HELP! Should I start or wait? Nasal congestion and teething?

[Daisy2009]

Ladies,

I was planning on starting the PRM1 routine tomorrow morning with my 16 month old son after 6 days of role plays that didn't really go well. He keeps protesting being held during the role play and wants to run away from the room. (not good associations apparently with sleeping in his crib)

Recently we have had many wakings in the night with difficulty returning to sleep, which I am pretty sure are related to teething (canines and first molars all coming at the same time) And on top of it he seems to have caught cold, he was congested last night and today with some sneezing (no coughing or fever).

So I desperately need guidance on whether it makes sense to wait for the congestion to go away before I start the new routine. I talked to the pediatrician and she wasn't very helpful. She said it is up to me but possibly it will be ok to start. She also said if I wait I may never find the right time. She noticed how sleep deprived and depressed I have been. I want to start it but I don't want it to fail by seeing him in a miserable state.

In terms of daily activities we have some improvements in diaper change and cot play but things are not very consistent in general. He is still resisting my guidance and doing his tantrum. But these prolonged wakings and asking to be bounced at 3 am for 2 hours has taken its toll on me. So not sure what to do now? Should I wait just for few days? I arranged my work schedule for starting the routine tomorrow but I may be able to shift things by a few days if needed. I am just praying that these few days in between will not have many wakings and I won't turn into a zombie or a monster.

Any input would be very helpful!
Irem

[Allycat76]

Hi,
To be honest I would probably go ahead with it personally, just make sure you have given him pain relief and consider setting up a steamer in the room to help his stuffy nose, even elevate the cot with phone books or similiar at one end under the legs of the cot.If he is just a little congested and no temp and otherwise happy I would go ahead and start tomorrow with no hesitation personally. As your doctor said, you could be waiting forever of you wait for teething to stop.

That being said, you know your baby better than any of us and if you think he will be 100 times worse ordinarily on a normal night let alone a night where you are attempting to sleep train him successfully then I think you should wait.

I would think that you need to be 1000% sure that you are not going to go in and pick him up, no matter what, as all you will be doing is undoing all your hard work and prolonging the agony of trying to get through this successfully. If you don't start tomorrow then I would suggest you really need to seriously work on cot play as it sounds as if you still have a long way to go on that and if bub won't play happily in the cot with the lights and even you in the room then I feel you will still have problems in getting him to sleep in there on his own also.

Hope I've been of some help!
Allison

[Allycat76]

I just wanted to add that I know others on here have had problems with inconsistent and negative cot play and resistance from their bub but they still went on to have very positive results, a lot of the time purely just from the increased communication, the predictable routines and the sheer relief from their bub in having the responsibilty of running the day off their little shoulders. So keep it up, stay positive as you can given your situation and if it helps you, as someone else has suggessted before, keep positive affirmations that Sheyne says in the book on your fridge, on bub's bedroom door etc.

Good luck and please keep us posted if you can

Allison

[Daisy2009]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

I greatly appreciate your response. Words cannot describe it. I was really close to losing it last night, trying to decide with very little sleep what to do even though I knew that only the mom would know the answer. I went ahead and started the program. He was much better last night in terms of congestion and didn't have teething waking . I put the humidifier like you suggested. When he woke up ~4am waking instead of nursing I had to bounce him (31 pounds weight) for 1 hour and 35 minutes. That really told me that I need to do this now and not break my back in the next few days.

So we are in Day 1, just went through the nap part. He was very tired from shorter than usual night sleep but he was very good with following my guidance, including crib play. I was really surprised.

I really failed with the leg wrap, and firm tuck. I need to fix them for the night sleep. He fell asleep after 36 minutes of crying. Longest 36 minutes of my life. But I think it was more communication based, rather than distressed. Maybe some parts of it was a bit distressed like but didn't sound like last that long. Honestly I am still not sure about crying interpretation. He was calling my name a lot and that's why I kept thinking it is communication based. I managed to go through that by going in only once but had to rewrap him in that time. His cry continued at first when I held him but slowed down and stopped at some point during the wrapping part. So not sure whether he was actually in distressed cry. I hope he was not!! Majority of the time I was praying and trying to figure out the type of cry it is and didn't want to go in without knowing what cry it is.

I wanted to send a quick update from our first attempt. Now I need to get ready for the night.

I will send another update hopefully with good news tomorrow.

