I'm the father of a 7-1/2 month old girl. She's been a pretty good sleeper, but things have been decaying in the past month or so, and some of what we were doing was clearly not sustainable, so we started looking around for a new plan.

We decided to start things out with The Cure tonight. I was ready to stay up all night, ready to steel myself for a certain amount of challenge and doubt, but now it just seems like a failure.

We started out with one last feeding, some fun time, and then lights out and right into it. She calmed down quickly with buffing the first time around, only a couple minutes. It didn't stick of course, I did a couple jingles which quieted her for a moment, but felt like I had to go in after a few minutes. Some more buffing, quieted, left, she cried, a couple jingles, and then buffing again, and she went to sleep while I was buffing her (I know I was supposed to leave before that, but I didn't realize she was asleep because she felt like before).

OK... so I'm feeling optimistic, figure I'll have to go through some of the steps I missed when she wakes up next, and I was ready to treat it like we had just started.

An hour later she wakes up, she's caught me at the only time so far I was not disposed to immediately be at her side, but was in the room in 20 seconds, though she had started crying. I thought I'd position and then doing a jingle and confirmation... but once I was in that didn't seem like enough (she had been fighting the positioning, and immediately getting up). So I do some buffing, deciding I will leave as soon as she is somewhat calm, not necessarily entirely quiet.

An hour later she is crying as loud and consistently as when I started, with nothing providing her any comfort and no pauses in her crying. I took a couple short breaks during the time because I felt like maybe I was just making things worse, or should rethink my next step.

I can't even figure out what the next step would be? In the end we gave up, with no sense of progress or even change except that she was getting more horse. She did recover fairly quickly when her mom came to pick her up.

The book talks about tools, but now I can't figure out what those tools are. I'm not supposed to pick her up. She was crying so hard the jingles weren't getting through to her at all... unless maybe they were making her madder. And while I'm open to the idea of comforting through buffing (even if it is a little weird), after an hour I feel more abusive than comforting, and my daughter certainly did not get any comfort from it. And besides those two things, what tools are there? What do you do when the child is inconsolable? I kept telling myself "this is the longest you'll ever have to do this" and now I just feel like I did it for no reason, that I was expecting some implausible magic to occur and it plausibly did not.

I am still open to the ideas in The Cure, and I don't really want to give up on it, but if I was to try the same thing after tonight I feel like I'd only be starting off from a worse point and just as unlikely to succeed.

Well, after being set off track, I managed to get her back to sleep in the crib with gentle back rubs, which she accepted well. I got her to sleep before stopping (again), but at least the experience was pleasant unlike before. So I'm sticking with it tonight, and will attempt to bring in some of the other techniques tonight (mostly the jingles) while dropping the buffing.

A long stretch of sleep before she woke up. Rubbing her back went well, I think I got in some well-timed jingles and she's starting to find them reassuring. She's squirmy but seems to be moving for comfort, while she wants to stay asleep.

Hi and welcome!

So lets start from the beginning. You need to reread the book a bit especially for tonight! So here is a link to the cheat sheet.

http://www.annawahlgren.com/index.php/v ... heat-sheet

Print this and put it on the door!

She should NOT have to wait for 20 seconds night 1 and 2 for answers to her questions. This is ok to start with on night 3 or 4.

Second thing, she is reaching her 8 month anxiety time and has more questions over all problably a bit anxiety during the day as well. You need to be calm and assertive so she really knows that you have your feet firm on the ground! You can read more about this in the book “for the love of children”. (some call this separation anxiety as well)

So the first night you were supposed to be in the room right away to calm her down, either with an effective buffing (which should have been practiced on you wife or so to make sure you have the right technique. You also have the sun feather as a calming tool. Now if you find stroking her back will work it is fine. However we don’t pick them up during the night, this means the wolf is here and we need to run for our lives.

So if I could I would say that you do a combination of night one and two according to the cheat sheet tonight. First establish calm, THEN security, then pleasure.

So you calm her down, leave the room with the jingle (always a minimum of X4) and then the confirmation jingle after that, that too always x4 the first few nights until the jingle has a calming effect or create a dialogue. The jingle can be said x6 or even x8 if needed. Then you have NOICES of the house. Household noise will also calm her down. She needs other things to listen to than her own screaming. Some people vacuum clean, use hair dryer, of wipes floors, do dishes and so on.

