Hi ya'll. I know i've written in a ton lately and that's just because i'm basically at a loss of what to do. LO is 8 months on the 29th and is still not STTN and waking up 4-5 times a night. IT'S EXHAUSTING to say the least. He's cranky the whole next day and so am I. I know based on the wonder weeks he's definitely going through a new leap starting this week which may be why the fussiness is present but the sleep issues have gotta go. Naps suck too. The kid fights me tooth and nail for every sleep situation. He cries when we walk in his room for bedtime! We ditched the swaddle a month ago which is great but now we have bigger problems. Try not to judge me but the kid won't go down until he's rocked to sleep and I've given into it because I am SO tired. We've created a sleep monster. He can't self soothe and it's terrible because I have given in. Can this be fixed? HALP mommas. What do I do? Do I try the ferber method?
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Hmm, can you maybe post what his typical schedule is? How many naps, when they are and wake up/bed time?
Sleep training just depends on where your comfort level is with various methods. Ranges from CIO to very gentle but slower progress methods.
DD started STTN just around 8-9 months (we did zero sleep training), so I can tell you that it's not crazy abnormal that he's still waking up but has he always been fighting bed/nap times? Or just lately?
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I feel for you, girl! We were there not long ago. At 8 months, DS would go to sleep at 7:30, and wake up crying 3-4 times before midnight, and then once or twice between 12-5. It was exhausting and so stressful on DH and I. So we sleep-trained. We really watched for his cues starting around 5 pm, and starting putting him to bed earlier. We found that 6 was the magic bedtime. I continued to nurse him almost to sleep, and would put him in the crib. He would usually wake fully, stand and scream in place for about 5-15 mins. Then he'd go to sleep. Once he figured out how to go to sleep on his own, he figured out how to put himself back to sleep whenever he woke up at night. Usually, he was just him turning over and going back to sleep. The screaming eventually stopped and he began STTN. Sleep trg doesn't work for everyone, but it was life changing for us!!!
For naps we went to a 9 am and 1 pm schedule, and rocked him to sleep or almost asleep. He would nap for 45 mins to 1h30. But his nighttime sleep started to get better as his daytime sleep did.
Use whatever method that works to get him to sleep. (My opinion only). I think the timing of it is more important, and the routine, and to get them used to putting themselves back to sleep. Good luck!
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Here to commiserate. I got two, two hour chunks of sleep last night.
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I'd be curious to see a sample schedule, too! What time is wakeup for the day, what times do you try to do naps, bedtime, etc.
It sounds a lot like overtiredness to me but hard to say without seeing the schedule.
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For us personally, we had to do some sleep training. We were in the same boat around 6.5 months - up 5+ times a night, fighting naps, cranky constantly. It was the last part that got me to agree to train her - I would have put up with the sleep deprivation forever if needed, but she was clearly suffering from not getting uninterrupted sleep. We did a made up system that was mostly Ferber (and she did already go to sleep on her own, so it was just for MOTN wakings).
It was three really painful nights, and then she started sleeping 12 hours with only 1, maybe 2 wake ups. At 9 months she started STTN on her own.
We didn't do nap training because I couldn't handle hearing her cry during the day, too, but since she's started sleeping better at night she no longer fights naps and usually is rocked or nursed to sleep in under 5 minutes. I would like to get her falling asleep on her own in the crib, but ti's not a battle worth fighting for me right now.
ETA: I was always blaming LO's crankiness on wonder weeks, teething, separation anxiety, everything...but as soon as she started getting good night sleep she was 10000 times happier, even when she was teething or in wonder weeks. That's just our experience though, every baby is different. Hang in there!
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Oh, and like @Astro Bee said, when we were trying to teach her to go to sleep on her own at night, finding the magic bedtime made all the difference. We realized that no matter what time we put her in the crib, she would always fall asleep at 7:20 on the dot. Now several months later there's a bit more flexibility, but finding that time was key.
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@MrsSRS:
hugs!
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@snowjewelz: @SweetiePie: So his schedule goes like this most days (also I should mention he comes to work with me and sleeps in a nursery in our own private office. He naps in his pack in play) He is also fully formula fed. Has been since 3 months.
Up screaming every morning at around 6:00-7:00am
Screaming for his bottle. EVERY morning. He didn't use to do this.6oz Bottle at 6 or 7am
He usually falls asleep in the car on the way to work so nap time at around 8:45 - 9:00am (it's hard to get around that one since I have to get to work around 10:00)5oz bottle at 10:00am he wakes up hungry.
40 mins later breakfast (yogurt, bananas, purees etc.)
Nap @ 11:00am until 12:00Another 5-6oz bottle at 12:15pm-12:30pm
Nap at 1:15pm/1:30pm depending on when he got his bottle (he gets super cranky if he stays up past an hour of waking previously, not sure if this is normal!)He usually naps until 2:30 or 3:00 and then gets another 6oz bottle.
