Sleep training...

I just read this on the bounty forum, and I reckon Amber must have read it...!

Sleep training...

OK, here's my situation. My Mommy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great - I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened. Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep thru the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I've talked to other babies, and it seems like it's pretty common after Mommies have had us for around 6 months. Here's the thing: these Mommies don't really need to sleep. It's just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep - they just don't need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it the Crybaby Shuffle.

It goes like this:
Night 1 - cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, it's hard. It's hard to see your Mommy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it's for her own good.
Night 2 - cry every 2 hours until you get fed.
Night 3 - every hour.

Most Mommies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mommies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mommies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don't give in. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!!If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT'S HARD! But she really does not need the sleep, she is just resisting the change. If you have an especially alert Mommy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mommy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it. Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it. BE CONSISTENT!

I cried for any reason I could come up with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet. My mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears. I hadn't eaten pears since lunch, what's up with that? The cat said "meow". I should know. My Mommy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. LOL. Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right - doesn't matter! Keep crying!!

It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am. You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mommies' internal clocks.

P.S. Don't let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck on them, no milk will come out. Trust me.

Busy Busy Busy!!!

Sorry its been so long since I posted. Obviously, I've had my hands full! Amber is getting bigger and more active and learning new things with every day, and she takes up all of my time! I managed to get her to bed at around 8ish tonight, and finally got her to sleep by about 9.30 (a whole hour earlier than last night!). She's going to be 9 weeks on Wednesday - where has the time gone?!

My new life as a Mummy has got nice and busy now! We have playgroup at St Marks church on Monday morning (the killer is it starts at 9.30 - ouch!), health visitor clinic on a Tuesday, Thursday is breastfeeding support group and every other Friday is rhyme time at the library!

Solved a mystery at rhyme time last Friday - met Louise and 5 month old Roxanna - who SO looks like her dad, Sam. Congratulations, if you ever read this! I knew they were expecting and I'd been asking around to see if anyone knew how things had gone for Sam and Louise, but no one seemed to know... but then they sat right behind me at rhyme time and we had a nice chat!



Speaking of community church, whats going on there then, eh? Louise said they are taking a break from their outreach... for those of you that do not know, the community church in Southampton has possibly the best outreach in Southampton. They really get involved in the community (hence the name I suppose!) and get the youth in the church via the big story. Recently, it seems that ALL outreach has stopped - they aren't even having a Sunday morning service! They have a fantastic event called the big story, which is a christian concert type thing for teens and anyone else who wants to go (me!) which my brother is very closely involved in. But they have cancelled it, and made people redundant, and not replaced it! Its a very popular event, how can they just cancel? It seems like the church leaders came in and went, 'well, everythings going fantasticly - how can we b*gger it up royally? I know, lets not do ANYTHING for ANYONE and have a bit of a break, and not let on when we are going to get things going again?' Its supposed to be so that they can figure out what outreach to concentrate on, but I worry about what people will do in the meantime without that outreach. Will they go elsewhere? If they end up at another church, fine, but if they end up giving up on Christianity altogether because the services they used aren't there any more, then that's bad.

Rant over, time for bed methinks! Amber will be waking up for her evening feed soon. Night night!

xXx

xXx

Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!