Thanks again so much!
Irem

[Allycat76]

I'm so glad to have been of some help!

I understand what you mean about the crying interpretation and I think that in the very beginning it is VERY hard to interpret what your little one is trying to say to you-he will be all mixed up with his crying too a bit. Try and focus on the breaks/gaps in the crying if you hear them as the more gaps and the longer gaps can indicate that sleep bus approaching. I am sure that you have not really listened to him cry at length much before-even as a newborn but there is a real pattern to it and once you hear it happening I am sure a little lightbulb will go off in your head!
Rememer when you do go in to keep super calm and use your voice as the soother not your arms...keep saying the cues in a melodic calming voice to him-he can't see you but your voice will really indicate to him that everything is ok, no need to fear sleep etc.

What I do during that first ten minutes after putting bub down safely in cot for sleep is completely walk away and get myself really busy doing something. My laundry room is just far away enough to be out of earshot and ten minutes is enough for me to put on a load of washing also. Then when I come back in, if I can still hear "protesting cries" then I will assess what to do next based on the cries, gaps in between them etc etc. Sometimes even I (mum of three!) need to walk away and take a break from it all to be able to walk back in listening range with a fresh perspective.

I hope that you have had a positive night, stay strong and keep us updated as you can.
Best of luck- and just remember you are giving you and your bub a lifelong gift of being able to sleep soundly and peacefully on his own.
You can do this!!

Allison
P.S What program are you on? PRM1? Just in case anyway else wants to give advice for you.

[Daisy2009]

Hi Allison,

Thanks a lot for your encouragement. His night sleep was better actually. He cried for 28 minutes and fell asleep at 7:30pm. I went in once, after the first sleep bus time was passed. Then he woke up at 9:02pm for another 28 minutes. I went in there only once again. Around 1:20 he woke up for about 10 minutes and resettled without me going in. Around 5:15 he had communication cries for few minutes and resettled on his own. The two wakings around 9 and 1:30 tells me that he was uncomfortable but not sure with what exactly. At 9pm he may have been too hot from the wrap, sleepbag and the tuck in. AC is running at the window behind the curtain so it doesn't to do a great job. Need to find a solution for tha.At 1:30 waking I checked his diaper area, there was no leak. So he may have had teething discomfort. Unfortunately I did not offer him anything because I wasn't thinking straight with drowsiness.

Yes, crying interpretation is really hard. I hear him protest with anger and upset all the time without any long pause but many times it goes down in intensity in the middle and picks up again for a few seconds at random times. So I get confused whether I go or not. And when I hear the "mmmm" "nnnnn" between them I make a point to not to go, cause I had noticed that before this program once he cried to sleep in the carseat that's his settling sound.

I am so glad the first day is over but I have to admit I don't have the same excitement and energy that I had yesterday. Hearing him cry so many times tore my heart apart. I am praying that today will be much shorter cries than yesterday. I read in Sheyne's posts that some kids fall asleep in 6-8 minutes at the first try. I feel sad that I didn't prepare my son enough to have that short amount of cry. But I did what I can.

We are on PRM1 as he is LSR and in the last few weeks we qualified for urgent recovery case.

Thanks again Allison for all your support. You and Mel, have helped a lot. I am very grateful to have found this forum and wonderful mothers like you.

Best,
Irem

[Daisy2009]

Hi Allison and et al,

Sending a quick update. We had a great day yesterday with less than a minute crying for both nap and night settling. Nap time he woke up a couple of times but resettled fine. Last night he woke up very briefly and went back to sleep 3 times pretty fast.

Today, 3rd day, however is another story. He fell asleep fast but slept only 50 minutes. I waited for 6 minutes for him to resettle (planned 10+mins) but then went to check him cause he was crying very strong and differently. And because sometimes he slept only 50 minutes for naps thought that he may be actually done. After I left the room it didn't get any better. This time I followed the guideline better but when I went in I smelled his dirty diaper. And that threw me off. I knew it had to be changed but I happened to turn on the light for that and than turned it off. And he became pretty alert and talkative after that point. So, anyway, we continued with cot play afterward instead of attempting to settle him again. Didn't know how to salvage the situation. He was pretty anxious during the cot play. He turned that into another settling routine for me. Kept crying for me and wanted to play with me not alone. We had seen great improvement with cot play recently so this was a big step back. In general he was more fussy and threw a few tantrums that we hadn't seen a while. I can think that they are related to short sleep. But the night sleep was a big step back. Total 53 minutes of intense crying. I went in there 3 times. I timed it around sleep buses but my husband noticed that it was not slowing down at all this time. Constantly, intense emotional crying. When I went the 3rd time, he was saying that he has a dirty diaper (he communicates that to us normally). So I checked his diaper without turning on the lights and saying it is sleep time. He was shaking, and all sweat from crying. I hardly kept it cool during the diaper change. I put him back and said my cues and he started crying again as intense as before. I also noticed that when I say my cues he is ok. He wants to sleep in his cot, but he wants me to pat him. That is inline with his overall separation an And it is really concerning to me. I am wondering now whether we don't have the right communication? Did I ignore his cries too long the first day and he has lost trust now? I went to doctor today to check him again for ear and other cold symptoms. She didn't find anything, besides the possible teething.

