Today, I left the house. Yay! Sounds like such a small thing, but for me it was so nice to get to the shops (even if it is the boring, local ones) and have a coffee and not look at my walls for a day. Little Pi enjoyed it too, and I figured that he had been doing so many of his naps in his crib that it would probably be okay to get out for a bit. I think we both needed it.
Here is how Day 6 looked:
Nap 1- 3 mins to get to sleep- 23 mins sleep
Nap 2- 17 mins to get to sleep- 32 mins sleep
Nap 3 - 4 mins to get to sleep- 25 mins sleep and then another hour and 25 minutes while/after nursing.
Nap two was done in the pram at the shops. I deliberately didn't put on the white noise to see if he would drop off. It took a while of just wheeling him around and sang "twinkle twinkle" twice, but eventually he went to sleep. For nap 3 I didn't do anything though. Just sat in the chair to be present, but boring. It worked much better.
Bed (at 6:39pm)- 25 mins to get to sleep (see below)
During the night:
11:20pm*- 8 mins to get back to sleep
1:26pm- 3 mins to get back to sleep (I actually did this one instead of Husband, as I was so sleepy I thought it was just after the feeding)
3:12am*- 10 mins to get back to sleep
4:12am - 22 mins to get back to sleep (It took a while, but he was happy, not crying)
4:38am- 17 mins to get back to sleep
At bedtime, I actually let him cry for again. This time it took a while, and it seemed that me talking to him and trying to comfort him with my voice was actually messing with him. He would almost go to sleep, and then I would say "good boy" or something, and then he would start up again.
During the night, Husbands method of settling has been a little too gentle (would pat until almost asleep). We decided we needed consistency and because our voice tended to mess him up a bit we decided on a new plan for all naps/night wakings/bedtime.
****THE PLAN****
We pick him up and cuddle him, sing "twinkle twinkle" once, and say something like "It's time for sleep now. We love you very much and hope you have big sleeps. We'll be here when you wake up. Sweet dreams, little man, nigh nighs". And then lay him down and go sit in the chair silently- so he can still see us, but we are as boring a possible and he knows he must go to sleep by himself. We watch the clock and if he is settling down after 5 minutes then we don't do anything, if he is still crying then we get up after 5 mins and do the exact same thing. Repeat every 5 mins.
*****
It worked spectacularly! He gets a lot less frustrated and after that decision he was often asleep in 5 minutes- even at night. Sometimes he tossed and turned for a bit longer, but no crying. I don't know if this new plan would have worked if we did it straight away as it is a little like controlled crying but with us in the room, though now that we have been gently pushing him to a point, we are just fading away our presence gradually. We realise that we will also need to stop picking him up (which we will fade out to a pat, and then voice, and then nothing).
We'll try the plan for all of tomorrow and see how he goes.
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