Sleep Training Part 2

updated by mommy on my 11 mths 2 weeks and 5 days old


Bravo to my princess Isabel... She has been sleeping on her own in her own room for 10 nights and 10 days without any patting, carrying, swinging or dancing. Mommy is so proud of you, Isabel.


The results started showing around Day 5. On Day 6 onwards, she has shown great improvement. She didn't fuss so much and so long and at times she didn't sleep with pacifier too (during the night after a night feed). She didn't cried so much nowadays after I put her down in her playpen. Of course she cried a bit at certain times but usually after I left the room, she stopped crying. She will then toss around and fall asleep on her own not long after that. If I fed her before she sleeps, she will not cry when I place her down in the playpen. Now, making her sleep is a breeze.


Her night time sleep has improved tremendously. She has stopped waking up every hour. She will usually sleep around 9.30pm. At times she will wake up and make noise around 1am. If she did not has her milk feed before sleeping, I'll feed her milk at this time and she will sleep till around 5 or 6 am and make some noise. If she has her milk feed, I'll ignore her and she will fall back to sleep on her own. Same as the 5-6am round. If she has a milk feed at 1am, I'll ignore her and she will sleep till morning. Or else, I'll feed her and she will sleep till morning. Sometimes, she will make noise around 7-8am and I'll usually ignore her and let her fall back to sleep. Her morning wake up time will be 9.30am.

Nap time as usual. Morning nap around 11.45pm and nap for about 1 to 1.5 hr. Afternoon nap around 4.15pm and also around 1 to 1.5hr. Am glad that she has a total of around 14hrs sleep in a day.


She has back to her cheerful self too. I definitely love her more and feel that she is no longer the "naughty" baby we called her the last time. This sleeping arrangement has done so much good to everybody at home, especially the mommy here. Now, I have better sleep and not worried if hubby needs to go outstation as I can still sleep with Darren without worrying about Isabel.


We have bought a baby monitor that comes with camera to monitor her in her room. This makes us feel more relief while leaving her alone in the room.

17.2.11 Before we started sleep training, I left her crying in the playpen one of the nights in the room and she cried for 5 hours and ended up sleeping like this. The next day, she cried for 4 hours and ended up sleeping "kneeling down" position. I am glad she did not sleep like that when we started the sleep training and now she is sleeping tummy down most of the time. She was such a difficult baby during that time.



The wireless baby monitor that comes with camera. IMON digital baby monitor that costs us RM899.



I hope she will continue improving her sleeping habits and able to sleep through one night without night time waking and feeding at all.

Sleep training - Part 1

updated by mommy on my 11 months 1 week and 5 days old

Yes..it may sound cruel..and I do feel very bad for doing this..we started the "Cry It Out" sleep training method on Isabel 3 nights back. This is my last resort as it is extremely hard making her sleep and she constantly demand me to carry her to sleep and left me extremely sleep deprived (I hardly sleep for more than 3 hours in a row for a week prior to this). Hence, resulting me in mood change, depression and phobia towards her. It is no good for both of us and I really need to find a solution. Thus, this method is most suitable for babies as difficult as her.

Tuesday night
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10pm - After milk, I switch on the soft music as usual. Told her that she is going to sleep on her own tonight and I will see her tomorrow morning. Tell her how much I love her and we will go through this together as she needs to learn to sleep on her own and not depending on me. I placed her in the playpen, immediately she protested and cried. I helped her to lie down but she immediately stood up at the cot, crying for me. My heart was very heavy and i placed her down again and she stood up again. I did that for 3 times and finall bid her goodnight and walked out from the room. Yeah, I dimmed the light to quite dark too.

She cried...and cried...and screamed as well. My heart is really heavy. Hubby and I stood outside of the room and waited. She cried and stopped and cried again. I walked in after 3 mins and placed her lying down again but she protested. She cried even louder after seeing me. I placed her down twice and left the room. She cried again...Can't remember how after that..(I was traumatised by her cry too), she took no more than 20 minutes and finally fell asleep in the tummy down sleeping position.

Hubby and I were relieved..we peeped from the joint-toilet from the other room.