I think I read somewhere in the book or on this forum that the 3rd days can be a tough one. I really hope this is common and it is supposed to get better soon. Because I don't think I can handle another 4 days of this.

I am going to read the book to find some ideas on what I can do better.

Best,
Irem

[dizzy2009]

Hi Irem,

Don't get too discouraged - you're doing fantastically!

I've had the dirty nappy at bedtime (7pm) and I just get him up, change him and wait for the next sleep bus to come along. I don't worry about the story, just go through the cues and everything as if it's our first go. I think the book says change him in bed but that's not happening in my house It's a bit harder when its at the noon sleep. If I know there's no chance of resettling Callum, I've gone for a walk in the pram or a car ride to see if he'll doze off; if not at least he's having rest time plus it gets you out of the house and you're able to do something rather than sit home stressing about 'failing'.

I think all that's happened with your night settling is that he's worked out what's going to happen when you leave and he is just testing his boundaries. The dirty nappy thing worked before so why not try it again? Pretty smart! Plus he's probably overtired from his short day sleep so everything's more emotional. The good part is he wants to be in his cot and recognizes the cues - that's fantastic. No communication issue there.

I read earlier that you had trouble with the wraps. I never got them right either! I've just started using a babyok babe sleeper. Its a sleeping bag sewn into the bottom sheet for the cot. They can roll onto their side and sit up but not stand up. Callum protested against in the first night but now loves it - no more roaming around the cot or waking himself by standing up. Might help him feel secure? Teething is a huge sleep disrupter for us. I make sure he has pain relief before bed and I got him some amber teething beads which are a natural remedy. They really helped us and actually also helped with Callum's separation anxiety 'cos they chill him out. he'll definitely be wearing them on the plane in August! Google them and see what you think.

Don't worry about not having all the answers - you've just started and you are both learning a HUGE new way of doing things and if it was that easy we would all have babies that slept through from birth and wouldn't need this forum! Give yourself a realistic 3 weeks to get the hang of things and take the pressure off yourself. You obviously care enough about your whole family to be doing this so give yourself a big hug and trust your instincts.

Mel

[Allycat76]

I agree with everything above...and you do need to give it a good three weeks to settle in. And yes, you are so right on the "third day theory" as that nearly always happens, but please don't be disheartened as it is just the last final hurdle you both need to get over before having some great success.

I went to a Mother and Baby Sleep Unit in 2004 with my eldest daughter and all the midwives and nurses said the exact same thing about the third day too! They called the "last hurrah" or something to that effect, and they were not following Sheyne's PRM either!

Hang in there, you are both doing so well, and I really feel that you are already having such a postive result already with the multiple self settlings through the nights previously to the third day.

Allison:)

[Daisy2009]

Hi Mel and Allison,

Thanks again for your supportive posts. They REALLY help. It has been tough 2 days. Today, the 4th day was better than yesterday so I still have hope. And hearing that others go through the same and that his night waking resettling is relatively good, helps a ton. Last night after taking 53 minutes to settle as I mentioned before, he woke up around 11:30 we had a tough time with 25 minutes of crying and settling with my help. I used your tactic a bit there, Mel, and slowed the process of changing his soaking wet pj slowly so I could leave him closer to the next bus. And later around 4am he self settled relatively easily. Today (4th day) during the lunch nap he cried for 15 minutes to settle and then woke up 20 minutes into sleeping . It took 20 minutes with my help to resettle and slept another 40 minutes. And night time he fell asleep in 12 minutes and resettled around 7:40 by himself within 10 minutes. But these cries are slowly killing me. I have been walking around like a all day.

