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  1. #1
    PGTB is offline Gold level (500+ posts)
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    Default Will this EVER get better..

    DS is 8 months and since he was 3 months he slept for 6 hours straight maybe only about 3 times. The rest of the time it's been an ongoing ordeal, him waking up every 2 hours on average. Below are his night time sleep patterns for the last 5 months.

    A good night (very rare):
    DS would wake up every 3 hours and go to sleep easily after a short nursing session. Then he would wake up for the day around 5-6:30am. Sometimes I would be able to "convince" him to sleep longer if he would wake up at 4-5 am and think the day should start. I would put him into our bed and lay down nursing him till he nods off to sleep again for another hour giving us extra time to sleep.

    An average night:
    DS wakes up every 2 hours to nurse and goes to bed within 10-15 min after waking while nursing. Sometimes I have to get up and rock him to sleep to put him into his crib asleep, otherwise, he may decide to hang out for 2 hours. He would wake up for the day before 5am and I have to take him into our bed for laying down nursing to make him fall asleep till 6:30 am.

    A bad night:
    DS wakes up every hour or more frequently, fussy. It's hard to put him to sleep. At least once a night with one of his wakings he would be up for 2 hours and wouldn't go to sleep for nothing in the world. He would then be up for the day at 6-6:30am. Or, he would think 4am is time to get up and there is nothing that would make him go back to sleep.

    The problem is that the bad night scenario is waaaay more frequent than most of the books on baby milestones suggest. He can't be having this 5 months long milestone and he isn't even close to teething. I was a late teether at 10 months, he prob will be the same. He only had one cold so far, he doesn't have reflux with projectile vomiting or excessive spit up. He is gassy and solids haven't been easy for him, but this has only been 1.5 months and his sleep has been poor way before it. We get a bad night pretty much at least every week or sometimes 2-3 times a week or if it's a "good" stretch 1 every two weeks (very rare). This has been going on continuously for 5 long miserable months.

    We are pretty much at the end of our rope and I don't know what to do. I am losing hope that he will EVER sleep through the night or at least have more "good" nights than "bad" until he is 2 years old. I won't survive this without falling into the deep depression (I am getting close to it) and/or requiring medication, and/or resenting my poor child and the entire motherhood. Already, my brain has turned to mush... I am not productive at work, I am barely hanging onto my job at this point... anything challenging going my way, I wouldn't handle it. I have stress induced insomnia at the start of the night fearing another "bad" night. Reading sleep books and feeding books and other baby books is just making me angry at this point, DS is obviously not "average", which is what these books tend to be geared towards. Sleep books tend to suggest all babies have the same sleep needs, which I am starting to doubt at this point.

    To make matters worse, I have a mother who is dead against any CIO sleep training sending me articles and calling me all the time about how harmful CIO is and that is my duty to calm him down when crying and that he has a reason. She thinks he is constantly hungry and that is why he wakes up all the time.

    Last night out of sheer desperation I fed him a bottle of EBM with 3 tbsp of oatmeal mixed in.... Never though I would resort to this method so frequently condemned by all the progressive parenting advice, but I just desperately wanted to "thicken" the BM to make it more like formula, so that it stays longer in his digestive tract. He pooped and woke up for 2 hours again, so, that didn't work.

    So, when is this going to get better? Have any of you had LO's with the nightmare sleep and feeding habits and at which point has it gotten better. I just want to believe at this point....

    This is not what motherhood is supposed to be about - waiting and longing for you awesome baby to get older.

    Thank you for reading this long post.

  2. #2
    arivecchi is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    Honestly, I'd try CIO if you want to. You are the parent and you get to call the shots. We used it with boths of our DCs and it only took 3-4 nights. Worked like a charm. They are awesome sleepers now - used to wak up every two hours on. the. dot.
    Last edited by arivecchi; 12-20-2010 at 05:42 PM.
    DS1 2006
    DS2 2009

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by arivecchi View Post
    Honestly, I'd try CIO if you want to. You are the parent and you get to call the shots. We used it with boths of our DCs and it only took 3-4 nights. Worked like a charme. They are awesome sleepers now - used to wak up every two hours on. the. dot.


    We used Ferber which is a moderated CIO and it works well. I don't think you should let your mother's opinion on how to sleep train children impact what you want to do. You are the mom and it is your choice. Be prepared that the first few nights of CIO are increadibly tough, like hours and hours of screaming tough, but after about 3 really bad nights things got better. Also, stop reading the books if they are making you mad/stressing you out. Where a baby "should" be is just an average, every baby will progress at his own pace and it doesn't matter one bit what the book says.

