progress report - putting baby down .....

Just wanted to give you guys an update on my query on getting my baby to sleep when hes awake.

I started pretty much straight away (about 2 weeks ago now I guess) and starting bathing Israel at night. I then gave him a bottle of expressed milk (usally his dad gives him this so they can spend some time together ) and put him to bed. For the first couple nights it was hard, I was sitting in the lounge listening to him and had to hold myself back from going to pick him up again. I was going in to cuddle him every 5 minutes and then started to stretch it out and by day 3 he was sound asleep within the first few minutes.
He has been sleeping for a lot longer now too, we usually wake him up just before we are going to go to bed and give him another feed and for the first time in a very long time I had 8 hours sleep in a row the other day....woo hoo!!!

Oops, when I saw the topic I was a bit worried you were putting your baby down like the vet does to dogs. Hrmmm.. little worrying.

Anyway, glad it hasn't come to that yet and you are getting some sleep!

Lena, I'm hearing you!! I feel miles worse on the days when Jake has gone 6.30 - 6.30, than on the nites its up every 3 or 4 hours... weird

Libby how old is Israel? I'm wondering how soon is ok to try controled sleeping for it to work?

I think it is about 3 months, but then my lactation lady said 6 months (AS IF!!!!!)
We started the - as Nikki calls it- "operation taking back the control" controlled crying at around 6 weeks though, and had mixed results. I tried again when he was bit older (and more settled with feedings etc) maybe around 3 months with better luck. It took about 3 days and he got the idea. Still sometimes have poo-ey days, but thats normal with babies, I guess!

OK - I think I am an awful mum because I basically did it right from the word go.... Whenever I put Joey down for a sleep if he cried or grizzled and I knew everything was fine I would just leave him for a while and he always fell asleep. I didn't know that it was a "method" I just thought it made sense for good habits for later. When Joey goes to sleep now he usually doesn't even cry because he knows the drill or if he cries he is asleep in under 5 minutes (USUALLY).

I'm with you Ana. Have always left Hannah to settle herself if I know everything is fine (she only 5 weeks old now!) and she is pretty good already. Not for everyone I guess but its worked for us.

I hope you didn't feel bad reading my post as i wasn't entirely sure my information is correct. Just a guess! And as I said, every baby is different....unfortunatly no bloody instruction manual!

Ana... I think it's great that you did that!
I think the controlled crying method is more to do with the crying that is a step past grizzling... you know how there is a change in the type of cry?
Even now I don't let Hannah cry if she is doing (what I call) her "Crying Frenzy". She works herself up so much that there is no way she'd get to sleep.

Anyway, sounds like Joey is doing very well so no harm done!

wot was it with last night??/ Harmony went down at around 730ish and wkoe around 9 screaming her head off so tried a bottle,me bonjela and finally nurofen and me agian when she finally gave in and fell asleep again.