#selfsettling

[shrillian42]

13-12-16

At bedtime boob today, she popped herself off and stayed awake. I put her into her bed and walked out. I think she's asleep. She's 7 months today. Where has this time gone?!? 😪

[shrillian42]

09-10-16 Got bub to sleep without rocking the moses basket!!! I just zipped her up, put on the white noise and walked away. Took her 16mins32secs, but she did it! She slept by herself!! Yippee! Such a clever little bub. 😘😘😊😊 Thought she might be teething - her noises (mmmmmmmm), munching on fingers, now munching on hard rings of all toys - so gave her a chilled teething toy. She loved it!!

[firsttime-mum-blog]

Self settling and sleep

I’ve been lying on the nursery floor for 20min and he’s still not asleep.

A lot of people portray selfsettling means leaving your baby to cry. Not so. We didn’t decided to self settle until 3.5mths because prior to that our boy was a perfect sleeper. But at 3.5 months it all suddenly changes, he went through what they call sleep regression (a good blog for baby sleep hints http://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-sleep-patterns/4-month-sleep-regression/). He started waking every hour at night and refused to sleep without our aid to comfort him, some times holding him for 1min was enough, others took 45min. It was exhausting.

Solution he needed to learn to self settle, so if he woke he could calm himself. I really debated the idea of having to let him cry it out.. Well we didn’t have to. Some shhh-patting, picking up only if crying and just sitting by the cot where he could see me has worked. He now usually only wakes for a feed. How long has this taken well the self settling has progressively gotten quicker over the few weeks we’ve been doing it and less interaction from me over time, now I can sometimes just put the sleepy boy in bed and he drifts off himself without me there, others I sit the bed with shh when he grizzles, other I lie out of site till I know he’s asleep. I judge my approach by his mood and tiredness at the time. Do what feels right for you.

The other thing I think really helped with his regression ending was starting a routine. Up within the same hour every day, feed-play-sleep every 4hours and down to bed with an hour. My boy loves his routine, on day 1 of starting it he slept better than he had in a month, he had longer day naps and woke much less in the night.

Our loose routine is 7am up and feed, followed by shower (shower keeps us both awake for the day). The. Play. Sleep by 9. 11 he wakes himself and it’s feed time. Play. 1ish nap 2 feed play sleep again, often a shorter cycle of each. 6 pm feed and start bed calming routine, often a cluster feed at 7 if he seems to need it. In bed before 8pm. And he sleeps settles usually within half hour. Then parents sit on couch wondering what we do with out new found time before we go to bed.

[factorofmum]

"Nap Time"