  4. #4
    PGTB is offline Gold level (500+ posts)
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    Quote Originally Posted by arivecchi View Post
    Honestly, I'd try CIO if you want to. You are the parent and you get to call the shots. We used it with boths of our DCs and it only took 3-4 nights. Worked like a charme. They are awesome sleepers now - used to wak up every two hours on. the. dot.
    We are definitely going to try something this weekend, we have 3 days off for the Holiday and not travel plans this time. When did you CIO your LOs and did they have trouble with not feeding at night? Did they just start eating more during the day after the first 3 nights?

  5. #5
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    wellyes is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    8 months was a similar "oh.my.goodness" point for us too, and that's when we did Ferber. It was a godsend. Really. Good for her, good for us.

    Don't offer food, they will compensate with extra calories in the other parts of the day.
    DD - 8
    DS - 5

  6. #6
    WatchingThemGrow is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    YEP, CIO/Ferber. It's a tough few nights, but it will change your life, in a GREAT way!

  7. #7
    arivecchi is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    Quote Originally Posted by PGTB View Post
    We are definitely going to try something this weekend, we have 3 days off for the Holiday and not travel plans this time. When did you CIO your LOs and did they have trouble with not feeding at night? Did they just start eating more during the day after the first 3 nights?
    My DC were younger than yours. DS1 was about 4.5 months and DS2 was about 5.5 months. They just ate more during the day. Give it a try. It saved our sanity! Remember to be consistent if you do it and not pick him up (unless you have to). Just soothe your DC and leave. Good luck!

    http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-ferb...tified_7755.bc
    DS1 2006
    DS2 2009

  8. #8
    PGTB is offline Gold level (500+ posts)
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    Quote Originally Posted by BabyBearsMom View Post


    We used Ferber which is a moderated CIO and it works well. I don't think you should let your mother's opinion on how to sleep train children impact what you want to do. You are the mom and it is your choice. Be prepared that the first few nights of CIO are increadibly tough, like hours and hours of screaming tough, but after about 3 really bad nights things got better. Also, stop reading the books if they are making you mad/stressing you out. Where a baby "should" be is just an average, every baby will progress at his own pace and it doesn't matter one bit what the book says.
    Ferber's was the first sleep book I read and we tried his method when DS was around 5 months with limited success. It helped at first, but then it reverted back when DS hit another growth spurt/milestone (this was rolling from side to side). At that point, my mother came in for a visit and she just started rocking him to sleep again, saying how it only takes 5 min and not a big deal as opposed to having the baby cry. She visits frequently, usually every 6 weeks, so it's hard to keep sleep training consistent.

    I can't blame it on her, even though it gets tough to do anything when she is here. But we are definitely to blame as well. We haven't been consistent with any particular technique, it's been hard for us to implement for following reasons:

    1) I could never tell if DS is crying for a legitimate reason and needs to be attended (like diaper change or drink of water, or he is gassy). Contrary to that, nursing and comforting him felt much easier and more natural, so we started reverting back to it more and more.
    2) His mini-crib is by my bedside, so he wakes up immediately or shortly after I enter the room to go to sleep. He sort of senses I am there and whenever he hits his light sleep phase, he is up asking for attention. He goes to sleep between 7-8pm and his longest stretch (3 hours) falls between 7-8pm and 10-11pm when we are in the living room or getting ready to go to bed.
    3) He relies on night time nursings for nutrition, he eats poorly during the day and it's even worse now with solids introduction. We will have to do some night weaning at the same time.

  9. #9
    arivecchi is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    Oh yeah, being in the same room must make it really difficult! Is there any way you can move his crib elsewhere so he cannot hear you? If not, maybe use a loud fan for white noise?
    DS1 2006
    DS2 2009

  10. #10
    PGTB is offline Gold level (500+ posts)
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    Quote Originally Posted by arivecchi View Post
    My DC were younger than yours. DS1 was about 4.5 months and DS2 was about 5.5 months. They just ate more during the day. Give it a try. It saved our sanity! Remember to be consistent if you do it and not pick him up (unless you have to). Just soothe your DC and leave. Good luck!

    http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-ferb...tified_7755.bc
    How did you know when you had to pick him up? This was sort of the hardest challenge for me

    Thanks!

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