6 mo old sleep -- HELP PLEASE!

[Liziz]

Help, please! DD is 6 months old (today!). For the past few months, she sleeps in her crib. However, whenever she had a difficult time going back to sleep in the middle of the night, we would often put her in her swing and let her sleep the rest of the night there. Well, over the past few weeks, somehow that turned into "she sleeps in the swing every night".


We really don't want her sleeping in the swing, so we started to try to get her back in her crib. She goes down okay -- we'll rock her till she's almost asleep then put her in her crib, usually w/ a paci. She sleeps from 30 minutes to 2 hours....then she's back up and crying. What we've been trying is to go in and soothe her, but not pick her up from her crib. What that's resulted in is HOURS of DD crying with either DH or me patting and shushing and trying to soothe her.

The only thing that works to get her calmed down is to nurse. She'll drift off as she nurses, then wake up as she gets put in her crib, and lay there w/ open eyes for a few minutes. As long as she can see me or DH, she's fine. She'll fall asleep after 5-10 minutes. But then, she just wakes up again 30 minutes later and the whole cycle starts again. But, I'm only nursing her at night when it's been a long time since she last ate (aka might actually be hungry), so she's spending literally HOURS in her crib crying, with DH or me there trying to soothe her (which obviously isn't working).

We've been doing this for 3 days now, and haven't seen any improvement. I know that what we SHOULD have done was go back a couple months, read all the sleep books, and follow a consistent plan from the start. I just reserved a bunch of sleep books from the library today, but it's going to be another week or two before we can get them and read them, and I don't know how to survive until then. Please -- any tips or thoughts on what we should be doing right now?

To make matters worse, we go on a trip to the ILs over labor day. So part of me doesn't even want to bother to try until after that trip, and part of me feels like we need to solve this now, because they don't have a swing, so that wouldn't even be an option. And of course, this just makes DH and I both sleep deprived and crabby, and we've started to fight about this, even though we both know we need to work together and that we shouldn't. Help please!!

[hellbennt]

can she roll over on her own?
if she can, have you tried putting her on her stomach?
if you can put her on her stomach, do so & put a beanie baby on her back, w/ your hand on it, pressing down
shhhh her & pat her bottom w/ your other hand & see if that works -
gradually decrease pressure of your hand on beanie baby until beanie baby is alone - hopefully the weight of it will fake her out (she'll think you're still there?)

put a smelly t-shirt of yours with her as you put her down?

[basilicali]

I finally got my DD out of sleeping in the cradle swing at almost 4 mo of age, since she was screaming with me rocking her to sleep for 30-90 minutes and would not stop until completely asleep I had to do CIO--few checks since she got even madder, luckily I borrowed our neighbors video monitor. I had to take my cradle swing (yes the big swing) with us when we travelled across the state for my cousin's wedding.

Since your LO will go to sleep with you nearby you can do a more gentle method.
I would recommend establish a bedtime routine with the nursing at the beginning of the routine so she can let go of the association of nursing with sleeping.
You may want to try the sleep lady shuffle, here is a link with how to do it, there are also additional links within with more detailed info:

http://www.parentsconnect.com/parent...y-shuffle.html

If you need to do more CIO, here is a summary of the Ferber method:
http://noobmommy.com/2008/11/to-ferb...ferberize.html

There is a really good sleep group on babycenter
http://community.babycenter.com/grou...ddler_to_sleep

Read the featured post--the yellow one at the top, it has a lot of good info. You can also post and ask for help from the other sleep training parents/experts.

HOPE this helps you!
I am so glad we sleep trained, with my older DD I think she never got enough sleep!

[SnuggleBuggles]

My kids never got the CIO thing. Nursing was the only thing that worked for us. Everything else was your result; us trying to soothe and not getting anywhere. we were consistent, we just didnt have kids that responded to it.

Teething, developmental milestones, separation anxiety and other stuff shows up right around 6m.

I'd either nurse or use the swing- whatever gets you through the night! I promise, it won last forever.

[hellokitty]

At 6 mo, I would be afraid that the baby might be able to get out of the swing if they can roll. So, I don't think I'd be comfortable using the swing anymore, due to safety reasons and at one pt or another you'll have to deal with this (ie: with ds1, at 5 mo, we went on a trip, so he couldn't sleep in a swing anymore). I like the pp's suggestion that if your baby can roll, maybe try letting her sleep on her belly. I was too paranoid with ds1 to let him sleep on his belly, but ds2 was a horrible sleeper and I was so desperate, I tried it and it is was the only way he could get some sleep (and me too), now at age 7, he still sleeps on his belly. With DS3, I tried him on the belly right away (very strong, was lifting his head as a newborn, he also hated being swaddled), and he has been my best sleeper yet. For obvious reasons, make sure the crib is clear or any blankets or plush toys, etc., but I would give belly sleeping a try if I were you.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

as Snugglebuggles said i would just nurse from the get-go. I think 6mo is around growth spurt time, not sure. I know that Baby411 and all the other books say not to do it, that it will create a habit, but it worked fine with DD.....DD slept thru the night at 4mos and while she occasionally (once a week?) woke up at night crying if i just nursed her she would go back down and that would be it...the next night she would sleep through the night the whole way...wouldn't create issues/dependencies. and at 6mos, yeah i would do whatever works. actually i think with both my kids i would nurse them if they ever woke up in the middle of the night and were difficult to console. DS selfweaned at 12mo and i weaned DD at 14mo and neither had any sleep issues lasting longer than 1 or 2days.

[BabyBearsMom]

Your situation is almost EXACTLY what happened to us with DD1. The kid would not go to sleep/stay asleep. I would spend 2 hours stroking her hair until she fell asleep every single night. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and at 6 months, I read the Ferber book and sleep trained her. It basically means you put the baby to bed drowsy but awake and leave her to cry for like 5 minutes, then go in, shush and pat her for a few minutes, leave. Let her cry for 10 minutes. You keep repeating the process and extending the time you are gone. I will be honest and say that the first 2 nights of this were awful and involved lots of crying (DD1 and me). I had to make DH stay in the basement because he couldn't bare to listen to her cry for the interval. But on the third night, it just clicked. Since then, DD1 is a champion sleeper. We do her bedtime routine, put her in her crib and say good night and she goes to sleep on her own. 2 or 3 hard nights are totally worth a lifetime of good sleep IMO.

[mommylamb]

Just want to commiserate with you. DS2 is six months old now and he has been giving us a run for our money at night lately. I often just give in and nurse him. There is no rhyme or reason to why sometimes he sleeps through the night and sometimes he wakes up multiple times. It's not like putting to bed drowsy but awake works all the time. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes when I nurse him to sleep and put him in the crib out cold, he sleeps through the night with no problem.

Wishing you pleasant nights with lots of shut eye.

[Liziz]

Thank you for all the support and suggestions!

On Sunday night, we tried playing soft lullabies in DD's room (instead of the previous white noise). She slept all night!!! It hasn't been that great every night since, but there's been a huge improvement since we started playing the new music....I am crossing my fingers that sticks!

We combined the new music with an approach where we only go in to her room to comfort if she's really worked up. She often just fusses on and off for awhile...I've tried to stay strong and just let her work through that, which has been hard but seems to help her, she's been able to put herself back to sleep after doing that. I'm just hoping the better sleep will last long enough for DH and I to recharge!

Mommylamb....yup, your life sounds like mine has been lately. Good luck to you too....hope you get some nice sleep soon (and often!)