Monday 20 August 2012

Operation Sleep Rule Change - Conclusion?

Well, here it is. A tentative conclusion to the sleep changes that we've been trying. I say tentative as I don't want to jinx it, but it seems that we have success!!!!!
Chubs will happily resettle in her cot at night now. She's actually done so since the first night. It was an hour and a half of patting and rocking and panicing (on my part) and her pointing at the door and wanting to get out, but I was there to comfort and hold her. We made it to midnight and she came into bed with us then, but she seemed to have gotten the message about the 'rule change', that Mummy and Daddy's bed wasn't 'open' until later.

We moved bringing her in to our bad back by an hour each week, but she resettled fairly easily each time and we probably could have stretched her out longer sooner.

This week should be 2am, but we're just going to jump to 3am and be done with it. Whenever she wakes before 3am it's resettle in the cot, after that it's in bed with us. We could keep going and make it 5am, but you know what, getting up in the night is hard work. Perhaps the best thing about cosleeping is that Chubs can get milk, comfort and reassurance and all I need to do is roll over.

To be honest, Dear Husband and I aren't feeling as wonderfully well rested as I was hoping. As I supsected (but was dearly hoping I was wrong) I think at lot of our constant state of exhaustion is more to do with having a vibrant, beautiful, bouncy toddler than a cosleeping one. It is a bit better to have the bed to ourselves for a few hours, but the catch is that I have to get up for the first feed at 10 or 11pm, and then to resettle as required.The 3am rule will be a nice mix I think - I'll have to get up for the first feed (and then pat as needed which hasn't been often - maybe once every three nights?). It means when she wakes up at 3am/4am/ 5am she can come in to our bed and have a feed. It means that I'm only getting up for one feed in her room, then in our bed from then on. I think it's a good mix between the pros and cons of cosleeping and cot sleeping.

So, ultimately, I think that OSRC was a success. Through gentle parent led methods we were able to get Chubs comfortable in her cot for longer at night, but still have time for family snuggles in the morning. That's about as perfect as I think it gets x

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