So this morning we came home, after being at the O'Connell Family Centre in Canterbury for four nights, working on Tabitha's sleeping.
Tabby has been waking up 1-3 hourly overnight, and only sleeping 30-60 minutes at a time during the day. She has also found it difficult to get to sleep - it distracts her if we pat or rock her, but she was getting a little upset if we left her alone to get to sleep.
So, the big question - how did it go?! In short - fantastic! No stress, no tears, great results, quite relaxing.
With regard to the settling and sleeping - at the start of the week, I wrote that I would like to be feeding her at 6pm, 10pm, 2am and when she wakes at 6am. Well, that is exactly what we're now doing! Her bedtime is between 7 - 7:30pm, and on the first night, she woke at 9:30. I went and stood outside her door with the nurse, instead of going in to feed her, and she cried out a few times, grizzled for a minute, then went straight back to sleep. I then did a 'dreamfeed' (feeding her while she is still half asleep) at 10pm. She woke at around 2am, and I lay quietly and let her grizzle - she went back to sleep, and slept through until 3am. I fed her, then she slept through until 6:30am. From then on, I was feeding her half an hour before bed, at around 10pm, and once in the middle of the night (between 2 - 4am), and then when she wakes in the morning. Sometimes, she does wake up, but instead of feeding her, she grizzles and goes back to sleep on her own! She seems much more rested in the mornings.
After re-settling her only twice for daytime sleeps, she now sleeps for between 1 - 2 hours, three times a day. Our vague 'routine' is loosely like this:
- 6:30am wake up. Breastfeed at 7am, breakfast toast at 7:30am, play for an hour with toys and books.
- 8:30am nap time.
- 10:30am wake up. Breastfeed at 11am, activity out of the house (Gymbaroo, swimming, shopping etc.)
- 12:30pm nap time.
- 2:00pm wake up. Breastfeed at 2:30pm. Lunch. Play out of doors - backyard, park, out for a walk.
- 4:00pm nap time.
- 5:00pm wake up. Dinner. Quiet play at home - blocks, stories, songs etc.
- 6:30pm breastfeed and pre-bed routine (clean teeth - all 6 of them! - pajamas on, read a story etc.)
- 7:00pm bedtime.
- 10:30pm dreamfeed
- 3:30am night feed
There you go. We follow that now, very roughly. She is thriving, really seems to enjoy the routine. Go figure! I'm not really a 'routine' person, and when she was a little baby it was much better for us to be loose and cruisey, but this timetable works nicely now. I will do things pretty much the same way with the next baby, only I think I'll start working to this sort of routine a little earlier, maybe 5 or 6 months.
The O'Connell Centre nurses were all brilliant, really kind and compassionate and knowledgeable, and always happy to play with the babies (blowing bubbles, reading stories etc.) while I had a shower, got breakfast or tidied up. It was incredibly relaxing having all of our meals prepared, as well - the babies were given steamed vegetables and meat, as well as cereal, toast etc., and the lunches and dinners for the parents were really decent - lots of veggies, healthy, large servings. We had stir-fry, roast lamb, sticky date pudding, couscous salad, apple strudel - and twice a day, homemade treats like pikelets, brownies and spinach muffins came out on a big plate! I definitely got used to that, and am already missing Snack O'Clock!
We also had some planned activities, such as painted 'footprints' for the babies, which the nurses laminated for us; a talk on reading to babies, and choosing good books; a few walks around the neighbourhood; a session on ways to relax and nurture ourselves (!); and there was also an evening for the dads to chat about any issues they had, with each other, run by a male staffer.
Were there any downsides? Absolutely. Communal living is lovely in some ways - there is always someone to chat to, and a baby to play with - however sharing a bathroom is never fun, and at night, the babies' crying and waking did keep me awake a fair amount, particularly on the first night (although Tabitha didn't wake). Overall, though, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, in particularly because of how gentle the whole process was. We learnt a lot - much more than I can jot down here - and I have lots of confidence going forward, even if things 'regress' for a week, which apparently is quite common when the baby is back home in their usual surroundings.
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6 comments:
Sleep school? Really?
For someone who claims to be a gentle parent, I am surprised that you resorted to sleep school. Waking 1-3 hourly overnight is normal for a 7 month old baby.
Better take "co-sleeping" out of your title header, as I'm pretty sure they knocked that out of you when you were there.
And "grizzling" is crying BTW.
Generally, I wouldn’t publish an anonymous comment like this, as they seem so cowardly – I am completely welcoming of discussion, and if these questions and comments had been raised by someone, politely, who was interested in transparent dialogue, I would, of course have happily responded in kind.
I will respond anyway, though, because these comments are so misinformed that it’s simple to reply. And if someone else has similar musings, I would like to communicate this. 'Scuse the essay!
O’Connell Family Centre differs from almost every other Early Parenting centre out there (they are only called ‘sleep schools’ colloquially). Not only do they not practice controlled crying, they actually do not allow it. If a baby seems upset, the parent is instructed to go and comfort them straight away (of course, most parents don’t need to be ‘told’ this!) I went to OFC with the plan that, if Tabitha was enjoying it and going well, we’d stay, and if it didn’t work for us, we’d leave right away. I should point out that I, too, once would have been highly critical of a parent who ‘resorted to sleep school’ just because their baby was waking often to feed, which is completely normal.
