OK, so I'm new to the idea of publishing 'pages' on my 'blog' (honestly, all these new words!) - but essentially what I thought I would do is give this a go. In an attempt to spare my friends who are not remotely interested in parenting, I thought I would give parenting stuff, such as this, their own pages.
Apparently, Blogger informs me I can have up to 100 pages, so I guess I will need more on this rather large subject, but this can be a start.
So, to the delights of 'controlled crying'. Basically, Baby A still refuses to have a good sleeping pattern and after many discussions, Mr Big and I cannot continue to operate under such earth-shattering tiredness, so something had to give.
We (read 'I') chose to follow Supernanny's advice and bought her book 'Jo Frost's Confident Toddler Care' and followed the 'time controlled crying' technique she mentions. I also looked on the Supernanny website which I often find useful: http://www.supernanny.co.uk/
Between an amalgamation of what a sleep specialist nanny recommended on the website, and the book, we (I) decided I would put Baby A down to sleep after a set bedtime routine had been followed and I would then check on her at set intervals. The intervals I chose were 2 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins and 20 mins and the short version of what I did at each interval was go back into the room, avoiding eye contact and only saying 'shh'. I would lay her back down in her cot and gently rub her tummy to calm her, saying 'shh' as I did this. Then, crying or not, I simply left and started the timer again.
I found it helpful to have something to do that could distract me from listening to my baby cry - so I ended up funnily enough, reading about 'blogging', although I'm sure there are many other suitable distractions you can find!
I'm not entirely sure if you are meant to continue to double the time after 20 mins, but for me, 40 mins seemed just that bit too long to leave her and I was sure that in order for this to be a success, I would need to be confident I was still being a 'good Mum', otherwise I would feel guilty and probably go in and pick her up. I decided I would repeat 20 mins over. So if she was still crying after 20 mins, I would go in, 'shh' as suggested, then leave. I would then continue this pattern at 20 min intervals from there on until she finally settled herself to sleep.
I think having a plan like this helped me as it gave me the confidence to know I had already thought this through and my own threshold for this was 20 mins. If I hadn't pre-planned this, I know I would have felt too bad and gone in and picked her up in an attempt to make myself feel better. That would have put us back to square one again, so I would definately suggest planning what works for you before you start.
I won't lie as I did still feel like a bit of a monster. Like I was enforcing sleep on my child, just so I could get some rest, which felt a bit selfish. However, I took resolve from Jo Frost's sensible words, as she reminded me that I'm not abandoning my baby - far from it - I'm simply teaching her to settle herself to sleep - which is a life skill she will need for the rest of her life. Much better :)
As this post is getting rather long, I will summarise our progress separately, so this is all for now.
Apparently, Blogger informs me I can have up to 100 pages, so I guess I will need more on this rather large subject, but this can be a start.
So, to the delights of 'controlled crying'. Basically, Baby A still refuses to have a good sleeping pattern and after many discussions, Mr Big and I cannot continue to operate under such earth-shattering tiredness, so something had to give.
We (read 'I') chose to follow Supernanny's advice and bought her book 'Jo Frost's Confident Toddler Care' and followed the 'time controlled crying' technique she mentions. I also looked on the Supernanny website which I often find useful: http://www.supernanny.co.uk/
Between an amalgamation of what a sleep specialist nanny recommended on the website, and the book, we (I) decided I would put Baby A down to sleep after a set bedtime routine had been followed and I would then check on her at set intervals. The intervals I chose were 2 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins and 20 mins and the short version of what I did at each interval was go back into the room, avoiding eye contact and only saying 'shh'. I would lay her back down in her cot and gently rub her tummy to calm her, saying 'shh' as I did this. Then, crying or not, I simply left and started the timer again.
I found it helpful to have something to do that could distract me from listening to my baby cry - so I ended up funnily enough, reading about 'blogging', although I'm sure there are many other suitable distractions you can find!
I'm not entirely sure if you are meant to continue to double the time after 20 mins, but for me, 40 mins seemed just that bit too long to leave her and I was sure that in order for this to be a success, I would need to be confident I was still being a 'good Mum', otherwise I would feel guilty and probably go in and pick her up. I decided I would repeat 20 mins over. So if she was still crying after 20 mins, I would go in, 'shh' as suggested, then leave. I would then continue this pattern at 20 min intervals from there on until she finally settled herself to sleep.
I think having a plan like this helped me as it gave me the confidence to know I had already thought this through and my own threshold for this was 20 mins. If I hadn't pre-planned this, I know I would have felt too bad and gone in and picked her up in an attempt to make myself feel better. That would have put us back to square one again, so I would definately suggest planning what works for you before you start.
I won't lie as I did still feel like a bit of a monster. Like I was enforcing sleep on my child, just so I could get some rest, which felt a bit selfish. However, I took resolve from Jo Frost's sensible words, as she reminded me that I'm not abandoning my baby - far from it - I'm simply teaching her to settle herself to sleep - which is a life skill she will need for the rest of her life. Much better :)
As this post is getting rather long, I will summarise our progress separately, so this is all for now.