Maybe these cry times are expected but due to my extreme sleep deprivation and high expectations from some other examples mentioned in the book (in terms of amount of cry) I have had hard time. Also, I have this additional stress to get the nanny on board with this program. During the day, I am trying to show her our routine. She knows bunch of things about it already and implements them , like cot play, absence cues and wait game. So at least we are not beginning now.

Also, looking at the early waking times, I think we have temperature problem in the room. The AC unit is attached to the window and my darkening curtains block the cool air from circulating well into the room.But I am working on that now and think as of tonight I solved that too. (All these little things you don't even think about as possible issues before you start with the program!)

Mel: Thanks a lot for the suggestion on the amber beads and the babyok babe sleeper products. I just placed an order for the amber bead. I am very excited about what it can do for us with all the anxiety side. Hope your trip goes well with it too. As for the sleeper, I actually already checked out that product after reading on another of your posts and created one for myself at home (sewing one large cotton sleeping bag to an existing fitted sheet) . It helps a lot but I still wonder whether he needs his legs to be wrapped, to feel cradled like he used to be before. If things wont improve I will try again leg wrapping. I ordered extra large muslin wraps to improve my leg wrapping, cause my son is really big for what I could find here for muslin wrap in regular stores. But then I started thinking how it will affect him when I keep change on him this leg wrapping thing. One day wrapped, another day not wrapped. That may be causing some of the problems too. I adjusted role plays accordingly but still it maybe confusing to him to not to see the wrap now after the teddy was wrapped for a whole week when we role played earlier, but now just the sleeping bag.

BTW I was (am planning) on staying on schedule for 3 weeks (I even told our relatives not to visit us until we are passed 3.5 weeks minimum ) but I was more referring to my expectation that this intense crying would stop within a week. I think I read that they adjust within 5-7 days. I certainly cannot go on with this type of intense crying for 3 weeks. Cause that will tell me I am doing something wrong. But keeping my fingers cross for the 5th day to make a big difference.

Thank you both again very much for your support and very helpful suggestions. I wish you always find the support you need, anytime you want -- from me and others!

Irem

[dizzy2009]

Hey Irem,

look how far you've come in only 4 days! No bouncing! You should be really proud of yourself. If you were in Aus I think you'd go to the top of Sheyne's list for a home visit so you're doing really well

You've got a realllllly smart little boy on your hands and he's trying desperately to get you to bounce him again hence the intense crying. That level of crying absolutely kills you - especially when you're sleep deprived yourself and if you're anything like me, questioning everything you doing and stressing in case your doing something wrong - but from what I can read... you're not! It absolutely will get better. Crying has worked for him before so of course he's gonna keep trying! I'm with Ally on the do something else for the 10mins. I couldn't sit there and read while he cried! Before I go in I try and count to 10 - even if I'm going in anyway just to make sure its the right thing to do and sometimes I give it another 10 just in case .

Make sure you get some downtime for yourself - leave the baby with the nanny and get away and recharge yourself. Even better, get bubs out of the house and get some rest yourself. You need to be ok so he can be ok with what you're asking him to do. Just don't use the time to read the book again ... give it to the nanny instead!

Re: temp control its one of the most frustrating things! We don't have an ac in Callum's room, just a fan 'tho the main areas of the house does. I make sure he goes to bed dressed in what's right at bedtime i.e. not too much clothing and then I add a blanket later when I go to bed. If I try and dress him for the temp at 5am, then he's usually far too hot and won't settle at 7pm. If you are wrapping and using your babeok (LOVE that you made one ) I wouldn't have too much on him.

Re: leg wrap, I'm with you - think you need to decide yes or no. Did it make any difference when it was on him? I never tried it as we just used the sleeping bag so I'm not sure how much comfort it would give him.

Hope the amber beads work for you. I've a lot of friends who swear by them and when I still could I would wrap them around his ankle at night so they weren't a choking hazard but they could still do their stuff.

Keep up the good work,
Mel

[Daisy2009]

Hi Mel,

Thanks very much for your quick, encouraging response and putting things in perspective (yet again ) Yes, I have a pretty smarty pants to deal with. He shows it in many areas. And also, I am thrilled that there is no more bouncing after 15 long months. We made great progress in just 5 days when I compare it with just last week. We are almost there. Nap sleep is the main issue now.

