First night of VR with 9 month old. What happens now?

So baby has been in bed asleep for an hour now and I'm feeling lost and nervous about what happens next....

So far I have been strictly against CIO or CC for this baby (#2) but after a few weeks of a grumpy (hitting and biting), clingy, whinge-ing little boy very far from his happy go lucky nature, I decided we needed to change our current sleeping arrangements - of Co-sleeping and nursing to sleep. He has started waking every 30 mins to have boob as a pacifier to get back to sleep. I know I've brought this on myself but now I realise he NEEDS to be able to self settle for his own health, happiness and development. I'm sad its come to this, I was hoping he would be one of the few who learnt to self settle from having a calm secure sleeping arrangement but alas this is not the way.

I put him down at 6.30 and went and lay him back down with a kiss and an "it's ok, i love you, goodnight baby" at 6.33, 6.38, and 6.48 and then at 6.57 the monitor went quiet and he was asleep. It was less than half an hour!!!

And now I'm not sure what happens next.... When/If he wakes every 30 mins do I feed him at all, or is that giving him mixed signals? What if he actually is hungry? If I dont feed him, do I do the same VR technique I did at bedtime? He does need more sleep so I would like to stop night boob all together but is this the right time to do that? It just seems a bit much, he has to adjust to a new bed, without me, self settling and then to have have no night boob, oh gosh this is really heart breaking. I am ok with feeding him at 10-11pm and again at 2-3am if I need to but should I just not and see how he goes?

I havent sleep more than a 2 hour stretch in months so Im a bit worried about going to sleep just incase I sleep so deeply that I dont wake to the monitor. He did wake briefly at 7.45 but only made 1 noise and then no more. Im so tempted to check on him every 5 minutes to see that he is safe/breathing/comfortable but I have been refraining and have only been in once and its doing my head in, I know I will get passed this anxiety but its really tough right at this moment, hence the reason I just keep typing smile Has anyone else got anything they could share with me to make me feel a bit better about this. x

Oh wow earthgoat, you are doing an amazing job! That is so impressive that he has gone to sleep so well with VR.
If I were you I would not feed during the night at all, and if he does wake, leave him for 5 minutes and if still shouting do the VR again as you did initially.
Whatever you decide to do, make a plan and stick to it. The most important thing is that you are consistent in what you are doing.
I know when I started VR I would second guess myself all the time, and I would imagine all these different scenarios and what I needed to do to remain consistent.
If our DS wakes in the night now and just has a little shout and chat to himself we do not go in, but if he is really shouting we will go in and give him a kiss on his head, make sure he has his comforter and leave him to it again.
Oh, and at night DH goes in to reassure as I have the milkbar, which is definitely closed and that way DS doesn't even think its an option smile

We also check for poo as well, and if need be change nappy - maybe a random thing to add, and not sure if this is common, but DS pretty much only poos when he is in his cot! lol I think he likes the privacy grin

Thank you for your support and advice wageha!
I stupidly went in to check on him and bloody woke him up!!
I feel so bad shutting him in the dark. I wonder if I should get him some sort of night light, or does that make things worse?
Poor little guy has no idea why I'm not cuddling him or why he's crying and not getting boob, I wish he could just understand that he will be so much happier when he is getting more sleep. A few nights to adjust is not much really considering the alternative, but I really cant wait to give him cuddles in the morning!
I wish I had a sleep sack to put on him so I didnt have to worry about him getting cold, I did put on his warmest onesie and the eco store heater is on, but its another one of those things I guess I will worry about.

I would love for DH to be here to help me with this, but he works away from home during the week. I dont think he would have the patience for it anyway. Im surprised Im doing so well actually. I did try CC a couple of months ago but it almost killed me to hear him cry for me, and at that stage it was for me not for baby so I gave in.

Now that it is in babys best interest I have hardened my heart just enough to get through this.

This time is taking longer for him to get back to sleep, its already been half an hour with 4 VR's and he's still crying. I think he will be asleep before the next 15 mins is up though.

The other thing you could consider getting, although really expensive for what they are , is a video monitor.
We had a cheap one that a friend gave to us and it only worked for a month or so before it died, but it was great for when you want to check on them just to reassure yourself but don't want to wake them smile
I've had to resort to sneaking in with my mobile phone screen as the light! lol
How did your night go?

I considered a Dream Feed, but I have no idea how to do it without waking him, he would end up just waking when I put him in the cot and screaming anyway.

I ended up feeding him when he woke at 2am mainly because my boobs were so full and painful. I will do that again tonight to be consistent, and eventually once he has settled in to this routine I will try to drop that feed. He fell asleep 20 minutes after the feed so I didnt make it any worse in my eyes.

So the night went relatively well. I didnt go back in to check on him smile

He woke 6 times and the longest was that first time for an hour. Then it got progressively better, I only went in the first 3 times out of the 6 because the last ones (between 4.15 and 6.15) he self settled within the first 5 minutes. He really woke 8 times but 2 of the times werent even worth counting because it was one noise and then that was it.