It’s easy to be judgmental, particularly when you don’t know the circumstances fully.
Which leads me to:
Waking 1-3 hourly overnight to feed and re-connect IS completely normal for a 7 month old! I agree. However Tabitha was not wanting to feed, and was actually becoming upset if I tried to tend to her. I now know that it was my husband’s sleep movements (swishing doonas and the like) that were waking her, and making it hard for her to go back to sleep. She did NOT want to feed when she woke, rather just seemed tired and confused and wanted to be asleep! Pinky McKay, an amazing independent midwife, the ABA and a few other experts all agreed that this is NOT normal waking patterns.
As much as O’Connell doesn’t condone co-sleeping (for all the ridiculous cadswallop reasons about safety etc. when we know that ‘cosleeping’ deaths generally result from situations where cosleeping was not normally, nor safely, practiced, such as falling asleep accidentally on a saggy sofa etc., and that most of the world cosleeps and does so safely), we continue to cosleep when and as it suits.
Tabitha sleeps better out of our bed (which actually makes me really sad – I coslept with my parents until I was nearly two years old, and had wanted to do the same with my babies), and cries when she wakes if she is IN bed sometimes! Go figure – all babies are so different! But teething, travelling, indeed whenever she seems to want to, she is ALWAYS welcome in our bed. I was actually about to change the title header to ‘sometimes co-sleeper’ just before I read this.
And finally – I find it hard to believe you are a parent? Your knowledge of normal baby patterns makes me think you are, but stating that grizzling is the same as crying?! Noooo!!! Surely all parents know the difference... A long, moany grizze, while rubbing the eyes and burrowing the face into the mattress, is not a cry for help. If I go in while she is doing that, she screams! Can you blame her? If I was tired and trying to go to sleep, having someone sitting watching me and patting me would be torture! Some babies sure love being patted to sleep etc., but Tabitha prefers to be left alone to get comfy and crash out – which I never realized because I never tried it, thinking that she would get upset. Now I know that 20 seconds of slight sleepy grizzling = fast asleep for 2 hours and happy, whereas 45+ minutes of patting and being with her while she WAILED, then fell asleep for 30 minutes, was clearly not working for her. I hope that if you do have your own children, that you use your intuition and read them to know what THEY need, as individuals, rather than trying to fit your own ideals to them. I admit this is what I was doing, albeit accidentally, for some time – thinking it was ‘right’ to cuddle her to sleep, always cosleep etc., when it actually was not what this funny little monkey wanted or needed.
I appreciate what you're saying, I do. And yes, I do have a daughter who is 10 months old, and can proudly call myself a gentle parent. She wakes 2 hourly overnight which is fine because that's what babies do, we do BLS, she's breast fed, we co-sleep very successfully - have the cot attached to the side of the bed with the side off. It's awesome.
And I 100% agree that co-sleeping gets a bad name when people don't do it right!!
What you have said about sleep school just read like you were justifying to yourself why you'd done it. At the end of the day, no-one but you knows what is best for your baby, but I just feel sad for you that by going there, you have over ridden your own natural mothering intuition. I'm sure the nurses were very lovely but there are still even gentler ways to get your baby to sleep longer. Pinky McKay, Elisabeth Pantley and Dr Bill and Martha Sears have plenty.
And I'm not being a coward by "hiding" behind my comments anonymously, I don't have a google account.
At the end of the day, you will do what is right for you and your family, which is awesome. It just bugs me when people dress it up as attachment parenting when it's clearly not. Just say what you're doing. Don't hide behind these labels.
Thanks for clarifying re. the account – it is surprisingly common for people to leave hostile comments (not here, thank goodness!) on people’s blogs behind the veil of anonymity. We tried the side-car cot too, it worked okay, but still she was being woken up by us noisy adults! I’m sorry that you felt I was just trying to ‘justify’ myself. I’m not. I was completely comfortable with the techniques used. And never felt that I deviated from what I was originally comfortable with as an intuitive parent. I have read Elizabeth Pantley’s NCSS (I actually bought two copies so I can lend them out to people, I love her work – and I think you’ll find her book uses an almost identical technique to O’Connell. It really is a much nicer place than the other sleep schools!), Pinky, have seen her speak and have had a private chat with her, read ALL her stuff, read most of Dr Sears’ books and website, Sarah Buckley etc. as well.
I’m sad to say (yes, sad – not justifying, genuinely disappointed) that most of the things I read about didn’t work out for Tabitha. She has always been a funny little independent baby (from weeks old, until around 4 months, hated being cradled and preferred to lie on the ground on her own, watching everyone! I actually called my lovely home-birthing GP because I was worried about her not liking being held, he said “all babies are different, yours is a little miss independent obviously!” Maybe the next baby and babies will want to cosleep and snuggle all night!
We are, indeed, doing what is right for us – not what is ‘convenient’. I would happily have continued co-sleeping if it was working for Tabby, and will be very sad when she no longer wakes for our quiet, special 3am feed – such bliss to sit there and watch her, half-asleep, sucking and gently patting my chest. I am not hiding behind a label ☺ I have never called myself an attachment parent – because I personally don’t agree with all the tenements. That’s why I call myself a gentle parent. I do things our way, what works for us, with the main criteria being that everything puts Tabitha first. I think that’s the best kind of parenting, personally – no labels, just listen carefully to your precious little person, and do what’s right for your baby.
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