May 31, 2012

Sleep updates (and others)


* photo from last Christmas at the beach house, courtesy of a sneaky hubby. 

A little while ago, I posted about starting a new sleep plan after having had the little fella in our bed and waking up every two or three hours for a feed, since he was born (almost 17 months ago). We were happy to keep him in our bed, but it was time to do some night weening, so that he wasn't waking so regularly for the boob. A friend of mine put me onto this article, and so we bit the bullet and put some changes in place. There were a couple of hard nights initially, as both Leo and I got used to not having the magic potion to get him back to sleep quickly and easily. But, amazingly, he adapted quite quickly and even after a couple of nights, was sleeping for longer periods. And it didn't take long (about 10 nights) for... drum roll please... the little man to be sleeping through the night!!

Woo Hoo!

If you're in this boat, ie. you're doing an attachment parenting kind of thing, but are at the point of going a bit nutty with all the night wake ups, I would recommend having a read through the article and giving it a go. It really wasn't as painful or as protracted as I thought it would be, and although there was a bit of crying and fussing involved, even that wasn't too bad. We just cuddled through it.
Please note... I'm not having a go at those who do the cry it out method. It just wasn't for us.

So the take home message... it IS possible to do attachment parenting AND have a good night's sleep at the same time. Even if it does take 17 months to get here! (though really, we could have done this ages ago).

And in other updates:
Amazing news... You may recall, that I posted here about losing a quilt in the post. Well, over two months later, it has turned up! Yes indeed, it's the prodigal quilt. Bananas.

xx

3 comments:

  1. I tell you! Saint Anthony is the guy! :)

    I'm going to bookmark this post and article for when it's time for the little one to move into her own bed. Happy for you guys that the transition was pretty smooth. It's lovely to hear a good ending to the co-sleeping thing x

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know! I did send a little prayer up to him so there you go, you may be on to something there.
    And well, we're still co-sleeping. Just not feeding during the night. The next step will be to move him out of our room, but no rush for that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We have never been co-sleepers but I have great admiration for parents who are! I really do.
    Ronnie
    p.s. Such a sweet photo!

    ReplyDelete

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xx joanna