I am being sponsored by Pampers for one month to follow their Soothology routine in the hope that it will lead Beanie Boy to the Land of Golden Sleep. Am I talking in riddles? No, this is the truth and I haven’t lost my marbles.
What is the Land of Golden Sleep?
The Land of Golden Sleep is the name given by Pampers to a place where babies sleep soundly and stay comfortable for up to 12 hours.
A baby can wee up to 12 times a night, so Pampers have to ensure that they can produce the goods ‘man-enough’ to do the job and keep baby’s bottom dry. In order to get it right, Pampers has carried out extensive new research with exciting findings.
Invisible Alarm Clock
Studies have found the actual motion of having a wee can potentially wake your baby up, Pampers have named this the Invisible Alarm Clock in the Land of Golden Sleep. As baby wees more and more throughout the night, the wetness can build and may disturb sleep.
For this reason, new Pampers Baby Dry nappy features Extra Absorbent Zones to provide faster absorption. The new Zones are 14% wider than on previous Pampers Baby Dry nappies and so help to speed wetness away faster, keeping baby dry and comfortable for up to 12 hours.
Sleep Expert – Soothology Routines
In an extra bid to help parents in their quest for a good night’s sleep, they have teamed up with Sleep Expert Wendy Dean to create four age-related bedtime routines, called the Pampers Soothology routines. The aim of the routines is to help families progress through baby’s ever-changing night time needs; from 0-3 months; 4-6 months;7-12 months; and 12+ months.
Wendy says
“Sleep is important for your baby to process all that they have learnt during the day. Following a sleep routine, such as the Soothology routines will help your baby to get into a regular pattern of sleeping through the night, something all parents want for their babies”.
One Week into Soothology
I have been following the Soothology routine for a 4-6-month-old for one week now and although it is not massively different from our usual bedtime routine, there is one significant difference that I was anxious about tackling. I needed to put Beanie Boy down to sleep whilst still awake, which, if you saw my post about Self-soothing Nightmares you would know has not been an easy task for me to undertake.
Beanie Boy, from birth, has been very reliant upon falling asleep whilst I’m nursing him. After spending over 2 hours one evening trying to let him self-soothe I decided my only choice was to use the ‘cry-it-out’ method. Thankfully for me, this only took 15 minutes and he was asleep. I have followed the same method every day for his daytime naps and when putting him to bed at night and it has worked a treat as he now only ‘grumbles’ for 5 minutes before going to sleep.
His sleep is also now much more substantial – a usual daytime nap for Beanie Boy would have been 40 minutes, today his midday nap was 2.5hours!!!!!!!
Night time success?
But the big question is, how is he doing at night?
Well, he is certainly settling much quicker – I take him up to bed at 7.00 pm and wouldn’t normally be seen back downstairs until 8.30 pm. Since following the Soothology routine I’m usually back downstairs by 7.45 pm at the very latest.
I give him a ‘dream feed’ at 11.00 pm and he wakes anywhere from 4.00 am to 8.00 am for a feed. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of routine to his twilight awakenings.
I have had two nights where he has slept-through **doing a happy dance** and the others where he has woken at 4.15 am for a 10-minute feed or much worse, waking at 5.00 am or 5.30 am and deciding to stay wide awake and full of beans for approximately 90 minutes **NOT DOING A HAPPY DANCE**. I shall report back next week to let you know how things are progressing . . . .