NCSS Support Thread - Page 3

[LoveMyLil'B]

We're doing a little better here too. She is still nursing once or twice a night usually, but she's not waking every hour (or less!) anymore. She seems to sleep much more soundly in her bed, so that's what we'll do. I'm still bringing her to our bed for nursing. I also followed the advice of not rushing to her every time she makes a peep, and her sleep is improving. We don't let her lay there and cry, but sometimes she will fuss off and on for a minute or two before going back to sleep, but never any longer or we go right to her. When she's hungry, she definitely has a different cry and I go right to her.

We also stopped swaddling her. I figured if we were going to help her to sleep on her own, we'd go ahead and hit it straight on instead of having to do it all over again when she was ready to be unswaddled. She has done surprisingly well. We found out that she likes to sleep on her tummy, something she couldn't do swaddled, so perhaps that's helping her to sleep better too. We still swaddle for naps since she usually wakes up if you lay her down unswaddled.

[mamanurse]

I still swaddle 8 month old dd for most of her naps: I don't want to, but it seems to really help her settle down and go to sleep. We don't swaddle her for bedtime and she sleeps at least 10 hours straight:. For naptime, I lay her in the crib after feeding, reading, and rocking. If she doesn't fall asleep within a half hour (no she's not crying, just chatting to herself), I swaddle her up and she goes to sleep within five minutes. Any recommendations on how we can get her to nap without swaddling?

[henhao]

Originally Posted by mamanurse

I still swaddle 8 month old dd for most of her naps: I don't want to, but it seems to really help her settle down and go to sleep. We don't swaddle her for bedtime and she sleeps at least 10 hours straight:. For naptime, I lay her in the crib after feeding, reading, and rocking. If she doesn't fall asleep within a half hour (no she's not crying, just chatting to herself), I swaddle her up and she goes to sleep within five minutes. Any recommendations on how we can get her to nap without swaddling?

Is there any reason you want to stop swaddling? I don't see any harm in it. Am I missing something?

[henhao]

Originally Posted by mamanurse

Wow! I didn't really know what the NCSS was, but this is EXACTLY what we do. We were really blessed with a babe that likes to sleep long stretches at night, so maybe that's why she followed our "lead" so easily. Sometimes, we still struggle at naptimes with following asleep. Is it ok to join the thread if we want to do NCSS for naptime too or does it not work?

YES, please join the thread. Maybe you and I can help each other. We're having the most trouble with naps. We've had trouble getting her down. She cries a lot; we stay with her to soothe her. She goes to sleep great at night when we do a routine, so I'm thinking we need more of a nap routine! I'm trying to think of what relaxing things we can do before her nap...read books, walking...any other ideas? The warm bath works so well at night, but I can't give her a bath 3 x per day.

[henhao]

Originally Posted by nubianamy

Total weirdness. We're new NCSSers. Two days ago I did a nap log for my 5mo (3 naps, total 3.5 hours, very good for her!) and a sleep log (8 wakings across 11 hours, nurse to sleep each time). I tolerate this level of non-sleep pretty well, but it was surprising even to me to realize how many times she was waking up at night to nurse.

She could have been exhasuted. Every babe is different. Mine often gets WIRED when she's tired.

When I charted the naps and night sleep, I was also surprised at how little she slept. We spent so much time trying to get her back to sleep that it was subtracting from her overall number of hours. She was sleeping about 9-10 hours (with 5-6 wakings) at night and that's not enough.

I may have lived with it if it'd been only 1-2 wakings, but 5-6 was too much for me to handle.

[mamanurse]

I watch her very closely for sleepy "signals." Dd is an eye rubber and that's my cue that she's ready to sleep. As soon as she does that, I change her diaper, feed her, and rock her 'til she's drowsy. Then I put her in her crib and sometimes end up swaddling her for naps if she gets too hyper when I put her down.

I want to stop swaddling her for naps because she is 20 pounds and I won't be able to do it forever. She can "bust out" of a swaddle in the blink of an eye. If I end up having to swaddle her, I only do her arms. I have to hold her arms at her side while she drifts off to sleep or else she gets all hyper again when she gets her arm out of the swaddle. Right now, she can't sit up on her own, but pretty soon she'll be able to. I just don't want to have to pin her down to go to sleep. There's something that I feel is wrong with my "technique" and I want to change it.

[raspberryswirl]

Does anyone else think that the NCSS should have its own sub-forum??? There's obviously enough interest in it. It would make it a lot easier for us to find, post and respond to all the different situations going on in this thread. kwim? How do we go about requesting that?

[henhao]

Originally Posted by raspberryswirl

Does anyone else think that the NCSS should have its own sub-forum??? There's obviously enough interest in it. It would make it a lot easier for us to find, post and respond to all the different situations going on in this thread. kwim? How do we go about requesting that?

The low supply milk tribe got a board for "breastfeeding challenges" and it took some time to get it. I think the mods wanted to make sure there was a need. If you want, you could write to one of the mods like Cynthia Mosher (is that her name) and ask how to proceed.