He settles very well for the day time sleep-- 2-5 minutes crying. But wakes up after 40 minutes and does not resettle easily. He cried for 1.5 hours yesterday (day 5) after 40 minutes. I was really about to lose it. (and I had neglected again my own sleep) It was very discouraging. I went in there only 3 times during that time because of his intense crying and possibility of soiled diaper. The first time I found him out of his sleeping bag, standing in the crib! He managed to get out of the neck area by stretching it to its max. (My sewing was not problem ) I wrapped him this time and put back into sleeper bag, and he managed to get out of it too. Definitely standing is not helping with settling. He was crying pretty intensely, sounded distressed and would not calm down when I got into the room. I am not sure what really causes this. Today he woke up again after 40 minutes of sleep. But this time he could not get out of the sleeping bag ,cause I tightened it, but he was up for 20 minutes crying again intensely.

He is great with night sleep so far resettles fast and easy. Settles easy with nap time too but what can be the cause of 40 minute waking? I gave him pain medication for teething (which is bothering him) and paid attention to his room temperature knowing that he can get cold for during day sleep. The room was 21 degrees, he was in the sleeper bag with cotton PJs and the tuckin sheet on top of it. He he has short sleeved top but I know in the past he slept well with short sleeve in the same room setting. I may have written about this before. He used to take 1 hr 20 minute naps when he was going to bed at 11:40am. So I cannot stop thinking whether he is overtired. He used to be on 11:40am nap schedule before and that worked well for him. In the past whenever he slept at noon, he woke up after 40 minutes and would not resettle. I know we are not supposed to play with the timings of things in these routines especially at the beginning but if things don't improve by early next week I will have to try it because the nanny will take things over and she has another little one to get to sleep around that time.

I wonder how long it took for others to have a solid 1.5 hr nap sleep with this routine. Do I need to hear him cry everyday in the coming weeks for 20+ minutes so that he takes total 1 hour and 20 minutes long nap?

Regarding wrapping: Since he is ok without it for night sleep, I think i will continue without it in general.

I slept better last night, knowing that he will most likely will not have a major need for resettling support. It certainly helped with handling his cries today. I am planing a nice long bath for tomorrow and, massage + shopping over the weekend. I know I deserve them!

BTW our amber necklace arrived today and I put it on right away. Hope that it will help a bit with our nap time tomorrow. I will be soo happy when this ongoing teething phase is over.

Thanks again for your suggestions and support.

Best
Irem

[dizzy2009]

Hi Irem,

you're probably sick of me and want someone else to answer (!) but I think try him at 11.40 for the next day nap and see how you go - Callum went down at 11.40am today too - because crying for an hour and a half is excruciating for everyone! The 40min wake up is probably overtiredness like you said but you could also look at noise? I have a cd going in Callum's room that drowns out the traffic noise during the day - maybe he comes out of the sleep cycle and is disturbed? White noise cd might be worth a thought if the 11.40 nap time doesn't help.

Any day nap over 1hr 20mins is standard in our house and anything over that is a bonus - helps keep me from stressing about it anyway

Enjoy your massage, you've definitely earned it!

Mel

[Daisy2009]

Hi Mel,

Not at all! I greatly appreciate your responses. I hope I am not asking too many questions! This is really one of the hardest things I have done. I checked the book to see whether Sheyne has any suggestions for hard-to-resettle nappers for my routine. There are suggestions for those that take more than 1 nap but not for 16 month old ones. So, unfortunately I need to try the 11:40am for everyone's sanity. Today (day 7) he cried again 45 minutes to resettle after sleeping only 40 minutes before and after.

He had had white noise in his room since he was 8 weeks old. He has had sleep problems for a long time so we don't put him down without it and it continues until he wakes up. The room is completely dark.

How do you change the preceding things in the routine? Do you just change the lunch time by 20 minutes or everything starting breakfast or first snack? I think if he eats lunch around 11:00-11:05 he can be in bed by 11:40 am. But what does this mean for the other meals. Do you move the afternoon snack 20 minutes early too? Does it make Callum too hungry by 5:20? I certainly don't want to mess up his night sleep so don't want to change much around dinner and the rest of the evening routine.

If it does not work out, I will try to get an answer from Sheyne. I hope she offers phone consultations. I could not find information for that on the website.

Thanks again for your input.

