Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[stephj25]

Sounds like a few of the babies here have been on the improve! My LO is now down to two wakeups a night (from up to eight) so I am feeling pretty good!

It's funny how your expectations adjust. A friend whose baby is two days older than mine was horrified that my LO has been waking twice a night. Her baby has slept through virtually every night since he was 10 weeks old. Which is enough to make anyone insanely jealous. However... I don't know I feel about the fact that the reason he does that, as far as I can tell, is that she started sleep-training by CIO when he was four weeks old. For naps and bedtime, she just puts him down and shuts the door. Couldn't do that, myself.

Gah! I'd feel awful if I did that! I'd be petrified of SIDS too. I still check on olivia during naps if I haven't heard a peep for an hour...just to make sure she's still breathing! Maybe I'm just paranoid!

 

[MiniKiwi]

Larkspur - it seems to be the done thing, here at least. In my baby group, 10 babies the same age, mine is the only one who doesn't sleep really well. She's also the only one who hasn't been sleep trained! I got to talking to everyone about it when we were chatting about how the babies sleep and everyone was mortified by Mia's habits! One, a preemie even, was left to CIO as soon as they got him home from the scbu and the one that really bothers me, she leaves her LO to CIO but when she can't handle it anymore she'll go and pick him up - after an hour of crying. So he still screams every single night How is he supposed to learn with that kind of inconsistency?!

Obviously I can't say anything but even if I did, none of them would take advice or suggestions from me, the only one who has to rock LO to sleep and she wakes up in the night for hours sometimes.

 

[libbylou]

The fact that people let their young babies CIO horrifies me. CIO in and of itself is not for me, but to let a young baby who cannot soothe itself and NEEDS his/her parents cry themselves to sleep makes me feel ill.
We did sleep train but I only did it because our current situation was making everyone (including LO) miserable, I waited until the recommended 6 months and we "camped out" in her room and still offered comfort to her so she wasn't left alone to scream her lungs out (sort of a modified CC I guess)

 

[lysh]

I could not imagine leaving a newborn to CIO. That makes me sad. We had to hold our LO for pretty much the first 4 months of her life. 24/7. It was that, or she would cry. We did some CC when she was 4 1/2 months just to get her into her crib and not waking up every hour. However, once she accepted her crib for evening sleep and started waking up every 2 1/2-3 hours, I would just feed her. Now she is about 6 months and I am waiting to see if she naturally gets a little better than every 3-4 hours ( usually 3). My doctor is afraid though that if she consistently goes past 4 hours between feedings that it might affect my supply! ugh...not sure I can that for another 6 months though.

I am glad some of you ladies are getting better sleep!!! Aimmee- I like your philosophy that you might as well have another while already sleep deprived! I shared that with DH.

 

[MrsPMP]

Im still feeling hopeless......arrrggghhhhhhh its 1:30am n hes just dropped off to see in my arms.....now To put him down

 

[Shadowy Lady]

MrsPMP - aaaaaa that's gotta be rough :/ does he sleep in your room?

CIO for newborn makes no sense! They still need to eat often and I don't believe they can learn to sleep differently at that age. I can't do CIO anyway. We did Ferber for soother elimination which meant checking on her every 1, 3 and then 5 minutes and even that was tough for me though it took only 2 nights. i could not imagine closing the door and walking away....

We had Sofia's 4-months appt today. The pedi said based on her growth, weight (she's 17 lbs which is exactly double her birth weight of 8.5 lbs) and night pattern she should be able to sleep 10 hours or more w/o need for bf'ing. So I'm gonna gradually night wean her starting next weekend at the same time as taking the Woombie away. We're gonna use Ferber and this time stick to it. Unless I find a more gentle but also affective method.

 

[Leids]

So I posted here awhile ago, thought I'd update!

I bought the no-cry sleep solution book, and it's helped a bit. He's down to 1 wake up in the middle of the night after 4 hours, maximum he'll wake up twice. Such a huge improvement!! His bed time isn't where it should be, but we're slowly making progress there too. He was in bed at 10:30 vs. 12:30-1 tonight, we were down to 10:30 every night but we hit another slump for a week where he wasn't in bed until 1am.

My friend recommended lavender oil. I had some and put it into an oil diffuser, it seemed to calm him down but I'm concerned about it maybe being too much? The smell is pretty strong!

