Sleep Coaching - Update
Aug. 15th, 2011 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI suck at journaling. :)
So after I did all of the pre-consult paperwork with Allison the awesome sleep coach, we had a phone call that was about two hours long where we went over everything and also she threw out some suggestions of a plan. It probably would have been a shorter call but we got a little chatty. ;) Anyway, she then followed up with an e-mail outlining a plan. Here was the basic gist:
1. The main goal was to get Tuke to fall asleep on his own instead of falling asleep on the bottle (which usually happens) or via rocking (if he was still awake after the bottle). This was supposed to reduce night wakings because he would put himself back to sleep.
2. Secondary goal was to treat the early rising (5am) as a night waking to try to discourage this waking.
One thing I will say about Allison is that she is incredibly flexible and willing to work with any kind of parenting philosophies. We are a mildly-AP family and do some co-sleeping and some other stuff, don't like a lot of crying, and she was totally cool with all of that. She even told me that some sleep coaches don't even believe that parents can be consistent in the wee hours (that is pretty true for me, LOL) and concentrate solely on getting the kid to fall asleep on his own.
She was also awesome when I came to her with my big nursing concern. Right now I nurse Tukey when he wakes up between 11pm and midnight and as it's really the only time he nurses, I am reluctant to give it up. There is no milk left and he has to be tired and crabby and want to fall back asleep to do it, but I REALLY want to get to 9 months (longer if he'll let me) and am impressed that I have been able to keep this boy on my boob for this long. And she didn't even bat an eyelash, was super understanding, and said it was fine, do it, try to put him in the crib after and if you don't, you don't. I love her.
Anyway, she also explained to me that a lot of times the parent that works outside the house has the toughest time letting the baby fuss (and that is certainly true here) so I talked with Jen about what was going on and she started agreeing to let Tuke grouse a little bit before bed at night. She wasn't keen on waking him up after he fell asleep on the bottle but I put him to bed for over a week that way to convince her that it was totally possible and he would fall asleep, and now she is on board.
Every night now, Tukey will go into his crib away, yell at me for a couple of minutes for waking him up off the bottle, and then stick his feet out of the crib bars (weird kid) and goes to sleep. It hasn't worked for naps yet (he is really resistant to naps and will play in the crib for over an hour without sleeping unless I rock him) - he gets into too much trouble and once was eating the mini blinds - but I am glad he is better at falling asleep on his own.
I am still bringing him to bed with me to nurse (I just love that time) but now when he is done after a couple of minutes (getting shorter and shorter *cry*) he rolls over in the middle of the bed and goes to sleep. He still wakes up a couple of times from there, and still drinks a bottle of milk around 3am, but I think he is learning some good sleep skills while maintaining our AP relationship and really I can't ask for more than that. Allison from Everyone Sleeps - A++++++++
So after I did all of the pre-consult paperwork with Allison the awesome sleep coach, we had a phone call that was about two hours long where we went over everything and also she threw out some suggestions of a plan. It probably would have been a shorter call but we got a little chatty. ;) Anyway, she then followed up with an e-mail outlining a plan. Here was the basic gist:
1. The main goal was to get Tuke to fall asleep on his own instead of falling asleep on the bottle (which usually happens) or via rocking (if he was still awake after the bottle). This was supposed to reduce night wakings because he would put himself back to sleep.
2. Secondary goal was to treat the early rising (5am) as a night waking to try to discourage this waking.
One thing I will say about Allison is that she is incredibly flexible and willing to work with any kind of parenting philosophies. We are a mildly-AP family and do some co-sleeping and some other stuff, don't like a lot of crying, and she was totally cool with all of that. She even told me that some sleep coaches don't even believe that parents can be consistent in the wee hours (that is pretty true for me, LOL) and concentrate solely on getting the kid to fall asleep on his own.
