Help with our NCSS plan PLEASE! (post #3)

[expat-mama]

We just got the NCSS and are going to start formulating a plan based on that to get him sleeping more and waking less, fall asleep without nursing and also to get him sleeping on his own sometimes.

DS is 7 months and his night-waking is becoming too much for us. I'd be extremely happy to have 4-5 hours of continuous sleep- right now we get max 2 hours at a time most nights. After almost every waking I nurse him back down to sleep and that's usually the only way he'll go to sleep.

I'm also worried about him starting to crawl and crawling right off the bed. We have a bed rail next to me, but I'm afraid that won't be enough. And I'd like to be able to put him down before we go to sleep in a safe place- right now he sleeps the first part of the night alone on our bed but he won't be safe there when he really starts moving. Ideally, I think he'd be part-time co-sleeping  -  sleeping at least the first part of the night in his pack n play (though he's getting big for it I think) or a crib and the rest of the night with us and maybe sleeping on his own when we want the bed to ourselves.

 I'm just worried about night-weaning. I don't want to night-wean him, I just want to make him wake less and not need nursing to get down to sleep all the time, but it seems like the aim of the NCSS is to night wean. We're not ready for that I'm sure.

I don't understand how to use the NCSS to cut down night-wakings to one or two, encourage independent sleeping and find other ways to get DS to sleep besides nursing while at the same time NOT night weaning???

[elluin]

We used NCSS only partially around the same age. Dd was waking far too often (for me) and getting her back to sleep was an ordeal every time. We just didn't implement any of the strategies full-time. We wanted her to go at least two hours without nursing (she nursed every two hours by day and then snacked all night). So when she woke less than two hours after a feeding, dh responded and tried to sooth her to sleep. If she fussed at all I nursed her to sleep. This did help her learn to settle back to sleep when she woke but wasn't hungry. She still nurses every 2-3 hours at night (she is 10 months now), but she seems to be hungry and usually goes right back to sleep. I also would love a longer block of sleep, but she doesn't seem ready. When something is bothering her, like teething or getting sick, she still nurses a lot more.

She sleeps in our bed too, but around the same age we started putting her in a crib to start the night because we were also worried about crawling. The crib is next to our bed; we're actually using the crib side as the bed rail right now. She goes to sleep in our arms or nursing and then dh sets her in the crib if we're not going to be in bed with her. Sometimes she doesn't like waking in the crib though so we only tend to do this when we need to and we often move her into our bed before she wakes.

To get her to sleep sometimes without nursing, dh would bounce or walk with her when she was full and sleepy. Sometimes she will go to sleep on his shoulder, sometimes she would fuss and then nurse to sleep. Now she falls asleep on either of our shoulders or nursing. I think this also depends on starting nursing well before she gets tired so she is able to fill up before she gets too sleepy.

I'll have to check the book to see if we implemented any other changes. I hope this helped answer your question though... I think you just have to listen to what feels right for you and baby over sticking to your sleep plan.

[expat-mama]

Well we are night #4 of our plan and everything seems to be getting worse! So much worse. I'm so confused now as to what we're doing... I don't know if we're doing it right anymore or if we ever were.

We first started with DH doing all the soothing for DS nightwakings except at around 12 and again at 4-5 when he usually is hungry rather than needing nursing for comfort. It worked the first night...sort of. The next night everything went crazy- DS woke more times than I could count and wouldn't let DH soothe him at all. I ended up nursing him every time AFTER DH would try to soothe and by then DS would be so worked up it would take twice as long to get him down. Last night we decided to try doing it again with DH trying to soothe but then when it didn't work trying the Pantley Pull-off so when DS was almost asleep from nursing DH or I would try bouncing or rocking or pat-shush to get him fully asleep. 

I'm just not sure what we're doing anymore. DS keeps waking up earlier and earlier for the day too. And I'm more tired than we started so I feel like I can't think straight to decide how to approach things and plan for the night during the day or even REMEMBER really what we were doing and what went wrong the night before. It's all a blur.