 

[bananaz]

MrsPmp - Hope you were able to put him down okay!

Shadowy - Good luck with the night weaning. Hopefully once her feeds are shifted to the daytime she'll stop waking on her own without having to use CC!

Leids - I'm so glad to hear things are going better for you guys. What parts of the No-Cry Sleep Solution book are you using?

 

[Leids]

There have been a few things that have helped, doing sleep journals in general has helped me develop a better routine for him. One thing that has helped a good amount with night wakings has been pretending to stay asleep if he jostles and sits up. He has a tendency to wake up out of nowhere and sit straight up - if I respond to him right away, he'll stay up and it takes a long time to get him to sleep. There was a bit in the book about pretending to stay asleep while listening to the baby to make sure that he's okay, so I did it. Lo and behold, after 5 minutes or so of him moving around, back to sleep he went! He never cried or anything either.

Another thing that's helped, and I believe I got the idea from the book but it wasn't said directly that I remember, was making the bed for sleep only. Because I live with the in-laws, I have a tendency to stay in the bed room and not leave. Everything is done in the room, the bed was basically my couch! I started spending a lot more time downstairs, and only going upstairs or spending time on the bed if it was time for him to sleep.

I'm still going through the book and doing night time sleep/nap logs, waking logs etc. I implemented a better bed time routine with the book, and constantly move his bed time back. I usually start shutting everything down and make everything quiet around 8pm. It's been a long and grueling process, but we're getting there.

 

[Noelle610]

MrsPMP, sorry you're having a rough time

Good luck with the night weaning Shadowy! It was actually easy for us - a very tough couple of day, but after Charlotte got used to it she started sleeping way better!

Lieds, thanks for the update! I'm really glad to hear that the book has been helpful. Sounds like a huge improvement.

CIO and newborns = UGH. My DH's best friends, who think they know *everything* about parenting, were constantly telling us that babies didn't need to eat in the night after 6 weeks old and we should just let Charlotte cry and "figure it out". Even after sending them multiple sources with evidence to the contrary, they still insist that this is true. I'm not one to believe most of the negative reports about sleeping training (the most recent research seems to indicate it's not harmful at all), but I imagine it's detrimental to one so young. Their five year old never sleeps through the night now and is always trying to sneak in with mommy. Could there be a connection? Who knows.

We had a STTN last night from 6:45am and still sleeping now at 6:20am. Yay! I go back to the doctor today to get some persription refills to help with my anxiety and insomnia. I must admit I'm a bit worried they won't give me refills (silly, I know) and that I will stop sleeping well. Wish me luck!

 

[stella26]

Hi Everyone,
I'm def. not a fan of CIO but I'm starting to rethink it. My DD is 8 1/2 months and cannot self soothe. For the last couple of weeks she wants to be latched on ALL night or she won't sleep. She is not even doing a 2 hour stretch AT ALL at night which inturn is making me tired, moody, and not able to be the mom I want to be.
If this doesn't stop soon I'm a consider sleep training, I think she is old enough now to have some.

 

[Noelle610]

Stella, I think it's fine to consider sleep training at 8 months. If your LO has a suck to sleep association that is so strong that it results in little sleep for you or her, sleep training may work well. Let us know what you decide. Regardless, hoping you both get some rest soon!

 

[jessicatunnel]

Noelle, yay for sleeping through the night! It's so awesome isn't it?!

Stella (love that name), your LO is definitely old enough to consider sleep training. If you're not a fan of CIO could you try CC and modify it to your standards?

Lilly slept through again last night, it's been exactly ONE week since she started sttn. She went down at 7pm and slept until 830am. I tend to turn on the monitor about 6am just so I know for sure I hear her when she's ready to wake up in the morning, and I heard her wake up at about 645 and she was babbling to herself and went back to sleep about ten minutes later and slept until 830.

 

[Noelle610]

Noelle, yay for sleeping through the night! It's so awesome isn't it?!

It's like a dream I never thought possible! Ours isn't as consistent as yours, but I am so, so thankful.

So... Six out of my office of ten are out sick today with the flu. I'm terrified for a multitude of reasons that Charlotte and I will get it, but particularly because I am scared for her sleep!