He usually stays up the rest of the time until our car ride home at 5:00pm and he might dose off in the car. If he's super cranky the last hour at work I go lay him down for nap 4-5pm (if he even makes it that long, this nap is so sucky!)Home at 5:30pm
Play, Bath, and then bottle at 6:00pm
Soild food at 7:00Down at 7:30pm on the dot but he never falls asleep usually until 8:00pm (we've tried earlier times but it doesn't work well for our family lifestyle, 6:30pm was wayyyyy to early with work and etc.)
I really don't know if this schedule is "right" or good at all but it's what we've fallen into. Both DH and I work full time so it gets a little hectic. I am grateful to have him at work with me but it's definitely tough sometimes. Plus with introducing solids has been changing it up. all in all he gets two meals a day and he's still at 5 bottles of formula.
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@paigeface: What's your bed/naptime routine? Maybe at night you can give solids, play, bath then bottle? Maybe giving bath/bottle at the end can help move him into a more relaxed state?
And he wakes up at 10am and then naps again at 11am?
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@Dahlia: Thank you for all the really helpful info!!! How did you do the Ferber CIO method. Did you go in every time after 5 mins, 10 mins etc?
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@paigeface: At 8 months my LO could stay up 2-2.5 hours between naps, 1 hour seems like way too little. I would guess he needs to stay up longer and he's fighting it so hard because he hasn't been up long enough (even though he's tired from not getting good night sleep). If LO's not ready to sleep yet she SHRIEKS.
I think it was in Ferber that I read something really helpful. Babies all have natural set points for sleeping and waking. They also all have periods of time they can happily be awake. The goal is to get those two systems in line. So for my LO, her natural bedtime is around 7:30 and at 9 months she can go 3-4 hours from her last nap until bedtime. So if her last nap goes until 5:30, she's going to want to sleep at 7:30 but will have a hard time because she hasn't been awake long enough. If her last nap ends at 2:30, she's going to be exhausted at 6:30 but will fight sleep since it's not her natural bedtime. I think naps are sort of the same, but it's harder to figure out when their natural sleep times are.
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@Dahlia: @snowjewelz: I will try to go longer between naps! he is sooo cranky after about 1-1.5 hours of being up that's why I've always put him down. even though naps aren't longer than an hour he's out like a light in 6 mins of rocking so I figured he was tired. I'm going to extend time awake and see if that helps
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@paigeface: Before, every time she woke in the middle of the night I would nurse her back to sleep. So we decided the first night that I wouldn't nurse her before 2am (we knew she could easily go 6 hours without eating because she had done that from 2-3 months). When she woke up waited 5-10 minutes to see what she did. If she was crying hard after those 5-10 minutes, DH went in and patted her and tried to calm her down (with mixed results, usually it just got her more upset). After that, we'd wait 10 more minutes. If she calmed herself down at all in that period we started the countdown over from 10. If she woke after 2, I went in and fed her but made sure to put her back in the crib awake.
Nights 2 and 3 I couldn't take it, so I slept in the guest room with 4 types of white noise going until it was time to feed her. I'm pretty sure DH started extending the time until he went in to 15-20 minutes, because he realized going in was just making it worse.
Night 1 was probably 2 hours of crying and fussing over 4 or 5 wake ups. I thought I was going to die, but she still was happy to see me in the morning and still loves me
Night 2 was 1 hour of crying over 4 wake ups.
Night 3 was 30 minutes of fussing over 3 wake ups.
Night 4 was 10 minutes of fussing over 3 wake ups.
By night 5 she was sleeping 7:30-7:30 with a wakeup to eat at 4.In the last three months she's mostly stuck to one wake up, with just a couple nights of 2 wake ups and since the day she hit 9 months she's slept 11 hours straight every night.
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@Dahlia: Thank you so much mama! We are starting tonight. Wish me luck.
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@paigeface: You can do this! Good luck, let us know how it goes!
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@Dahlia: Hey all, just a little update! Last nights CIO went pretty well! I ended up waiting about 20 mins in between before I went it and twice he put himself back to sleep! I really went in 3 times the whole night. I didn't start with 10 mins because he's super persistent and figured me going in more would just make him more upset. He ended up sleeping through the rest the night in his crib with my last pat and walk in at 4:45am. Slept in his crib and woke up for his bottle at 7:20. Today naps have been great and no rocking involved. I've extended his awake times and so far so good! We will continue the CIO through the weekend and as long as it takes
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As soon as she dropped to 1 nap at 10 mo she STTN 10-12 hours every night. I think she was getting too much daytime sleep. Before that she was waking 1-3 times a night.
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@paigeface: Excellent! I'm so glad to hear that. And if he has a bad night or two, don't despair. You'll get there.
hugs!
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