[henhao]

Originally Posted by mamanurse

I want to stop swaddling her for naps because she is 20 pounds and I won't be able to do it forever. She can "bust out" of a swaddle in the blink of an eye. If I end up having to swaddle her, I only do her arms. I have to hold her arms at her side while she drifts off to sleep or else she gets all hyper again when she gets her arm out of the swaddle. Right now, she can't sit up on her own, but pretty soon she'll be able to. I just don't want to have to pin her down to go to sleep. There's something that I feel is wrong with my "technique" and I want to change it.

Okay, I get it. I wish I had something to suggest. Our DD only went to sleep with swaddling for the first 4-5 months. Once she could bust out, it got harder and she sort of naturally transitioned out of it.

One thing I did -- I forget how old your DC is -- was to have a 1 lb weight wrapped with a few soft, fuzzy receiving blankets. I would put DC in the cosleeper and have one side of her against the "wall" nearest me and the other side of her would be next to the weight with blankets. I think she liked that "snuggled in" feeling.

[chiro_kristin]

Okay, Deb (henhao) knows me... I need your support and help, and I have zero time to read a book.

This is how things usually go down:

Up at 8:15-8:30 at which time ds nurses, gets changed, and goes off with me to work.

Goes down for a nap at 11-11:30, by nursing and then standing up to rock and hum Winnie the Pooh, then lying back down and nursing off. Takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes. Sleeps for 2-1/2 hours, 90% of the time. If he wakes up early, I rock him with shushing, and he goes back to sleep quickly (generally). Today he slept for 1:45. I tried to see if he wanted to sleep longer, but when I put him down and nursed again, he woke up, so we got up.

Nap again at 5:30-ish, usually for 1-1/2 hours, same routine to go down.

DH gets home at about 7:30, at which time we finish cooking, eat, clean up, enjoy each other.

At 9:30-10, we start the bedtime routine, which involves massage, diaper change, putting on PJs, and nursing, rocking, nurse-down. The whole process usually takes an hour. Ds is very happy during this time but has problems letting go of the fun that he has while awake.

On good nights he sleeps 2 hours at a time before waking to nurse while lying down. On medium nights he wakes more frequently or crawls on top of me to get me to get up and rock him back to sleep. On bad teething nights (he's cut 5 teeth in the past two months) it is just horrendous, as he wants to sleep but can't settle himself into a deep sustained sleep (and by sustained I mean more than an hour).

Any help is appreciated. I'm willing to put him down whenever (I have a little bed for him at work) or put him to bed earlier, but this is the schedule I believe he has designed for himself. Oh, and dh and I play volleyball on Monday nights from 7-8, and the babysitter is across town so by the time I go get ds and come back home after vball, it is 8:45 or so!

I can pretty much almost handle the two-hour wakings although I'm pretty sick of it and think it isn't necessary for him anymore, although I can function on that. But two-hour wakings should be BAD nights, not GOOD nights, kwim?

When he wakes, he's never "up." He -wants- to go back to sleep.

Thanks

[henhao]

Kristin,

I'll give you advice based on the book.

It sounds to me like he's up for way too long during the day. That *might* be one reason why he has trouble settling himself...because he's so tired! Sometimes babies sleep worse when they are overtired.

The tricky thing is you have 3 areas to work on.

One is night sleep.

One is naps.

One is the sucking to sleep association. (Not everyone on MDC agrees that nursing to sleep is not a good idea. However, you've stated a problem that I believe will improve for you if you stop nursing to sleep.)

The VERY first thing you have to do is keep a log for 24 hours so you have an overall picture of what's going on with C and his sleep.

The firs tlog is day sleep. Track how you put him to sleep, how long he slept (from what time to what time) and how he woke up(cyring smiling etc)

The second is night sleep. Track how he fell asleep (while you were nursing, etc), what time was the first sleep and then the time of each wake up....

You know what? I can email you my logs, so you can use them for your own tracking. Send me a PM with your email and I can send you the Word doc so you'll have all the info you need to track. That would be SO much easier than me trying to explain it all here.

Making a log is the very first thing you need to do.

[chiro_kristin]

Deb, your box is full. I think my e-mail is in my profile.

I want to clarify that I do already detach him from the nipple. I can't sleep when he is on, so I do usually have to detach him before he releases it himself. Maybe not soon enough for EP's advice, but I do that.

[*Amy*]

I haven't been able to keep up with all posts, but just wanted to say this is the first night we are actually doing the whole plan, for better or worse. I'm kind of skeptical right now though because I did the nipple removal (or whatever she calls it) and DD protested *every* time, to the point that she woke up fully again and it took another 45 minutes to get her to fall asleep. <sigh> She *almost* fell asleep on her own without the breast at all, but I just couldn't take how sad and pitiful she was (though she didn't cry til the very very end of a long attempt at it). So I don't know. I'm going to keep trying, but it definitely seems like things are getting worse rather than better. For the past few days, I've even been trying the nipple removal before naps like the book suggests, and her naps have gotten worse over this past week; she used to sleep at least an hour to 90 minutes straight, and now she wakes up after about 30 minutes, nurses, and then goes back to sleep. It's like she's developed sleep anxiety or something. It's so frustrating, depressing, and exhausting.

