in the interests of sanity i finally decided i needed to change Darcy’s sleep routine. A friend with similar parenting philosophies to mine had visited karitane a little while ago with her daughter and had a good experience so i figured i’d give them a call…
I spoke to a wonderful lady (thanks, Wendy!) for over half an hour. We chatted about what i wanted and about our current routine and different ideas for things to try.
Current Routine at 8months-
wakes around 6:30 or 7am. We have a small solids meal (he does not need to breastfeed straight away as he would have fed not long ago) and then i breastfeed him an hour or so later.
Playtime for about 3+half hours.
Top-up BF to put him to sleep then i carry him back to my bed for his nap.
Naps for 40 minutes.
Playtime for another 3+half hours with another solids meal and BF in there somewhere.
BF to sleep and put in my bed for nap.
Another 40 minute nap. (will only ever nap longer if he falls asleep and is left in his carseat or is held while he naps.)
More playtime, more solids, another breastfeed.
We all sit at the table and have dinner somewhere between 6.15 and 7.15 and Darcy would have either a bath or a shower either before or after dinner.
Between 7:45 and 8:15pm he starts to get sleepy so i change him, get him ready for bed, breastfeed him in the loungeroom, hold him until he is asleep and then put him in my bed around 8pm or 8:30.
He wakes around 9 or 9:30ish and i pick him up and jiggle him or i offer the breast to calm him back to sleep.
He wakes again around 10 or 10:30ish i again offer the breast and i go to sleep with him.
He sleeps until midnight when he wakes and has a full feed.
He wakes again around 2 or 3ish and feeds again.
He then wakes very frequently and only calms if attached so i spend the rest of the night alternating between trying to soothe him back to sleep and wanting to roll over to get some space so i can try to sleep. He ends up snack-feeding two or three more times as my milk just lets down as he suckles.
He is woken by his noisy brother around 6:30 or 7 and the day starts all over again.
I loved co-sleeping with Jordy and did with Darcy too in the beginning. But by 8months of age Jordy went to bed in his own cot that was at the foot of our bed. He then came into bed with Tim and i around midnight when he had a feed. Then when he fed again around 3am i put him back in his cot until morning. Sometimes i’d fall asleep and he’d stay in bed until morning but he slept well when next to us and it was all fine. And he never minded being fed to sleep in my arms and then waking someplace different later on so we had no issues with me moving him. And he slept soundly so i could do a dream-feed if i needed to so i could have a block of sleep.
But Darcy and Jordy are two TOTALLY different kids. Over the last couple of months Darcy’s sleeping and feeding has gotten worse. Tim has had to sleep in with Jordy every night because Darcy keeps him awake and takes up half the bed. And since he has started crawling he is not safe to leave in bed for his naps cos he falls out of bed. oops! If i try to hold him and jiggle him to sleep instead of offering the breast he’ll angry-cry until i feed him and i have never allowed him to cry (even when held) for more than a minute or so, and so the only way he has ever gone to sleep has been at the breast. Which i think is lovely for a newborn but by 8months i think he needs to have an alternative (or perhaps I just need an alternative so i can get some sleep).
When speaking to Wendy at Karitane i told her that i was happy to feed him overnight at 11pm, 2am and 5am but wanted to be able to put him back to sleep without the breast any other time. The rest of his routine did not bother me but for safety reasons he needed to be able to sleep in his cot so it was important for him to be able to sleep if i were not next to him (cos i can’t fit in the cot!).
So…. apparently the first thing was to establish a proper bed-time routine.
So dinner should be at 6 or 6:30.
Bath straight after dinner.
Quiet soothing time with quiet play (i’d like to do story time but that has not worked out as yet).
Breastfeed around 7pm.
Dressed for bed.
Put into his cot around 7:15 or 7:30 with a song, (or a story when we get on track), lots of pats, “nigh nigh Darcy“’s cot rocking, mattress jiggling, humming or whatever else it takes to get him to soothe and fall asleep in his cot without boob or being held.
The other thing i need to work on is better day naps and he needs to fall asleep in his cot. Apparently he needs at least an hour for each nap (i had doubts about that initially but Wendy was right!).
And he should not need to be breastfeeding as often as he is. Four feeds over a full day should be enough. ?? This was one area where i had to respectfully disagree and i will continue to have milk his primary food with solids as a supplement for a little longer. But i think 7 feeds over a 24hour period should be enough for him.
And this is how things are going. I really should have written this each morning cos i have forgotten details already but near enough…
Night 1- did the whole routine thing. Getting him to sleep was a little tricky but not as bad as i imagined. He kept trying to roll over and find a comfy spot and obviously wanted to fall asleep but was not sure how to do it. Plus it was a good half hour earlier than when he usually falls asleep. It took about an hour. For 90% of that time he was not upset but he was certainly grizzling and kicking his legs around and having a big whinge at me and clearly angry and confused about why he was having to lay in the cot. Whenever he got upset and actually started to cry i would pick him up and rock him. He would calm immediately and almost fall asleep so i would lay him back in the cot and try to get him to calm again.
I discovered he liked to lay on his side and to have my arm wrap from his front to in between his legs and pat his back and that is the way he eventually slept with me humming to him.
He woke about an hour later and instead of offering the breast i patted him back to sleep. Again it involved lots of different things with me trying to figure out what he needed to allow him to sleep and it took some time with him alternating between grizzling, angry crys, laying almost-happily on his side for a minute before starting up again.
