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Sleep Coaching - Update
Aug. 15th, 2011 09:23 amI 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++++++++
