Pantley Pop Off In Place

Tags

babies, classical conditioning, no-cry sleep solution, sleep log, sleep routines, sleep training

Well, it’s time for another sleep log!

Snow suit + Seahorse = Success

I spent the first week just doing the same as I always do, nursing him to sleep, but playing the musical seahorse to help build a conditioned association.

Then, Saturday night, I started instituting the pry-him-off-the-breast-just-before-sleep trick known as the “Pantley Pop Off”. I did it as often as I could in the night, until my own drowsiness meant that I fell asleep before he did, usually around 3 or 4 in the morning. It meant that putting him down to bed took a lot longer – he’d wake up and root again and again, but each night I have eventually met with success. Like most things, it’s a battle of the wills, and I am determined not to be out-willed by someone with half my brain capacity.

Over the last few nights he has fallen asleep off of the breast at least for that first sleep of the night. Sometimes he would be popped off for the umpteenth time, crinkle his face to fuss, and then fall unconscious before a wail could escape (which looks really funny). A couple of times he simply lay there drowsily, full of milk, staring that the light on the seahorse or the pages of my book until his eyes closed for good.

I haven’t done it much at nap time. Pantley says naps are so important that I should save any sleep training for night time to start and only switch over to boobless naps once he has mastered the art of falling asleep boobless at night. In fact, she predicts that once he gets the hang of it he’ll start doing it on his own, and it’s true that a couple of times during his naps he has pulled off the breast and simply stared into space until his eyes closed. So I think it’s working. But it’s going to be a long haul, I know.

NAPS ARE AMAZING. His napping has gotten a lot more regular. I put him down in the Sleepy Snow Suit for all of his naps, and he actually sleeps for two hours or sometimes even longer at a time!  It’s unheard of. I love it.  My days now have periods of  previously unimaginable freedom. I now have a startling amount of time in which to collect garbage, put on a load of laundry, or even eat on my own time, instead of hurriedly while Babby fusses on his play mat.  I’m still adjusting. Accustomed to only periodic dozes of 20 minutes or less, I am still slow to commit myself to things like showering or dish washing which are could drown out his crying for me. However, I have done both and he has slept through them all!

You have to realize that until a couple of weeks ago, my entire day was spent playing with, holding, singing to, or nursing Babby, trying to keep him cheerful and desperately hoping he would fall asleep, only to have him twist off the breast and start to fuss, or fall asleep on me and wake up the moment I tried to put him down or sneak away. Things like showers, quiet meals, and washing dishes were things to fantasize about.

I don’t know whether he is simply getting better at this sleeping thing or whether the consistent use of the snow suit at nap time is making the difference.

Here’s the latest sample sleep log: Keep in mind, this is after only five days of “pop off” practices.

Five Months, Fussy and Fabulous

Tags

5 month old, babies, classical conditioning, milestones, no-cry sleep solution, schedules, sleep, sleep associations, sleep log, Sophie the Giraffe, teething

 

Babby was five months yesterday. Time flies when your baby is waking up screaming in the night multiple times every night. I took him to the doctor the other day to see if the fussiness and tendency to screech like a kettle while holding one ear was due to an ear infection. It was not. His ears are fine. Must just be teething.

Getting big!

It’s been a big month for Babby – he has perfected his ability to locate sounds, so he is very good at turning his head to catch sounds. The last couple of weeks he has been causing a fuss when we take away something he is playing with – a mile stone I really could have done without for a while longer. He can sit by himself for a little while if we sit him forward propped on his hands like a frog, but after a while he’ll start to topple sideways. Babby also achieved a long-desired goal this month: he has, on several occasions, successfully gotten his toes in his mouth, after months of trying and failing. We were very proud.

His grabbiness has increased and he likes to yank my hair and take off my glasses and turn them around so the earpieces are pointed directly at his corneas. He bites everything, including my chin and his Daddy’s nose. He has met a squeaky toy named Sophie the Giraffe, and he now plans to marry her. He spends a significant chunk of the day making out with her.

"Do you mind? We're kind of having a moment."

 

He has discovered his penis, which has added a new challenge to diaper changing. Obviously we don’t want to discourage him from exploring his own body, but diapers still have to be changed. We try to give him a bit of time with himself before prying away his hands so we can actually fasten his diaper. I live in fear of the day when he will grab his penis before I have had a chance to wipe the poo off of it. So far I have always beaten him to the punch.

We are going to start our no-cry sleep training, so I followed the author’s advice and took a log of his sleep patterns/daily routine. I’ll take another in 10-14 days and we’ll see if there has been any change.