So in, calm her down. Leave with the jingle, do household noises and then confirmation jingle. You have to make sure YOU are CALM and assertive! Your state of mind will transfer to your child. So if you are frustrated, or thinking, this will not work, or pleading, please work please accept this. Then you are not being calm and assertive. You need to enter the room, use the jingle like you have never done anything else in you. whole life. I talk about Yoga breathing while you buff/sun feather/stroke the back. You need to with your energy transfer complete calm and confidence. Nothing else. And the same with the jingle, LOUD and CONFIDENT!

What does you schedule look like?

Do you have the bedroom pitch black? You are not supposed to see the hand in front of you.

Using buffing and the jingle for an hour during the night waking’s are not unusual. She doesn’t know what is happening. She is allowed to raise some questions. 100 questions needs 101 answers. Read the “Safari trip” again in the book. And the Chapter “security”

Good luck with night two.

Thanks.

Well, our schedule at night:

7:40 or so, last nursing, get her changed into pajamas
7:50-8:00 have silly time, sing some songs
8am-8pm: sleep

Well... I don't know if there's much to get from the schedule at this point. It's only one day of schedule, and by no means successfully implemented yet. At this point I feel like we've had some success getting her back down, and getting her somewhat comfortable with the crib. She's woken up and put herself to sleep a couple times.

Getting her down initially is the hardest part, including for the naps during the day. She immediately cries, and tries to sit up or get on all fours. I can't really have a conversation with her because nothing seems to get through at all. Other times at night I have felt like she reacts to me, but getting her down the first time (both tonight and yesterday, and for the naps) she doesn't feel like she's reacting at all; I'm not sure if I'd call it angry or frustrated. If I leave it doesn't change much, she moves around more, but her crying has the same tone. I feel more guilty, because at least if I'm in there I'm suffering with her, but I'm not sure if I'm actually doing anything helpful.

She is definitely in the midst of separation anxiety issues, I think that had a lot to do with why her sleep was getting worse (and why we decided to try something new).

I feel like there's different things I can try, and things I can still get from the book, but I can't figure out how what to do when it's entirely fallen apart, when she's crying and nothing seems to have any effect on her (except picking her up, which almost instantly fixes everything). I can tweak things to try to avoid that, but that doesn't seem realistic; if I'm just trying to avoid it, then everything falls apart if something goes a little wrong.

Hi,

So what does the schedule look like daytime? Food, sleep, activity, social participation, being outdoors? What happens durin the day reflects on how the night will be.

We have an expression in Sweden we call Skiing tired. We go skiing and at the end of the day your body is so exhausted that you don’t even think about physical activity during the night.
So If she goes up on all four, sits up, it is up to her! She can be happy, angry and a bit frustrated but never, never truly sad with out using the tools. This is not a putting to sleep cure. It is a cure to teach your child to go to sleep on her own. You just give the prerequisites. So your child can’t be calmed down or made to go to sleep unless SHE is ready for this. And if she needs to stand on all fours for a while then it is hers privilege to do so.

So what can you do?

Stop feeling sorry for the child. Feeling sorry never helped anyone.
Have crawling training during the day 5 min/10 times/day is the recipe. She needs to be physically exhausted.
If she wakes up during the night you give a jingle that is so happy and nice you can dance to it!
Then you let her react. This is up to her if she wants to react or not. Listen to HOW she sounds, using your head, not your heart. If you suffer with her, how can you help?
(If I came to you and you were hurt, would you like my help och me crying with you?)
Laughing at least 10 min before bed. Tickling is allowed. And then flying into an already pitch dark bed POFF down and out with a jingle, the happiest of jingles. Both during the day and night. And then great household noises.

You really need to find the calm assertive way to transmit this to your child.

An anxious waiter:
You and your spouse go to a restaurant and want to order dinner. The waiter comes up to you a bit anxious and takes your order. While eating he comes and asks if the food was good? Did you like it? Would you like some more of anything? He paces around your table worrying that he might miss anything. All you want is some peace and calm so that you can enjoy your evening, but it is quite difficult have this anxious waiter hovering over you.

Now is this the proper prerequisite to get a nice calm dinner?