Hellobee Boards

It all depended on the night. My son has never been a great sleeper so it just was par for the course. After a year it was anywhere from 2 to 5 wakings per night (the upper end was usually due to teething pain and such). Some nights he would go back down quickly with a touch of soothing but some nights he'd be up for hours, no true rhyme or reason. When ended up really helping us was potty training and doing night training at the same time. At 22 months he only wakes once to potty in the middle of the night and goes right back down. It's been awesome.

@BabyBoecksMom: oh yes she got hysterical when we left the room. It really started with sleep training when we put her down. We started a routine and would get her calm and put her In her crib and lay her down. We would rub her back but she would obviously start to cry and try to stand up. As soon as she stood up we would tell her once "no it's night night time and you need to lay down or momma is leaving". We would lay her down and rub her back again. Usually she started crying and standing up again and we would say "no it's night night time and you need to lay down" and when she wouldn't lay down we would immediately leave the room. This would cause the hysterics. We would time it. First was about 2-5 minutes. We would go back in and repeat. When we left again we let her scream/cry for about 5-7 minutes. After a third time we would wait about 10-12 minutes of crying. Usually after the third time she would get the idea and go to sleep. Occasionally we gave in and after the third time realized she just really needed picked up and rocked. Usually it worked though. Over time she got the idea that she needed to learn how to lay in bed and relax and fall asleep on her own (even if I was still there). Now it takes about 5 minutes of rubbing her back (she knows to lay down or we leave) and she is asleep.

Obviously we would eventually like to be able to lay her down and her fall asleep completely on her own but this is a good first step.

We did the same routine at night if she woke up. Don't pick her up but lay her back down. Sometimes if she got really hysterical we would reach over the crib and give her a hug to calm her down but again she was still in her crib and we didn't pick her up.

@StbHisMrs: Yes, she was getting up at night. She was sick right at 11 months with a bad stomach bug and was hospitalized for dehydration. So I nursed like crazy during that period. By about 13 months she still was nursing like crazy and up at least once per night and I needed my sanity.

I kinda wished we had sleep trained sooner (7-9 months) but it was nice to wait until after a year because it helped with my BFing and supply and she could understand us when we told her "night night" and "lay down".