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myfullhouse 
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Location: West Auckland
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 Topic: Nap and bedtime routines
Posted: 07 January 2008 at 6:19pm |
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Jack is about 8 1/2 months and generally I breastfeed him to sleep during the day and definately at night. However he will go to sleep in the car or in the pushchair. Occasionally I will sing him to sleep or if he is mucking around at night I will put him down awake and he will put himself to sleep - although this is very rare. I generally need to put him to bed asleep otherwise he starts crying and gets worked up.
I plan to stop breastfeeding him at 1 year so I am looking to try different routines/techniques now so that we have no problems in a few months time.
I would be interested to know what other parents do to put their little ones to sleep at night and during the day.
Note - I am not a fan of CIO so this is not an option for me.
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cuppatea
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Posted: 07 January 2008 at 7:08pm |
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Yeah I don't like CIO or CC either.
Our routine is this, he goes to bed with a clean nappy, normally a while after he has fed. He goes down awake. He has 30secs of cuddles then goes in his safety sleep, I switch the monitor on, close the curtains and kiss him goodnight, then I leave. He is normall asleep with 5mins and spends that time babbling to himself. Spencer is really nosey so has to have no distractions and is better off winding himself down alone rather than me singing etc to him.
Ok so to get to that stage cos it didn't just happen we had some hard work. So from newborn I would put him in his bassinet awake and normally he would grumble so I would turn him on his side and pat and rub his back whilst shshing until he was asleep if he was not calming down I would pick him up and rock and sing till drowsy and then put him down and pat and rub. After a while of doing that I would only pat, rub and shush till drowsy and just repeat if he got upset. After a while I would put him down and leave him a while until he got grizzly before going in and comforting and would only pick up if crying or if patting whilst in bed wasn't calming him down. It took a while but by about 2 months he would put himself to sleep without my assistance (at most sleeps). We had issues of him staying asleep during that day and basically repeating the above when he woke after 1 sleep cycle and by about 4.5months he was sleeping beautifully and self settling at all sleeps (well obviously he still his moments but is maybe one sleep a week that he needs help to settle).
Hope that helps, there is a book called save our sleep that has a good variety of techniques some of which do not involve leaving them to cry. You could also try a plunket family centre for pointers we went at 3 months for help with him waking after 1 cycle and they were great and gave me the confidence to keep on chugging at it until it finally clicked for us.
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MonicaMouse
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Posted: 07 January 2008 at 10:30pm |
 cuppatea wrote:
Yeah I don't like CIO or CC either. |
Hate to sound ignorant but what is CIO and CC?
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kebakat
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Posted: 08 January 2008 at 7:59am |
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CIO - cry it out
CC - controlled crying
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MonicaMouse
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Posted: 08 January 2008 at 11:00am |
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Neeks
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Posted: 08 January 2008 at 12:07pm |
Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't sure either..
I'm not a fan  It makes me feel like a mean mummy
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caitlynsmygirl
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Posted: 08 January 2008 at 1:23pm |
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well my daughter is 5 now so my memories a bit hazy but when c was a bubba I would feed her ,bath her,wind her talk to her in her room for a little bit , read her a story (was great cos i could read anything to her and she didnt know what i was on about) then put her in her cot still awake.
She would cry , and i used to feel mean, but then i got over it, i would go into the lounge and watch tv and check on her every 10 minutes,usually she was asleep by the second one .
My daughter has never held a grudge about it to me either,so dont make yourself feel bad, a lot of the time it s the parents that are punishing themselves and the child couldnt care less
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myfullhouse
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Posted: 08 January 2008 at 8:44pm |
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Thanks for your suggestions. I have tried putting Jack down while he is still at least half awake and singing and patting him, it has worked a couple of times during the night and evening; haven't tried it during the day yet as he is quite scratching at the moment, another tooth I think! I may try reading to him at night as well, there are a couple of books suggested by Pinky McKay in her book. I suppose I just have to get the energy up to try these new things, it always seems easier to go with the tried and true.
Would still welcome any other suggestions people have. Do you do the same routine for daytime naps as bedtime? The daytime naps seem the hardest at the moment.
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cuppatea
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Posted: 08 January 2008 at 10:06pm |
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Yes we mostly do the same at day and night, although i have also encouraged Spencer to fall asleep where ever because I want the flexiblity to go out and about without worrying about getting back home for his sleeps. So from newborn he was encouraged to sleep in his cot the carseat on me or DH in his pram at friends houses etc. Just today I was working and DH let him fall asleep on his playmat, fine by me he spent 2 hours snoozing on it. Luckily for us he has got so good at settling himself he will do it anywhere. I would suggest perhaps having a sleep cue like swaddling or reading a story or a comfort blanky/toy that you use everytime and preferable something that can be taken somewhere else if need be.
We had been doing the bath routine but I didn't like how rigid it had to be, makes it difficult if you need someone to babysit and do the night routine or when you are on holiday etc but a lot of people find that it works. I think you can look it up on the johnsons website.
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Neeks
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Posted: 09 January 2008 at 1:06am |
Well Miss K shocked me today.. she had 2 HUGE naps rather than 1 big morning ones and 2 little afternoon cat naps/downtime
Miss K woke this morning at 7.30a after a whopping 11 hour sleep over night for her morning feed.. fed half, changed her bum and had a little quiet play on the bed (as daddy slept on) wrapped her up again and then fed the other half so that she would settle down.. she fed on the final half for about 15 minutes before starting to butterfly suck (comfort) so I removed her and put her back in her bed where she stayed for a further 45 minutes sound asleep until our lawnmower man woke her up... gah!!!! oh well *sigh*.. she then got up for another play which lasted about 1/2 an hour before she decided she was hungry.. so she fed for about 20 minutes then i changed her bum and we played for a bit... by 10am she was rubbing her eyes and giving the glazed stare so I fed her the other boobie and put her back into her bed and she was there for a good 2.5 hours 
When she woke up we played for a good 45 minutes, before going to the MIL's place for the afternoon... she did half a feed, and played for a bit..got hungry again so I thought I'd try for a second nap once we had fed so I wrapped her before hand... she fed for about 15 minutes before dozing off so I took her off and the little toad woke up but I put her down to sleep anyways and she slept and slept and slept and slept for a grand total of 5 hours  I finally had to wake her up to bring her home again.. we fed and had a wee play and she is now back in bed LOL she must have been tired eh??
(OMG, I'm sorry for the nap novel)
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Nap and bedtime routines