2.30am - Surprisingly she slept through till 2.30pm without any fuss. Usually she will cry hourly demand me to carry her. I was surprised that she slept so well. I went in, picked her up and fed her water. She drank almost half the bottle and finally I placed her back to the playpen again and left the room.

She cried of course..but she slept again in less than 10 mins. I was relieved again after seeing her sleeping in the sleeping position (not sitting up or kneeling down like few days back). I went back to the masterbedroom and continue sleeping.

7am - She slept till 7am. I was surprised and amazed. I went in and fed her milk and placed her down the playpen again. Surprisingly this time she did not protest nor cry. She slept quietly after that. I was super happy.

Wednesday
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9.30am - She woke up 9.30am and I greeted her with my happy smiling face. I was definitely proud of her. Very proud.

12.00pm - I repeated the same method for her nap too. She cried for less than 10 mins and I only went in once after left the room and she fell asleep by herself again. SHe slept till 2pm that afternoon, exceptionally long compared to other days.

Throughout the day, she seems a bit quiet to me. She fuss less and never fuss for me. She used to fuss and whine everytime she sees me and wanted me to carry her but not this day. I found her less attached to me and more behaved. Good thing should be but I felt funny.

5pm - I repeated the same method again for her 2nd nap. She cried again for less than 15 mins and I did not go in anymore after left the room. She slept till 7pm that nap. AMAZING..... (I greeted hubby with relax and smiling face for the first time after streessing so much about Isabel for that day.)

However, after the 5pm nap, she was back to normal. She was sticky to me again and demanded me to carry her most of the time. She even rejected hubby totally when hubby carried her. I enetertained her coz I felt sorry for her to put her through this. Hoever, I felt extremely difficult to meet her constant demand throughout the night.

11.30pm - Since she woke up late that evening, I postponed the night time sleep to later time. As expected, she cried..but I feel she cried longer compared to first night.

Thursday
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2.30am - Woke up crying and this time, it took about half an hour for her to settle back to sleep. Was tossing around on the bed and cried intermittently.

5.30pm - Woke up crying again. Offered milk and went back to sleep. Can't remember took how long.

7.15am - Woke up crying again. It took her a while to settle back to sleep again. Can't remember how long.

9.30am - Woke up.

11.30am - Took longer for her to settle herself to nap. Maybe around 15min. Woke up 1.5 hr later.

5.00pm - Took about 30mins to settle to sleep but woke up 30 mins later. Looked tired. But since it was already 6pm, I brought her downstairs. She was cranky whole night.

Throughout the day, she was super clingy to me and only wanted me to carry her. Am feeling suffocating with her clingyness.

9.30pm - Took her about 30mins to settle to sleep. But she cried more and louder intermitently. It took her longer to fall asleep too.

Friday
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12.30am - Woke up crying. Took her about 30mins to settle back to sleep. Longer and she was tossing around on the bed.

2.30am - Woke up crying again. Fed her milk and she settled back to sleep quite fast.

5.30am - Woke up crying. Took him about 30mnins to settle back to sleep.

7am - Woke up crying. Fed her milk. When I placed her on the playpen, she was looking at me quietly. She was still quiet when I walked out of the room. An easy one...phew!!

9.30am - Woke uo.

11.30am - Took quite long to fall asleep. Cried more profusely and louder. Slept about 1.5 hr.

5.00pm - Took her about 30mins to fall asleep again. Longest of all I think. But she woke up 30mins later. Looked tired and again since it is already 6pm, I brought her downstairs.

9.30pm - Cried for almost 30 mins intermitently.

Throughout the day, she looked the same like yesterday..as clongy and as difficult. I feel that she is like quite stress up and honestly I feel the same. Everytime she cries, my heart ache and keep wondering what I am doing is right or wrong. Is there any side effect on her... I am losing control over the situation. I drag to put her to bed everytime. How I wish I can avoid that and keep wondering when this will end.

I hope I am not making the wrong decision and really hope she can settle herself to sleep soon. I am sick of hearing her cry and wish to see a happy baby and mommy again SOON!!

Dear Isabel,
Mommy has tried so many ways to sooth and comfort you but you don't seems comfortable and happy with what I am doing for you. Last resort, mommy chose this way because no matter how, you still cry so much. Hope through this method, you can learn to sleep on your own and don't need to depend on mommy's carrying and patting to make you sleep. Hope you understand we love you so much but without the required rest and sleep, mommy just couldn't spare the love out for you. Sorry Isabel for letting you going through this, really hope you will get adjusted to it soon. Mommy loves you!!

