So night time has been quite tough with the baby. I can honestly say as a baby she has been my biggest challenge, she has also been the only baby I have breastfed up until now (she is 12 months). The little dear is waking up twice a night to feed or more like be comforted by her boobie which she is so fond of. Ready to call Nanny 911 for help, I reserved The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg. Now both of my older girls were Babywise babies, a technique that seemed to work for both for the most part especially my now 8 year old. But, by and by my little Cayleen was not to be a Babywise baby as she has more capacity to scream her head off for unlimited amounts of time. Desperate I turned to the Internet and found The Baby Whisperer.
Now this book is quite lengthy and covers quite a bit of information including EASY which is the flexible schedule Hogg believes baby should be on Eat, Activity, Sleep, You (parent) time, information on feeding baby, sleep patterns and solutions, and suggestions for babies of all stages up to toddler. Admittedly, I did not feel much of the book applied to my situation as my daughter is 12 months old, but I was pleased to see that she did address us parents who were reading and looking for help in the later stages.
Of course my main interest in the book was the sleeping portion. Now Hogg suggest what she calls the pu/pd method when it comes to training baby to sleep in her own bed. Pu/pd being pick up/put down. At my daughters age when she cries at 11pm then 2am, and then 5am rather than offer her my breast to get her to go back to sleep Hogg says to train her by staying by her side while she settles herself back down in her own crib. When my little one stands up in her crib I am supposed to immediately lay her back down. This process is to be continued until she falls completely asleep. Of course she also addresses eating along side sleep issues as being all part of one problem. If little one snacks all night she won't have as much an appetite during the day thus a vicious cycle.
So a few weeks ago desperate for help I began this process described above. The first bout was definitely a shock for my little one but eventually she did settle and go to sleep and it did get easier the next few nights. BUT alas, it was not meant to be as soon as it seemed I was making progress she came down with pneumonia and a terrible ear infection which completely undid everything I worked so hard on to begin with. As you can imagine nights were tough and she was up quite a bit. Thank the Lord she is completely over her illnesses now but a new monster has been born. She wakes every 2 hours now.
Two nights ago I began again the task of pick up/put down and it has been a very tough road. When she wakes up at 11pm she is wide awake and it takes over 2 hours for her to go back to sleep meaning that whole time I have to be in the room with her or she freaks out. According Hogg after she learns to settle herself back to sleep her waking at night should start to become minimal. We shall see. If this works and I continue to be persistent I will call her a genius, but well you know the rest.
I have read some book reviews of the same book and some are luke warm to her methods while others don't like her at all. I'm definitely willing to give it a go as I do not want to getting up with my baby when she is 2 years old. Mama has got to get some sleep!!! I will definitely give you my final opinion in the next month.
Bev
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