I got him up when he woke at 6.15 which is our standard wake up time.

I took notes all night smile and I'm going to adjust his clothing tonight and not even have blankets in the cot until he is at the stage where he just stays lying down. I wish I had a sleep sack! But by the time I get to town to buy one (I live in the country and go to town - which is an hour away - only on Mondays) he will hopefully be sleeping nicely. I also decided I would like a bedroom thermometer, maybe a night light and a video monitor smile but with all of it, by the time I get to town I hopefully wont need it....... I'm thinking of turning his teddy in to a comforter, DD9yrs had 1 and though it was a pain in the ass if we ever left it at grandmas it was a lifesaver for staying at grandmas...... She still has it too, ratty thing that it is. So I might stuff baby's teddy down my shirt today, and have that in his cot for cuddles.

All in all though I think we've done well. I didnt cave, I stayed consistent, and he handled it like a champ. And do you know what? He still loves me today grin

Im not sure whether to do it for naps or not? I did read online that I shouldnt because he needs to have good naps to get a good sleep while doing VR so I should just do what we usually do. But then I also read online that if I do what we usually do, it will give him mixed signals. Im leaning more towards doing it, I think he needs to learn that he doesnt need to sleep on me during the day. He will probably get a longer nap too.

Well I put him down for a nap at 9 - 1 VR and a nappy change at 9.10 and by 9.15 he was asleep!
He was exhausted though. But at least he went down nicely. I think this is definitely what he needed. Now here's hoping nothing wakes him.....

Im going to try for an hours nap each at 9am and 2pm with awake times of 4 hours in between. Does that sound reasonable and is it enough sleep?

Earthgoat that is awesome!!! smile I am so happy for you, it makes such a difference doesn't it smile
How old is DS? Mine is 7 months old and we have 2 day sleeps, one in the morning and one at lunch time. I think it's recommended to have 14/15 hours all up at 7 months, so we have 45 in morning and 1.5-2.25 at lunch, depending on when he wakes up and approx 12 hours at night - like you we have a definite morning up time, we do 6.30am.
To save confusion I would still do day naps (as long as he;s not 4 or something! lol grin) but do VR for these also.
Yay for you!!! grin
Xx

Ok well the nap only lasted for our usual 30 mins, I did do VR after he woke for the half an hour that I wanted him to still be in bed for but got him up at 10 - I'm not sure if I should have left him or not.

So I guess I have options - let him just have half hour naps and hope that when he has learnt to fully self settle it will get better. - Or I could change his nap time to earlier - maybe he is over tired by 9am, or later, maybe he's not tired enough (though I'm sure he is, he was falling asleep on the boob) Or I could give him more naps through out the day to make up for lost sleep like you do nadz27.

My DS is 9.5 months.

Wow 1.5-2.25 is an awesome nap!!

If DS is sleeping from 6.30pm to 6am and only having two 1 hour naps thats only 13.5 hrs sleep I have read conflicting info saying he needs 2 naps of an hour each or 2 naps totalling 3-4hrs. Nothing says 4 naps of 30 mins each though. And I dont think theres any chance of getting 3-4hrs at all. 1 hour total seems to be stretch at the moment. Ive also read he needs 13-14 or 14-15 hrs sleep per day.

He just needs enough sleep to function nicely and happily what ever that total may be I have no idea just yet.

Yes I think I will have to fit at least one more nap in. What does an osteopath do, is it the same as cranial sacral therapy?

This whole thing is so foreign to me, I havent had a routine or anything for this baby just demand feed, sleep when tired etc, but for my first child I swore by a routine. I was so young back then and now in my old age (almost 28 lol) Im a lot more relaxed and easy going about things so now trying to set up a routine, taking notes, being prompt and consistent is just not the norm for me. It is obviously needed though. For some reason I thought this baby would be different to my first. Who by the way now at age 9 has never ever given me grief at bed or nap times! - So I know routine does work.

Just get what you can with day sleeps, as the others have said, as long as he is happy. I have to put DS down as he just gets soooo grumpy!
Does your DS have obvious tired signs? Mine always rubs his eyes and it's pretty much 2 1/4 hours from when he last woke. For a while he did go through sleeping just 45 mins (1 sleep cycle) at lunch, and I would just add a nap in mid arfo, but lately he has been having the long lunch sleep.
We also have a sleep routine before he goes down, shut curtains, get comforter and cuddle just for a couple of minutes and then put him down.
With the comforters thing we just got three of the same so one can always be on the wash and it isn't disaster of we loose one smile

Earthgoat85 wrote:
Im going to try for an hours nap each at 9am and 2pm with awake times of 4 hours in between. Does that sound reasonable and is it enough sleep?

Usually for babies 9-12 months they are awake 3 hours at a time and have two naps of 1.5 to 2 hours each. But for me I always would accept 1.5 hours as a decent nap. If he woke before that I would resettle. smile

I also agree with the waking happy thing. If my son woke crying and grumpy and it was less than 1.5 hours then he needed more sleep. If he woke up happy and smiling then all good.