A complete U-turn!

After trying to convince myself that just going with the flow re Hafsah’s sleep patterns is OK, the combination of quite a few nights of being woken, every 2-3 hours, and giving in to a blatant marketing technique by a sleep expert, I decided to do something about the situation. I’d been getting marketing e-mails from an expert from Canada (Dana Obelman) giving ‘guaranteed success’ of your baby sleeping through the night. I could not believe it, and despite the ‘money-back guarantee’ had decided to leave it, as felt it was just going to be the usual let them cry type method. Anyway, after looking around the net about this lady’s credentials, and could find nothing untoward, decided to go for it, and so far I am glad I did. Hafsah has slept 8- 9 hours straight the last few nights, maybe a brief awakening. But also got the added bonus of her sleeping early (around 7.30 pm.). The amount of crying has been minimal and I now feel less helpless and slightly in control! The main points of the sleep plan seem to be: 1 Early bedtime after a set bedtime routine. 2. Repeat same phrase when time to sleep e.g. ‘sleep time’ 3.Make sure they have a comfort object e.g blankie, cuddly toy. 4.Leave to cry 10 mins if wake in night (or however long you decide, but stick to this time) and do not pick up if still crying after this time, but go and comfort by repeating phrase, stroke. (I never had to get to this point,) I was so shocked that there was an immediate effect. Maybe she has been so overtired she couldn’t sleep soundly. Also not letting her sleep after feeding so she is not using me as human dummy (I had to slip up on this today at scouts as she couldn’t settle with all the noise around.) Yes the downside to this program is that it assumes you are a first time parent with no other noisy kids around, or places to go when she should be having her scheduled nap!
Anyway after all this success so far, I still feel pretty wrecked as I still find it hard to sleep (I’m also over tired) and wake up wondering if she’s going to cry and if she’s OK, InshAllah this phase will soon be over.