Around 10pm he woke again and this time he did get upset and really cry and even me holding him did not help cos he could smell the milk. So Tim took him for a while and held him until he calmed right down and was almost asleep. When he bought him to me i breastfed him and lay him in his cot just awake and patted him. He fell asleep immediately and slept until midnight (which was a miracle!).
He woke again around 2am and would not settle in the cot so i held him for a bit, but my boobs leaked all over his pyjamas! so i ended up feeding him and having to change his clothes. He settled in the cot after that with just a little bit of work. Wendy had said it would be best if he was only fed at 11pm and then again at 5am and while i did not want to confuse him with feeding him half the time and only patting him the other half (cos he can’t tell the time yet!) i think that he is accustomed to the feeds and i’d prefer to slowly push him an hour or so rather than cut the feed out altogether. And if he can learn to settle then i don’t mind if he needs a proper feed, it’s the need to be permanently attached that is killing me.
So after that feed i think he woke again around 4:30 and was again patted back to sleep and he slept until 6:30ish… maybe there was another settling in there somewhere but it was a nice easy sort of one that didn’t involve boobs! 
I considered that a great success. The first part of the night was harder than it usually was but the second half of the night was much better than usual.
The next day i put him to sleep in the cot for his nap and when he woke after 40min instead of just getting him straight out i patted him back to sleep and would you believe it he slept for a whole extra 40minutes! And that afternoon he just automatically slept for an hour. yay!
Night 2- He settled much better in the cot and was not upset. He still grizzled and kicked and got up and crawled around and kept rolling from side to back trying to settle. After about 45min or an hour of that with me alternating between humming, patting, cot rocking, mattress jiggling, and as loose a cradle-hold as possible if he needed to be held he went to sleep. I think a good deal of the problem is that it is a little too early for him…??
He still woke several times over night but settled easily most times. But his first waking was not until 10:30 which is such a wonderful break for me. I still fed him three times overnight, the first was at 10:30 but again i got a good break between feeds.
The next day he slept in the cot with no effort at all and got two good big naps.
Night 3- Much of the same again. I am definately going to push his bedtime back from 7:30 to 8pm again. I think the early dinner and bathtime is a good routine with the quiet playtime etc but i might start it at 6:30 so he is first put into the cot not before 7:30 to allow a half hour of wind down time with me in there reading/singing/patting etc. As it is i just get a stiff back leaning over the cot for an hour!
After i fed him around 2 or 3ish i put him straight back in the cot with no patting or jiggling of the cot or anything. He was just-awake and he happily rolled on to his side, made a few sleepy moaning noises and lay there for about a minute then he sighed, rolled on to his back, moaned again, rolled on to his side and went to sleep. About 15min later he moaned and rolled again but did not wake or call out. I, of course, then lay there for over an hour totally unable to sleep and Jordy decided to have a bad night (along with his pressies Santa left him a cold) so the potentially wonderful 2 hours that Darcy slept solidly i was kept awake by Jordy! LOL! You get that.
Night 4- Darcy came down with a cold overnight so we made no progress at all. Settled in-arms more often than not but he was still happy to stay in his cot and slept better than he was before we started this so i can’t complain. His middle-of-the-night feed was little more than a quick drink (although he did not want the sippy bottle of water that i offered) .
Night 5- Still really unsettled with his cold. I ended up giving him some panadol at 10pm and that helped him to settle. Tim and i have been sick too and both had horrible headaches so no doubt Darcy has as well. Would have been about half-half with settling him in-arms or him happy to be patted back to sleep. Fed three times overnight but the middle feed again was clearly not needed hunger-wise but whilever he is sick and wanting the comfort i will continue to offer the breast for the three feeds that he is accustomed to.
His day nap today was totally out of the ordinary. He woke late this morning and so did not want his first nap until 10:30. But he was really unsettled and woke after 30min all grizzly and clearly wanting more sleep. I tried to pat him back down but he was unhappy so, i then tried in-arms until he was calm and then put him back in the cot to fully fall asleep. He slept for about 5min and woke again. I repeated that but he woke again after 10min so we both sat in the recliner and i watched tv and he slept for another 2hours!!!!
He would not sleep at all later that afternoon which is not surprising cos he had such a big nap. But he went to bed quite easily at 7:45.
Night 6- Woke and called out a couple of times early on but went back to sleep with a hand on his bum or some moderate cot rocking and did not need to be picked up (except maybe once??? not sure). He did not wake for his first feed until midnight and then not again until 4am. He wakes in between those times (he is not sleeping though the four hours) but when he does wake he settles in a few minutes.
He had good day naps again and is almost totally over his cold. I think he slept for 1+half hours in the morning and then an hour in the afternoon all without needing to be resettled at all athough i noticed him rolling over and opening his eyes and then happily going back to sleep on his own.
And that is where we are up to. A vast improvement from last week. Him being sick in the middle put a hold on things i think but i am really happy with the change. I think the day naps make it obvious that he is learning to settle himself and is happy to do so. And him only having two feeds last night is amazing. I think i would like to try to get him to settle with only cot rocking (me not touching him at all), or perhaps me just briefly touching his hip and then nothing more (no cot rocking). I’m not sure which he would respond better to but i think either would be a step towards him not needing me to help him go back to sleep.
I am so glad i called karitane and had ideas to try and knew that it would only be the first night that he would sound grizzly and get upset. And also to know that i could help him to learn to sleep without needing to let him cry which i would never do. It was interesting to me to see the difference between his angry whinges and when he actually did cry that first night. The time that Tim took him and held him was the only time that he really cried in this whole thing. I can totally see that it will be possible soon for him to fall asleep on his own even if we are not at that stage yet.