Irem

[Monkeysmum]

Hello,

I found your post really interesting because we have been doing the PRM1 routine for about 6 weeks now and we had the same problem. Lil monkey did really really well at night but for some reason we really struggled with the lunch sleep. If you look in the 6-12 month board you will see a stream of posts about it.

It took us around 4 weeks to settle and sometimes he will still wake up around 40 mins although we have got much much better and sleeping around 1hr 20 - 2hrs 30 mins. Things that helped me are:

- Morning bridge: if he is over tired add the morning bridge in but I adjusted mine to 17 mins MAX! Not sure how old your little one is but if he is over tired you could give that a go. Maybe he wont always need it but may just till he catches up on his missed sleep.
- Lunch nap i moved forward by 5 mins and for some odd reason this has made a huge difference. I think he was too tired for lunch sleeps and so the extra 5 mins helps him... strange.
- I have draped a muslin over the cot with velcro to stop him seeing the door. That way he cant watch to see if I am coming in or not and blocks off the cot to make it a little more closed off.

Also, I cant believe this but the safe t sleep is the best thing we bought. When we first bought it he couldnt really stand or crawl so we had him flipping himself in his sleep or waking up because he arm was hanging out the cot. Now that he stands I am even happier about it because he cant stand or move about. It also means I can do the tuck and it stays put. Perhaps see if you can get one off ebay and give that a go.

Honestly I understand you must be going nuts with the crying because I remember only a couple of weeks back I dreaded the lunch sleeps. We still have a couple of off days but things have got better so I am confident that he may take time but he will get there. I hope I have been of some help, and sorry if I have not.

[Daisy2009]

Thank you very much for your post and your suggestions! It is great to hear making a 5 minute change even can improve things.
I read the other posts you mentioned, it is a very similar case. And looks like you had to wake him up at 6:30am even after a good night sleep too. I think that says something. That really makes me think maybe PRM2 is better for my almost 16 month old son. That's the main difference I see for his age between PRM1 and PRM2 (being able to sleep till 7am) Unless I am missing something. But before I do that I will test 5 minutes earlier lunch sleep and see how he does.

I will block the crib more too. Currently he cannot see much but I am sure he notices the light that comes in when I open the door.
For the morning bridge, I cannot see him take it as he had dropped it couple of months ago and did well with a single nap around 11:40am. (used to be a cat napper) But I pay attention at his signs of tiredness around 8:45am and guess likeliness to take it.

I am going to wait on Safe T Sleep as I think he may open it by himself, especially after he got out of the sleeper bag. He opens his diapers all the time. Today I managed to keep him lying down with his sleep bag sewn into the crib sheet. He was down the whole time but he still had resettling problems. I am pretty sure it is timing related. Need to move a bit slow with that 5 minute change as I am only on day 8 now. Later may move to 10 or 15/20 minutes. This really feels like unwiring a bomb?! Don't want to mess up things after seeing major night time improvements.

BTW The other thing I am not doing that great is the independent play time timings. Not sure whether that would help before his lunch sleep. He plays independently throughout the day for 10-15 minutes but not in a single 1 hour time slot. Since he is already doing a total 1 hour throughout the day I have not worried about it. But because of this strange nap situation, I wonder whether I need to put the independent play time into a firm schedule too.

I am VERY happy for you that you were able to solve this issue . Great job!
Thanks again very much for sharing your experience and tips with me. I will keep you posted.

Irem

[Daisy2009]

Hi there,

Just wanted to send a quick update (before I forget). Today I tried the lunch sleep 5 minutes earlier, ended up being 11:56am. It helped with resettling after 40 minutes. Instead of crying for 40- 90 minutes he resettled in 6 minutes by himself and slept for another 35 minutes. (So total 1hr 15 mins sleep) His night sleep did not have any issues in terms of settling or staying asleep at least till 10pm. He was very tired though by 5:30pm and at 7pm he was almost going to fall asleep during my cues. Luckily he didn't and he heard me close the door.

Tomorrow I will try 11:50am for lunch sleep and see what it does for total length of that sleep and the need for/length of resettling. BTW He slept pretty good last night and woke up on his own at 6:15am.
I am so happy to see all these changes in day 8th!

I am praying that we will stay on track for night sleep and improve the lunch sleep. I will be happy if we get to 1hr 20 minute nap without any resettling like he did before the program.

