Our nanny is pushing to sleep train

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We sleep trained from 6 weeks because we had twins and our nanny wanted to do it. Been great sleepers since 12 weeks, , even when they moved into a bed from the crib. Now they are 3 and it's still going well. Sleep training is a sanity saver!

Wow, how does one sleep train a 6 week old?

PP probably got lucky with genetics.

Everyone else just starves them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably aren't actually sleep trained . It's likely a function of their being premature.

14:20 here. Had my twins at 38 weeks 5 days. 7lb 2 and 6lb 5, so not premature or very small.
Our night doula showed me what to do. She would just stroke their backs or rock them until it was time to eat and had them swaddled so they felt secure.
She came for the first 12 weeks a few nights a week and kept them on track.

The bigger one was born wanting to eat every three hours like clockwork. Her little sister required more rocking. And the little one didn't make it to 3 hours every time. But I would try the rocking etc first then if she was still restless I would feed her "early".

I think it also helps that they were formula fed after 8 weeks as I went back to work and stopped breast feeding/pumping. That is not something I am especially proud of, but I had to do it.

By 12 weeks they would "dream feed" where you go and get them in the bop pillows in their swaddle and put the bottle in their mouth every 3 hours and they don't even wake up. That worked about 70% of the time.

Maybe get a night doula, they are very experienced and know all the tricks.

[Anonymous]

Unless you are rich, I can't imagine that having someone come in to "teach" a 6 week old to sleep is worth it over just waiting till they're ready. If anything, I would hire someone to get up with them.

I don't really understand how it works anyway, based on the previous post. I mean, if you pat their back and they're still crying do you feed them or make them wait?

[Anonymous]

Also swaddled and sleeping in a boppy is very dangerous. Boppies are not for sleeping unattended and swaddling should only ever be on their backs on a flat surface.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are rich, I can't imagine that having someone come in to "teach" a 6 week old to sleep is worth it over just waiting till they're ready. If anything, I would hire someone to get up with them.

I don't really understand how it works anyway, based on the previous post. I mean, if you pat their back and they're still crying do you feed them or make them wait?

You can't do this with a 6-week old . But for a 6-month old baby, if you KNOW they've just had a good dinner and are waking up to nurse just out of habit, there is nothing wrong with making them wait or crying it out. Sleep-training my daughter has been a life-changing experience for our entire family.

[Anonymous]

I'm a mom of twins who are great sleepers, were full-term, etc... We did a modified version of sleep-training when they were about 3 months old. Basically we let them cry at 2 am when they would normally have eaten. They cried for about 3 minutes and went back to sleep.

That's when we got 11pm-5 am sleep.

Just shy of 5 months we were able to get 10/10:30 to 6/6:30 sleep reliably. Godsend.

At 7 months we achieved 7-7, no waking.

At no time did we consider any night that included a dream-feed or middle of the night soothing, sleeping through the night. If you're up feeding a child every 3 hours then the child is not sleeping through the night.

Please don't perpetrate misrepresentation on sleep deprived parents of babies.

[Anonymous]

I cared for preemie twins who were sleeping 10+ hours at night at about 9 weeks adjusted age. They have not hit the holy grail of 7p - 7a yet, but parents don't want to let them cry more than a minute or so at just 11 weeks adjusted age, which I completely agree with.

Once they are a bit older I think there will be more of an effort to let them self-comfort.

Personally, as a nanny and an NCS, I am not in favor of CIO before 12 weeks, and would turn down clients who wanted to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also swaddled and sleeping in a boppy is very dangerous. Boppies are not for sleeping unattended and swaddling should only ever be on their backs on a flat surface.

They didn't sleep in the boppies. We moved them into the boppies to be fed. Swaddling, I know. Don't worry.

And yes, they didn't sleep regularly 11pm-6am without the 2am feed until about 12 weeks.

But we did have help because we both had patients to see in the morning so maybe I don't know what went on really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are rich, I can't imagine that having someone come in to "teach" a 6 week old to sleep is worth it over just waiting till they're ready. If anything, I would hire someone to get up with them.

I don't really understand how it works anyway, based on the previous post. I mean, if you pat their back and they're still crying do you feed them or make them wait?

You can't do this with a 6-week old . But for a 6-month old baby, if you KNOW they've just had a good dinner and are waking up to nurse just out of habit, there is nothing wrong with making them wait or crying it out. Sleep-training my daughter has been a life-changing experience for our entire family.

But the comment was about a 6 week old.