I feel like we are screwing things up more than before. Instead of the soothing to sleep getting shorter in duration like it's supposed to, it's getting longer and more involved and convoluted.

So I think these are my questions, but I don't really know anymore ...

Is it better to take one approach- EITHER just the Pantley pull-off, so nursing to put DS back down all night OR just having DH soothe him with NO nursing (except at 12 and 4-5)?

Should we not be giving up when DH can't soothe him to sleep? Just keep trying and not "give in" and nurse him? (I feel like we might be reinforcing that he "needs" the boob to calm down because he gets so worked up and then only calms down when I nurse him.)

Ugh, so tired and confused! HELP!

[Carolinamom4]

I hope it gets better. No advice other than we have the same sort of situation going on and are also wiped out! Good luck!

[evabea]

I have no advice either, but hope others have some strategies to share about NCSS, too! DD (7 months) goes for some longer stretches, but I know she doesn't need to nurse THAT much overnight, especially right after she's gone to bed, and sometimes she won't even nurse to sleep, but demands to be picked up afterwards... I'm not interested in night-weaning, either. If she's hungry a few wakings don't bother me at all and I often barely remember them if she goes back to sleep well. The times she's up for a few hours-- and nursing and rocking/walking/bouncing don't work-- is what's a bummer. Her dad doesn't live with us, but is here several times a week, so I'm also not sure if it's good to have him soothe her instead of nursing (say, if she's just nursed an hour ago) if he can't do that every night... I feel there are parts of NCSS that might be very helpful for us, but I'm not exactly sure which ones...

I'm also debating whether to just get that darned crib now, since she's going to crawl anytime now. She stays put surrounded by pillows before I come to bed, but that won't last much longer I know.

[evabea]

Also, I think most of the NCSS techniques would take some time to start working, so it might be understandable that things are worse before they (hopefully) get better. Which is likely why I've been reluctant to try anything that would make my life harder in the short-term...

[expat-mama]

Thanks for the replies. Good news (I posted this in the life w/a babe thread about starting a sleep "boot camp"):

Last night was WAY better! Yea, yea, yea! I feel like a new woman today!

We changed our plan (again) and it seemed to work better this new way.

I nursed DS to sleep in our pretty normal fashion- nursed for a while then when he was pretty much asleep rocked him for just a couple of minutes and popped him into his crib. Oh yeah, we made it for our 7 pm goal finally too! So DS slept from 7-10:30 (waking 3 times, DH put him down pretty quickly during those times), we went to bed at 10:30 and DS stayed in his crib next to our bed. He woke up at exactly 12 and I nursed him as per our plan (he was definitely hungry/thirsty), but then brought him back into bed with us. (We had wanted to get him sleeping in his crib for the night- but decided we'll make that a later goal and concentrate on getting him to have less wakings). I nursed him back to sleep, not really bothering with the PPO as he was mostly asleep through the feeding anyway. Then from 1230-4 DS woke 2 more times and DH soothed him back down. It took DH a while to get him down the second time but he was really determined. DS was bucking and squirming against him and complaining, it was awful- but he wasn't fully crying. Then the fourth time when he got up around 4 I got up and he was ravenous and had a good long feed and (here's the best part)...he slept until 7!!! Woohooo!!!

Small victory, but oh I feel so much better. And I don't feel like we are running around in circles or moving backwards. Maybe this WILL work...

Today I am concentrating on keeping our loose daytime schedule for feeds, meals and naps and keeping the hope alive that tonight will be EVEN better!

EVABEA, My DS isn't crawling yet either, but we JUST got him a crib because as you said, it will be ANY day now for sure. We didn't expect him to start rolling like he did...until we found him happy as a clam on the floor next to the bed one day! Ooops. I thought this time we should think ahead. Now we already have to lower the crib to the low setting because DS can pull himself from sitting to his knees. Darnit. Now I have to figure out how the heck to put him waaay down there without waking him up. It's ridiculous.