 thing they "can" eat but not favorite but healthy. It takes 20 tries of something new to start liking it, so keep on making her try!

Sweetpotatoe pure is usually popular. Banana? Now to be honest, we have never used porrige or traditional things, my son now 14 eats leftovers from breakfast still. THe important thing is that they eat! Porrige is not that much nutrition, but eggplant is. And meat definantely IS! So keep giving meat! My son also liked omelette sticks. I did a big batch and baked in a wather bath in the oven with different thinks. Brought it out and cut into sticks. He could then hold it in his hand and eat.

Now, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep in mind. The cure is a calming the baby down where they are "cure". If you pick a child up, it is to save their life! It basically sends the message, sleeping or lying in your bed is now dangerous and you need to get out NOW!
The only time we pick our babies up, is to go the the hospital or if the house is on fire. Never to calm dem down.
I can however say that I have held my son through the eailings to hug him so he calmed down. Even if they throw up, we try changing in the bed both clothing and sheets. Just once picking up can take you days and days of backlash before you are back on track.

Now to your schedule:
I tweeked it a little. Your last nap is a bit too late, she could use a bit more awake time before the night. Also this last nap will be either shorter or you go to 2 naps/day at around 7 months. If so you need to make the afternoon nap 2 hours and push it forward about 30-60 min. Also, please don't stare yourself blind on certain kinds of food or so. Just keep trying new things, every day. She will learn.

Our schedule:

07.30 - wake-up
07.30 - BM
08.30 - real food + BM

09.15 - 10.00 - morning nap
11.30 - puree & meat + BM

12.00 - 13.30 - afternoon nap
14.30 - snack + BM

15.30 - 16.15 - evening nap (at 7 months usually becomes 20 min)
17.30 - puree & meat + BM
18.50 - bath
19.10 - BM (yogurt?)
19.20 - laughing
19.30 - night

[Sleepymomma]

Hi!

Thanks, I updated my signature.

Yes, she used to wake up after the 30 min mark, but now after starting the cure she sometimes wakes up already after 20 min. So seems her sleep cycle length is updating together with the cure.

The 45 min naps are more or less okay - sometimes she already manages to sleep 45 min, so I get to wake her up myself.
Sometimes she wakes up earlier (after 20-40 min of sleep) and so far there has not been a 45 min nap where she manages to fall asleep for a second time. In this case I just jingle until she has been in her bed for 45 min (from the minute she fell asleep) and then (try to) pick her up at a quiet moment.
But yes..if she doesn't sleep 45 min straight away then she is not falling asleep again after waking up crying...

Afternoon naps (1.5 hrs) are really difficult. Today she woke up after 18 min of sleep and did not fall asleep anymore. So it was a long long Q&A session until I picked her up 15 min before nap end time.
This mid-day nap is really making me question if it's all worth it, I just don't feel that it does her any good to keep crying out like this without anyone coming to her.
I understand that my job is not to calm her, but to provide her security for sleep, but if she's there like this, breathless from crying, it just doesn't feel right.

On another topic - I would like dad to also take over some naps/nights now. So far it has been only me administrating the cure.
How is it best to go about this? Is it better to start with him putting the baby to sleep for the night (and then should he be in charge of the night-time jingles too?) or better to start with a daytime nap?
I read from the book that when a partner takes over, then since it's such a new thing for the baby, they might have to resort to buffing even.
Is buffing really OK so far into the cure? Or he should only use the same tools I use (positioning and jingle)?

Thanks for the schedule update suggestion. I'd like to give it a try. When can I make the change, straight away?
What do you think about pushing the afternoon snack to 15.00 and then dinner to 18.00? It would give us more time to go outside between naps.

Thanks!

[Sleepymomma]

One more question about changing the schedule: is it better to do the change all at once or better to change by 15 min at a time in the course of a few days?

[TorsMamma]

Hi, thanks for your signature!

So from what I can see you have only done the cure for 6 days? We always say you must give it a minimum of 2 weeks before evaluating and changing the schedule. Tos you need to stick with it for another week I would say. Except for the meal times and the food that you can change as you wish. But NOT the nap times.

When it comes to the long nap for 1,5 hours I actually made ALOT of noise in the house during the whole nap when my son was small. If I needed a rest I put on the TV loudly so he could hear it to his room that was pitch dark and door closed, sleeping on his tummy with alarm. So perhaps it is TOO quiet when she is sleeping so if she wakes up, she feels the need to start asking questions if you are there, are you guarding outside and so on? Perhap a lot of more noise is in order here. Some play classical music outside the room.

I understand that my job is not to calm her, but to provide her security for sleep, but if she's there like this, breathless from crying, it just doesn't feel right.

I'm sorry to say this, if this is how you have read the book and interpreted the reading you really need to re-read the book. This is not a "cry it out" method of any sort! EVER!

This is a calm you child down where she is lying to feel safe in her own bed, we never pick them up, but they are to be calm and happy in their bed and your job is to ensure this is the case! Nothing else will do for the child. Your job is to listen to her "questions" aka crying and figure out what the question is and then answer it appropriately.

So I'm asking you again, re-read the book! Especially chapter 2 on page 62 "security". This is the key for you!

If the father has read the book 5 times he can take over any day. I would start with the night and have him take the whole night. Any one can take the days. If I was him I would go from night 3 of the cheat sheet you can find in the book on page 170.

Last pushing the snack and dinner is no problem. Normally we would say that we give food every 3,5-4 hours so having meals every 3 hours is a bit close anyway.

Now, keep reading the book and keep up the attitude of confidence and have the goal in mind.