Thanks again for your suggestions!
Irem

[Monkeysmum]

Well done! I know it can be frustrating but as I mentioned it took us a lot longer than most to see the day time changes. In fact yesterday he woke up after the 40 min mark and cried till the next bus again which he has not done for a while. Today he is back to sleeping well which is good.

Try not to move the lunch sleep any earlier as it will affect the afternoon tired window. I moved it by 5 mins and was happy with the results so I figured that any earlier than that and he will be scratching down the walls at the 4-4.30 tired time when he refuses the afternoon bridge.

I hope things continue to improve!

[dizzy2009]

Hey Irem,

How's things going?

Mel

[Daisy2009]

Hi Mel,

Thanks for asking! Tomorrow is the last day of the 3 week program. I was waiting for that mark to post an update but since you are asking let me summarize what happened in the last week.

Things are going much better now even though we had some extra hiccups around frequent soiled nappies, early wakings and bad teething. As you may remember lunch sleep was interrupted after 40 minutes with crying every day and in some cases he was waking with soiled nappy. While trying to fix that, he started waking up at 5:30 am with soiled diaper too. I am glad I had reached out to Sheyne for consultation right around the time I had started adjusting the nap schedule. I had a chance (and the honor!!) to have consultation with Sheyne about these issues early in the week. She was extremely helpful and so nice too. She told me that his digestive system was very active with all the fruits and veggies I was giving him (and he eats a lot of them). So I started giving more plain food like rice and potato and avoided broccoli and zucchini type of veggies that he was eating a lot of. And for morning wakings with dirty nappy, Sheyne told me that he needs more carbs for dinner time because he is waking up hungry. I implemented her advice and things have gradually improved. In the last few days he slept over 1 hr without waking (today 1hr 20 minutes). Sheyne confirmed that it is ok to leave it at that. Not every child takes 2 hr+ naps. You and I seem to have our sons in that category. And this morning he woke up at 5:30am but without a dirty nappy, he resettled himself to sleep in 40 minutes with occasional call outs, no real crying. I am praying that tomorrow morning he will sleep all the way till 6 or later.

BTW I am still going with 11:55am lunch sleep schedule even though Sheyne does not think that it should matter much to stop waking after 40 minutes. Since it is working I am not changing that at least after another couple of weeks of consistently good lunch sleep.

The other thing I worked on after my consultation was the independent play time. I was not doing that in one hour block consistently. I focused on that and it helped as well, along with meal adjustments.

One thing I had not realized in the book is that we are supposed to NOT resettle if they wake up from nap with soiled nappy. I had tried once or twice before to resettle him after nappy change. But Sheyne said it is really hard to get them to resettle after their digestive system has started working. Maybe I missed that in the book.

We'll see how things will go tomorrow and this weekend. I will send another update this weekend after we officially finish 3 weeks. Hopefully with great news.

I cannot believe it has been almost 3 weeks. I clearly remember writing the first post on this thread that Friday night July 9th with extreme sleep deprivation, panick about his cold symptoms and desperation to end the bouncing. It is unbelievable how things changed in 3 just weeks!

THANK YOU so much for your support and help. I feel so lucky to have found this forum. I could not have come so far without the support I received here.

Best,
Irem

[dizzy2009]

Hi Irem,

Glad to have helped but you're the one who's made it happen. I'm so happy for you and your family. It's hard to see the positives when you're going through the difficult bits at the start but geez it's worth it eh?!? You've done so well, you should be really proud of yourself

Was interesting what Sheyne said about the digestive stuff and nappies. Don't think I got that bit out of the book either. At least you've given her new material if she puts out an updated version and it's made me think about what I'm feeding Callum - when I can get him to eat

Mel

[Daisy2009]

Hi Mel,

Thanks so much for your nice note. I DO feel proud . I hardly keep myself from screaming out loud about this book and how things changed in 3 weeks! I need to put some posts on thisjourney on other forums I participate. But have been too busy with office work. Hoping this week it will be possible.

Well, this weekend we had 3-4 minutes crying after sleeping 40 minutes and continued with another 40-50 minutes of sleep. I need to keep close eye on his food intake. He seems to have very sensitive tummy that can cause wakings. But in general I am ok with this. I trust that it will disappear soon.

I need to focus on his meal time habits now. He is becoming a fussy eater sometimes and doing things that he didn't do before like spitting his meal. I need to use his favorite toys and favorite DVD (Elmo ) to get him to eat. I believe you posted on this problem. I will respond to that on your thread.

All the best,
Irem