Urgent advise needed on sleep training ..please!

Hi mommy out there,

I need advise from you regarding sleep training. Well, Isabel has not been a good sleeper since young. She scared away my confinement lady and 1 stay in nanny. She is now torturing her mommy with her sleep habits.

Her sleeping problems..

1. She needs to be carried / rocked to sleep. It's not easy to make her sleep too. She gets distracted very easily and needs to be very sleepy in order to fall asleep. She always struggle to fall asleep.

2. After she falls asleep in either my arm or the bouncing net, I will put her in the playpen. Usually she will sleep around 45mins, then she will cry again to be carried. I needed to carry her and rocked her back to sleep. Then put her back in the playpen. Another 30 to 45mins later, she will wake up crying and needed to be carried again. This cycle will go on for about 3 - 4 hrs till she is in her DEEP sleep past 3am. Then she is ok. But yet, she still wakes for night feeding after around 4-5 hrs.

Her sleeping habits is like:

9.30pm - milk then go to bed
10.00pm - sleep
10.45pm - cry from her sleep and needed to be carried/rocked back to sleep.
11.00pm - fall asleep again
11.45pm - cry from her sleep and needed to be carried/rocked back to sleep.
12.00am - fall asleep again
12.45am - cry from her sleep and needed to be carried/rocked back to sleep.
1.00am - fall asleep again
1.45am - cry from her sleep and needed to be carried/rocked back to sleep.
2.00am - mommy cannot take it and feed milk.
2.15am - after milk, sleep again till maybe 7am for another milk feed.

Basically I can never have peaceful time till 2am. On bad days, she can cry a few times in an hr demand to be carried. Sometimes, the minutes I put her down in the playpen, she will cry again. I have to hold/carry/rock her for a long long time before I can put her back to the playpen.

This bad habits make me very tiring and sleep deprived. So, I bought the book "The sleep guide for contented baby and toddler" by Gina Ford and they recommended Cry it out method to train her to sleep better.

I am very tempted to try this method as I really spent too much time making her sleep and it is not productive at all. But I know it is not easy to implement as I'm sure she will cry for hrs and hrs and we adults will not able to go through it.

I would like to know anyone of you out there tried this method? Does it work? How did u implement it? Any other suggestions besides this? How to train my girl to sleep better?

Thanks in advance...

Mommy is so proud of you (sleep)

updated by mommy on my 6 mths 3 weeks and 2 days old.

If you read my previous post, you will know how hard I tried to make Isabel sleep on her own and we all FAILED to do that. Surprisingly, when I started to give up and take things easily, miracles happened.

Finally Isabel was able to sleep on her own in her baby cot continuously for 3 times (last night, this morning and this afternoon nap) without much fuss. I was overjoyed when she did it again during her afternoon nap just now.

She was sleepy. I put her down in her own cot. She played on her own. Throw her pacifier away and kicking here and there. I was sitting at my bed. I put extra cot bumper at the side and she couldn't see me now. She played and played for about half an hour, make some noise...and finally she felt asleep on her own without pacifier, patting, carrying or rocking though it took some time. Last night, she fell asleep while I was washing up in the washroom and I asked hubby to check her up in the baby's room because she has not sleep yet. Hubby came back with the surprised answer that, "She slept already".

I never expect that to happen honestly. After the previous incident, I told myself to take it easy. When I started to let go, things slowly fall into places. Well, she may not be able to sleep on her own EVERY TIME. But to me, as her mother, it is a big achievement she has achieved that I feel so proud of..although it may be only this THREE times...haha...it's good enough for me to shout at this moment.

I hope she can continue sleeping on her own. I hope I can be persistent enough not to carry her and have the time to let her go to sleep on her own. I hope her time to drift to sleep will be shorter and she sleeps longer. I hope...I really hope one day, I can just put her into her own cot when she is sleepy and I can come out of the room and she will drift to sleep on her own.

Anyway, if she can't, it's ok too...just take it slowly and don't put too much pressure on myself and the baby...

At the moment, I am a proud and happy mama.