babies and Gina ford

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kerinsp

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Has anyone followed Gina fords routines on new borns to get them to sleep through the night?
Our little fella cries a lot at night and we are both stressed out. My wife is trying out routines from books and I am unconvinced that they are any good. i think she is stressing herself out even more by waiting to feed the baby when the routine allows.
any tips?
 
They just mentioned swaddling on the TV as a good thing to try for young babies who won't settle.

Have a look at this link - hope it helps! [broken link removed]
 
I have to take my hat off to Mrs bear who now has our little guy sleeping from 7.30pm to 7am, and he only cries when in pain, when he is teething or sick. Once we know this we attend to him, otherwise he self soothes. He has a very strict routine, bath, bottle, storytime, kisses all round and bed. It took a while to implement and I would have cracked early on in the progam (contended baby book was the source) as its quite hard to let a baby cry and to know when to let the baby cry.

Friends of ours have their little guy waking about 3 times a night (at 20 months) and wont sleep unless mama or dada is there to hold his hand as he nods off. All I can say is to get a routine and stick to it, through thick and thin, sleepless nights and stress and it will pay dividends eventually.

We found we need a couple of hours to ourselves in the evening to unwind as well without the Boo-ster's (nickname, long story) demands!

Having said all that, the Gina Ford routine may work but we have not specifically used it.
 
From the same web-site, lots of tips on getting babys and toddlers to sleep

[broken link removed]
 
In my experience, 8 weeks is too young to follow a strict routine like in Gina Fordes. You might have more success at 3 months or a little later. Have a look at www.rollercoaster.ie for lots of tips on routines.

I read all the books, Gina Forde, Baby whisperer etc. At the end of the day you have to take bits of the routine that suit you and not be too rigid right now- there are tips that will be come into their own if you start to follow now, such as always putting your baby down awake at nap time in a darkened room. The first few times will be awful, but once your baby knows what to expect he'll get used to it and it will be even better later on when your baby is old enough to really follow a routine.

Also don't stress out if other people say their baby follows a great routine, or that they are great sleepers etc. Not talking about Stobear here as his little fella is much older than yours. My brother, whose two kids were the sleepers from hell, said to me, if someone says to you, oh, my baby is a great sleeper, can't understand why yours isnt- then respond, well research has shown that when a baby is a poor sleeper, its a sign of intelligence!

Your baby will change a great deal over the next few months and it is NEVER too late to implement a routine, so even if you can't get a routine to work for you now, try again in a few weeks. Vanilla Junior wouldnt follow any routine at all until about 4 months, and only after that did a semblance of a routine develop. We went through rough patches, then smooth, and now am glad to say shes a very good sleeper, and has been since about 12 months.
 
we used Gina Ford for our two wee men, both were 12/14 weeks when we started them, both slept through the night, we found that you had to be flexible with her routines as these are people we are dealing with and not machines.


I would say go for it 100% and dont back down when some say its cruel.
Being awake every 2 hours for 3 years is cruel.
 
I will agree with the sentiment above ... our first child didn't sleep through the night until she was over 2 years old ... so when no 2 came along we decided to do things differently. I read the contented little baby book and a lot of it made sense to me ... especially about not handling the baby too much ... or passing him/her around like a parcel. It's handy to know when the growth spurts are aswell ... at least then you can be prepared.
I would say that it definately works, but you do need to use it as a guideline and fit it into your own life ... you will find that with routine comes security for the baby ... my second child slept through the night from 4 weeks ... but every baby is different.
 
I think that a baby sleeping through the night from 4 weeks would be the exception rather than the norm, though, as most babies of that age wouldn't be able to go through that kind of period without feeding.
 
I think it depends on what you would call sleeping through the night. A friend of mine swore her baby was sleeping through the night from 3 weeks. I found this hard to believe, and it turned out she slept from 12 to 5, and my friend called this sleeping throught the night. i woudl call sleeping throught the night from 11 to 7 ish. I dont think any baby 4 weeks could/would/should sleep that long, at the risk of blood sugars dropping, I would have though a night feed was necessary, even if it was a dreamfeed.
 
You are right Henny Penny.

The Gina Ford book allowed us understand what could be happening to our babay , that is hungry, tired etc and its a godsend to understand that he/she is tired or hungry or whatever.
use Gina Ford as a template and our baby slept from 12/14 weeks for 8/10 hours a night
 
Could we be running into the opposite problem? Our little one will sleep from 9 pm through to 10 am on a regular basis, and sometimes as late as 11.30 am! While this is no problem at the moment, I'm just wondering what will happens when it comes to school times (though this is still a couple of years away)? Suggestions welcome....
 
My kids are the same as you rainyday but their times are better in so far as our 15month old will sleep from 7:15-7:30 until 7:30-7:45 the next morning and sometimes have to wake him at 8am. My daughter who is 3and 1/2 sleeps from 8pm until 7:30am.
They will do this only when they are at home though as if we go to thei grandparents or away for a night its impossible to get them settled.

We didn't follow a routine with the oldest until 8 weeks before the youngest was born and until then it took us about 2 hours every night to get her to sleep plus her coming into our bed. We decided to follow my sisters lead and do the controlled crying approach where you leave them for longer and longer periods and never take them out of the cot. It worked in a week and we were sorry we hadn't done it sooner!

Our youngest never needed cajoling to sleep and if we don;t read his signals for sleep and put him to bed as soon as he starts rubbing his eyes and getting cranky he is harder to settle.

I would definately recommend following whatever routine you feel is best but the key is to have a routine and stick to it. It payd dividends as kids need to have plenty of sleep.
 
RD, I think this could turn out badly if left to continue, on a few occasions where the little guy slept past the 'leaving the house time' I think its cruel to pull the kid of out bed, try to dress a sleeply baby, try and get some food into them, when all they want to do is sleep. Saying that I am a little jealous as I would love to sleep on on a Sunday morning for an hour or 2.

I think you could start moving the time she goes to bed back, say 10 or 15 minutes a week until they do go to bed around 7.30pm and they will be fresh for school/creche.
 
I would consider sleeping through the night to be 7.5/8 hours. I think it is a myth that babies need to be fed every 4 hours ... some babies are more efficient feeder than others. I think the birthweight of a baby will also have some bearing ... nobody would expect a 5 pounder to sleep all night ... but a 10 pound baby could. I'm sure the parents of a newborn would not find it unusual for a baby to sleep for 6/7 hours in the daytime ... maybe we just watch the clock a bit more when it involves us getting out of our cosy beds. Just my opinion.
 
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