[Tangelo]

^We had the same issue with my first attempt at the "Pantley Pull Off." After trying it several times, my son was more awake than sleepy. It wasn't a very encouraging start. I know I need to stick with it in order to give it a chance to work, but I am having a couple of issues. It's hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment in which to attempt the PPO, and I'm not really comfortable with holding his chin--he just gets mad.

I would *really* like to get my son used to going to sleep without the boob! I am so burned out of laying there in the dark for hours and hours waiting for him to fall asleep. I bought NCSS a couple of months ago, but am just now getting up the motivation to actually give it a shot.

[henhao]

I hear ya in that I was also tired of being in a dark room for hours trying to nurse the babe to sleep...I'll note that I did not have luck with the PPO. I did it over and over and had an upset baby.

What DID help was moving the nursing up in the routine. My routine is now:

nursing
books
warm bath
into dark room for pjs and new diaper
walking
into crib while awake/drowsy
(NO nursing at the end)

I had to get rid of that nursing-to-sleep association. She was not happy about it and let me know. This is when I used techniques from Good Night, Sleep Tight...the NCSS worked for us ***to a point*** and we had to use GNST to get all the way there...I soothed her and was there for her during the transition. I used key words like "time for night night" and also said "shhh". Every few nights we did a little less and moved a little further away to let her know that we're there for her AND that she can do this on her own. DH and I were in SHOCK when she fell asleep on her own. I mean it. He walked out one night with his mouth hanging open. I walked out the next night with MY mouth hanging open.

It can be done. Hang in there!

If you are super exhausted, think about whether you need to take a break, get some rest and start again.

If you are having lots of trouble, think about if you are really ready to do this. I thought I was ready a long time ago, and I just wasn't.

It wasn't until I was ready that things started to click into place. And parts of it were sad for me. Change is often sad AND happy, and that's how it was for me.

[Tangelo]

Thanks for that post. I keep thinking that the NCSS is my only option and that if it doesn't work, my son will never be able to fall asleep on his own and I will be doomed forever. I think that's part of the reason I have been putting off trying the technique--I am too afraid of failure! It's reassuring to know that there are other options, if this doesn't work for us.

[*Amy*]

Tangelo, I know what you mean about feeling like if this doesn't work, there isn't anything left.

Henhao, I also have been moving the nursing to the beginning of our sleep routine. Our first step in night-night time is a bath, and she has been nursing a lot during our bath so by the time we get into bed, her tummy is full and she doesn't want to nurse anymore. That happened last night; she would latch on just out of habit, and realize her tummy was full, and spit the nipple out. So I know that is one technique that will help.

She did sleep well last night though, so I guess it is working to a degree. She slept from 8:45 to 2:45 without waking, and when she woke she was able to get herself comfortable again and fall asleep without my assistance at all. (We need a hallelujah emoticon!) After that, I think she woke up two more times to nurse, but I know she was hungry because her little tummy was growling! So...I do feel encouraged to keep trying, but I'm just not sure if I need to adapt our plan or if I should stop trying the PPO. I guess I'll do the 10 days and see, but my biggest fear like I said in the earlier post is creating sleep anxiety because she hasn't had any to this point. I've never heard of GNST; I'll have to check it out.

[raspberryswirl]

Originally Posted by henhao

The low supply milk tribe got a board for "breastfeeding challenges" and it took some time to get it. I think the mods wanted to make sure there was a need. If you want, you could write to one of the mods like Cynthia Mosher (is that her name) and ask how to proceed.

Thanks henhao, I did e-mail Cynthia but was told "they don't provide forums of that nature"...whatever that means. I guess maybe it is too specific or maybe they don't want a forum based on someone's book. It's too bad b/c I think a lot of us would get a lot of use out of it. Oh well....

Unfortunately too that Elizabeth Pantley herself doesn't offer a forum on her website. She has links to discussion groups that supposedly do have forums about the book but I've found that many of them are no longer active. Well, there is one on sheknows.com but it's just getting started and so activity has been scarce.

[sweedma]

:

Lurker here -- I read NCSS a while back and tried it halfheartedly. I basically have always had to do the PPO because my ds never willingly lets go of the nip -- seriously, he can apparently nurse in his sleep for hours. Now he does sometimes roll over and go to sleep after I pop him off, even in the middle of the night, but I'd sure like a few more continuous hours! I'll be learning from your experiences... (no pressure )

[mamanurse]

She did it!!!

Livi fell asleep for both naps today and yesterday without being swaddled. Maybe she's actually onto something...