Rylen’s been sleeping a lot better now, the night before she slept from 10.30pm to 6am!! I woke up at 5.4oam cos my breast wanted to explode, I sat for 15 minutes willing her to wake up, gave up and pumped then 5 mins later she’s whimpering, she wants milk. At least I got a decent amount to freeze and then she went back to sleep from 7am to 9.15am. Last night she went to bed at 10.45pm till 2.30am, woke up for a quick feed and then slept again till 7am and napped from 8.45 to 10am.
I think the trick is the forced afternoon nap (1.5 – 2 hours, none is the 20 minutes nonsense), we noticed that she stopped wanting her afternoon naps and it was driving me nuts! What a difference a nap makes.
We read a lot of information about sleep and what to do, what to try etc, now I can’t deal with the Sears method, I don’t have the patience plus I’ll be back to work in 2 months. The Ferber method, she’s too young and it’s a lil bit evil..what to do? We came up with our own method that works for now. 1. Train the Grandparents!! Stop picking her up all the time, let her fuss a little, letting her cry is not us being evil and for the love of a good nights sleep.. STOP CARRYING HER TO SLEEP. I know I know, I get that it sometimes happens, sometimes after a feed, she’s asleep, she’s burped and still zzzzzzz… I ain’t waking her up that’s for sure. For me it’s about independence, I need her to learn how to fall asleep herself, no major rocking, no pacifier (was going to delete that at 6 months but she hates the darn thing, yay!). 2. Set the mood – ac on, dimmed lights, music *heh* 3. Some pats, well everyone needs some help to fall asleep right? So we’ve agreed to pat her for the first part (bout 15 minutes), help her fall asleep, she fuses, we pat, she whimpers, we pat, we stop once she kinda seems to be falling asleep and has that far away look, we hope that she won’t need the patting as she gets older. 4. Letting her cry, I know she’s not even 2 months!! It’s bloody awful to sit at her side and watch her cry but I think it it’s better than just leaving her. Usually for me, I sit behind her crib and check on her, make sure she’s okay, R sits right by her, letting her know he’s there. After the first major cry we check that she’s clean, make sure the last burp is out, she’s not too hot/cold and then let her cry (but never for more than 15 mins). I’m pleased to say that this afternoon, there was some fussing, lotsa talking, acting cute but no crying. Whew.
Now, I need to try to stop falling asleep in bed when I breast feed (the 6 or 7am feed) her because I don’t her wanting to sleep with us, I have to set alarms
but sometimes it just happens.

Disclaimer: Every child is different, Rylen showed issues going to sleep even when it was obvious she was tired and she’s a lil sneaky and was getting spoilt. The crying method isn’t for everyone nor every child.