BTW- Where is everyone? I can't believe this thread isn't hopping and swarming with mamas having sleep problems with their babes. I know the book is popular, I wonder why this forum is so hard to find.

Anyway, here's a lovely example of my woes...and this is a NEW woe since I've started all this NCSS crap...Gilbert has been waking up early, around 6:30 am even if he goes to sleep around 7:30 or 8:30 pm. I try to nurse him back to sleep but it only lasts as long as my boob is in his mouth. Today we made it to 7:10. At about 8:45 this morning he started showing signs of being sleepy so I put him in the Mei Tai as always and got him to fall asleep in our bedroom where he sleeps. He was only lightly asleep though. Lately I've been damned if I try to keep him in the Mei Tai until he's "really" asleep and I've been damned if I don't. He woke up while trying to put him from the Mei Tai to the bed so I used the ole fallback, I nursed him to sleep. He fell asleep, I unlatched him and stuck a binky in his mouth but he was restless so I started patting his butt. I patted his butt until my arm about fell off and he seemed pretty set. I got up and before I opened up the door he was whining and moving around. Patting didn't work this time, neither did nursing. He appeared to be awake so here he is playing by my side while I type! I just don't get it.

I'm open to hear advice from anyone, just please don't suggest that it is teething or a growth spurt! He's been going through that since he was 4 months old. LOL thanks

Margaret
Mommy to Gilbert, 8 months

Hi Margaret,
I'm sorry to hear about your morning. My dd will do that too, sometimes. What I try to do is get up at 6:30 or 7 and play (quietly) a while, and then she usually goes back down about an hour and a half or two hours later. We've found that if we don't get her some sort of stimulation while she's up, then she doesn't really sleep at that next nap. I know it's rough to get up then (believe me, it's about my least favorite time of the day!), but sometimes I get another hour when she does nap.
Just a suggestion. Sorry, I know the mornings can be rough (especially when you didn't get much sleep during the night!).
Brandy

hi rasberryswirl,
i'm so sorry about your morning too! i just wish i had some answers for you.
and i know what you mean about teething and growth spurts!
apparently my ds has been in a teething growth spurt since he was 2 months old!!!
seriously though, i think his teeth actually have played a MAJOR part in his un-settled-ness for the last 6months.
i had a great conversation with my osteopath the other day where he told me about his own sleepless baby (now 15 and sleeps through the night all on her own) and the disruptive effect teething had on her.

he talked about alert babies (of which my ds is one) and how teething is just too fascinating and uncomfortable for them to ignore. their little hands & tongues need to explore & explore... and explore AND EXPLORE and when you add discomfort or pain, it makes it so much worse for them.

i don't really know why i'm telling you this, but i guess it helped me feel validated and not so alone and that's what i want to give to you. validation & support & hugs too!
i don't know about you, but a lot of the time, it feels like people don't believe me when i tell them how wakeful or unsettled or wriggly or alert or sensitive or FASCINATED IN EVERYTHING (especially noises when i'm putting him down) or fussy he is... blah blah blah.
and it was just so nice to hear someone say "what you're going through is really hard and it's hard in a way that 90% of people can't understand because they haven't been there."
well, i'm there and i sincerely empathise with where you're at.
(my morning started at 3am and then when he finally had a nap at 9:00am he slept for a whopping 28min)
hang in there.
hugs and
love&light to you

ps,
like dorabee my ds needs some activity/ stimulation before a sleep.
more and more we're finding he needs to burn off energy.

Hi, sorry to hear about the early wake ups! Elizabeth Pantley's website has a listing of many support groups for her book, which is how I found this site several years ago. Here's the link:

http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth/con...portgroups.htm

Hope that helps!

Waking up super early is usually more of a sign of the NCSS at work. What happens is when you start using her plan, and the sleep patterns start changing, one of the first changes is a longer sleep time at the beginning of the night, but temporarily a lot of moms note an early wake up developing that wasn't there before. So, it's really just an indicator that sleep patterns are on the move. My DS did that for a month or two when I started this plan... I decided it was just a phase, and to just go with it and talk him for a walk in the Baby Bjorn (at least it was during summer and it is light out here at that time of day in the summer). Eventually he started getting up later.

Sounds like all the things you are trying to extend the sleep are good ideas! It can take a few weeks for these things to work because we are changing their sleep over time with this plan.

Keep at it, and I liked what Love&Light said "what you're going through is really hard and it's hard in a way that 90% of people can't understand because they haven't been there." It's a hard time, for sure... I'm about to go through it all over again with a new child... ahhhhh!

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