She was also awesome when I came to her with my big nursing concern. Right now I nurse Tukey when he wakes up between 11pm and midnight and as it's really the only time he nurses, I am reluctant to give it up. There is no milk left and he has to be tired and crabby and want to fall back asleep to do it, but I REALLY want to get to 9 months (longer if he'll let me) and am impressed that I have been able to keep this boy on my boob for this long. And she didn't even bat an eyelash, was super understanding, and said it was fine, do it, try to put him in the crib after and if you don't, you don't. I love her.
Anyway, she also explained to me that a lot of times the parent that works outside the house has the toughest time letting the baby fuss (and that is certainly true here) so I talked with Jen about what was going on and she started agreeing to let Tuke grouse a little bit before bed at night. She wasn't keen on waking him up after he fell asleep on the bottle but I put him to bed for over a week that way to convince her that it was totally possible and he would fall asleep, and now she is on board.
Every night now, Tukey will go into his crib away, yell at me for a couple of minutes for waking him up off the bottle, and then stick his feet out of the crib bars (weird kid) and goes to sleep. It hasn't worked for naps yet (he is really resistant to naps and will play in the crib for over an hour without sleeping unless I rock him) - he gets into too much trouble and once was eating the mini blinds - but I am glad he is better at falling asleep on his own.
I am still bringing him to bed with me to nurse (I just love that time) but now when he is done after a couple of minutes (getting shorter and shorter *cry*) he rolls over in the middle of the bed and goes to sleep. He still wakes up a couple of times from there, and still drinks a bottle of milk around 3am, but I think he is learning some good sleep skills while maintaining our AP relationship and really I can't ask for more than that. Allison from Everyone Sleeps - A++++++++
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 02:12 pm (UTC)Ideally she wants me to be more hardcore and not pick up at the wake-ups but she is a nice person who doesn't even make me feel guilty about being inconsistent! :)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 01:52 pm (UTC)If so, how is that going? Does he still enjoy it? How long has it been once a day for? How long do you think you can keep going for?
Wow. Ok, that was a lot of questions but I'm excited. Riley is down to twice a day but I do not want to give up. I want to keep going twice a day for as long as we can.. I just assumed that it would all be over in a couple of weeks.. do you think it's possible we can go longer than that??
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 02:16 pm (UTC)We haven't "known" each other that long but the short story is that I have insufficient glandular tissue (not enough milk ducts) and actually make very little milk. Without any pills/supplements, I was making less than an oz per day and nearly starved my daughter when she was a newborn. (It was bad.) With Elias, I took a TON of supplements for a long while and nursed him every feed before offering a bottle - probably for 3 months. Then he went to day care and I nursed before every feed at home and I pumped 1xday at work (and got 2oz). At 6 months, I stopped taking the herbs and began decreasing the other pills and started only nursing at bedtime and overnight. Now I have run out of pills and nurse him at his major wake-up. I hear him swallow maybe 2-3 times and then he is done, so I know there's nothing there.
Right now he is content to do this, but as I have decreased the pills, he is less interested. I used to get a good 10mins of milk at the one feed and now it's just not there. He used to nurse until he fell asleep (would stay on for 15 mins) and now he is not doing that.
He will be 9 months on Thursday and that is my third goal and I doubt he will nurse much longer than that now that the milk is gone. He probably doesn't enjoy it at this point. I totally kind of force it. :)
Now, people with actual milk might have different results.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 02:34 pm (UTC)Riley will still feed for up to an hour for both feeds although he is almost always immediately hungry again afterwards in which case he needs to be supplemented. At this stage we both still enjoy the feeding. I no longer get engorged and it's obvious my supply is dropping. I know I could have fought harder and the drop in my supply is because of some of the choices I made earlier but if we could just keep going as we are now - I'd be thrilled. I did what I had to do at the time and now I'd just like him to get every last drop of milk possible from me that he can.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 05:51 pm (UTC)I know this has been conflicting for you (and you have gotten grief from people) but I promise you none of this matters down the road. There are 20 kids in my daughter's preschool class and I have no clue (nor do I care) whether they were breastfed or formula-fed three or four years ago. :)
Hugs.