30 minute kid

[kathunter2000]

My baby is 6 months old and has been sleeping in my arms for naps and next to me at night since he was born, not by choice, but only because this is the only way he could sleep. From 2-4 months, I tried putting him down in his crib for naps, but with little success, so I gave up, but I am now at the end of my rope. Can't get anything done! I have tried sleep gadgets, machines, swings, bouncy seats, bassinets with vibration, music, clothes with my scent on it, a "lovey", etc. If I do get him down for a nap, it is only for 30 mins., usually on the dot, when he wakes up. This would be fine except he is very cranky. I would not classify him as a "short napper", because he can get 1-2 hours on me and is totally refreshed. I know the difference. I have read Weissbluth and Ferber. I have tried letting him cry for naps (going on 3 weeks) and he still can't go to sleep on his own. I usually let him cry for no more than 30 minutes, checking on him on a graduated time scale.
I understand that this may only work if we are doing CIO nights as well as naps, but for how long do you "Ferberize" them at night? Until they stop crying, or do you pick them up after, say, 2 hours of crying? Also, I don't think Ferber is clear about what to do if they wake up early from a nap. HELP! I feel I have read every trick in the book, and just need some practical advice and clarification.

[maestramommy]

If you posted this question in another forum, some might suggest wearing him in a carrier for his naps so you can get stuff done. I've not had this problem personally, but I've read threads from many mamas who's dc will not nap on their own, so they resort to wearing them. And since I have a toddler on the go, I do wear my dd2 when we have to go out, and she usually takes one of her naps on my back. I also wear her a lot in the late afternoons when she's awake and wants to be held, but I'm busy getting dinner ready, feeding dd1, or doing some other task that requires both hands.

You can post a query in the Carrier section, or you can check out thebabywearer.com. They have a discussion forum with many subtopics. If you go to the "General Babywearing Chat" forum and state the problem above, I bet you will get a lot of replies.

Hope that helps. I cannot imagine what this must be like, but it must be hard. ((HUGS))

[ThreeofUs]

Sounds like my DS. We were on 4-hour shifts - even with baby wearing - for 4 months before we figured out what was wrong. His reflux was such that he needed to sleep on his tummy so that he could breathe without urping and choking himself. He had been sleeping on his tummy elevated on us (and that was the ONLY way he could get any rest), and when we went to flat tummy sleeping I was terrified - but it worked.

By that time, he had become afraid to sleep, and would scream his "scared cry" when he got tired. Poor baby!

And all of the advice to "let him scream it out" was useless - and worse than useless, dangerous - for our DS, because he was choking. We started co-sleeping early and just kept it up. We all sleep well now.

Don't know if you have had your DS checked for reflux, but might help. We used prevacid in breast milk, which had a side benefit of DS learning to use a spoon really early!

Best of luck to you! I know how hard this is.

[kathunter2000]

Thanks for the advice. I used a sling under the advice of my ped. and he slept in it a little until he was 4 months. Even though he was sleeping on me, I still could hardly breathe because he was so sensitive to noise. He is too big for it except in the hip carry and the back carry scares me. And we did have him on reflux med. to try to find an explanation as to why he was so colicky the first four months. Listening to him cry right now - gotta go pat him. Thanks anyway!

[ThreeofUs]

Oh, I'm so sorry!

I was just coming back to add that our little guy couldn't sleep in *anything*. I still remember looking at the baby monitor in disbelief as I was running back up from the middle of the stairs - which was as far as I'd ever gotten when I tried to sleep him in a sling, in his car seat, on a reflux pad in his crib, an ambi bed, etc.

After about 6 months, he could sleep for longer on us only - and only when we were semi-reclined, and only after 45 minutes or so of walking, singing, dancing him down. We really had to reprioritize our lives.

We lived in a maya wrap and tried to find times for us to sleep. The best thing we found was a babysitter who was fine with making $10/hour to recline in a comfy bed and read while the baby slept! Sounds crazy, but otherwise nothing got done.

One of the worst things we found was that people always assumed either (1) we were defective parents ("obviously something you're doing is wrong") or (2) he was a defective baby. Really hard to find people to talk to about this, but The Baby Book did have things on our type of baby - sounds like Bill and Martha Sears went through it, too.

But it did get better. Best of luck to you and to your DS.