Random thought - Isn't it funny that in a year or two this sleep stuff will *hopefully* be a distant memory? I doubt these kids will be in college exclaiming, "Well, I slept through the night at 2 weeks old!".

 

[Leids]

Thought I'd share this since it helped me with some of the sleep problem(s).

I found this smart phone app that has done me wonders called iBaby. My little man never used to have a 'routine' and it took a week or two after logging to develop something solid. It's a huge pain to write in a journal when you're barely awake. I had developed a nice huge excel spreadsheet too.

I should have known there would be an app that easily did everything though. The app logs sleep time, wake time, when they nurse/eat, when they poop and pee. I think a big part of why I've been able to move his bedtime back is because of logging.

I have a samsung gs3, so on the google play store. I don't know if it's for iphones though. I've found a few things called 'ibaby' for iphone but it isn't the one that I have for android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appest.ibaby&hl=en

Wow, it sounds like I just wrote an advert.

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Leids - I'm glad to hear your LO is sleeping better. I have the no Cry Sleep Solution Book and I found it did help to develop a routine based on my LO's own natural sleep cycle.

Stella - You don't need to do CIO but you can definitely sleep train. I've mentioned in this thread before, but read Ferber's book and try the Sleep Association section. Contrary to what ppl say, he doesn't advocate CIO. It's more like checking on baby every 1,3 5 mins or so...never leaving them for more than 10 mins. We tried it at 3.5 month for soother and Sofia can self sooth now.

Noelle - Don't worry I'm sure you'll get the meds again and good on Charlotte for continuing with sttn...we'll start night weaning next weekend. Hope it goes as well as it did for you.

So Sofia slept at 7 pm as per usual last night but woke up at 11:30 pm. I went it to feed her after 15 mins but she had fallen asleep already. Then she stayed asleep till 5:00 am!! I fed her then and she slept till 8:20 am. I don't know if it's the shot or she's getting back to her old self but I like it.

My pedi recommended to get her on a better napping schedule. This agrees with what the nurse told me last week too. So now I'm getting her to nap at around 9 am, 12:30 pm and 3 pm. If we're out and about, I just shift her bedtime. I've been doing it for two days but maybe it's working already?

On the negative side I was barely getting over my cold and now have another one Lost my voice again, have earache and runny nose...booooo! I hope Sofia doesn't catch it from me

 

[bananaz]

jessica - Congrats on your one week STTN milestone, heheh. May it be the first week of many!

stella - 8 months is definitely old enough for sleep training. And like Noelle said, if your LO's primary issue is a sucking-to-sleep association then sleep training is likely to be very effective for you. There's no reason you have to use a method you're not comfortable with though - you might try Ferber's "progressive waiting" (AKA controlled crying) with shorter intervals and see how it goes.

Leids - I'm glad you've found a method that's helping! Careful, though, sleep logging can become addictive. I've been logging all of Elsie's sleep using the Trixie Tracker since she was a month old and I still love going through all the data trying to pick out patterns...

Shadowy -Wow, good going, Sofia! It sounds like whatever you're doing is working! Sorry to hear you're feeling sick though.


Last night was really good, at least for Elsie. She went down a little before 7pm and woke at 3:30am for a quick feed. It's now almost 8am and she's still asleep! I can't even remember the last time she slept in past 6:30am so this is kind of shocking. Unfortunately I think it's because she's caught my cold, which actually kept me up for most of the night.

Also, yesterday I'm pretty sure she tried to go down for the night when I put her down for a nap at 3:45pm! I woke her at 5:20pm, though, because she needed her meds and I knew she hadn't eaten enough. I'm hoping it's just because she's getting sick and not because she needs an earlier bedtime; 6:30pm is about as early as I want to go.

 

[Aimee1003]

I am so happy that most of you are seeing such success. It really does make me feel hopeful although a little jealous. I hope we are next!

I think I have hit my breaking point . No idea what to do next. LO was up from 10-1. Got him to sleep 6 times but he woke up every time I laid him down. That is not like him. I cried. Finally laid him down with me on the pallet on the floor. We have never bed shared before. Never will again. He was on the boob nonstop from 1-6. Every time he let go he woke up searching for it again.

On the bright side , pediatrician said all the moms come in at 9 month check up saying their babies are no longer sleeping. She thinks maybe Coleton has hit this sleep regression early. Misery loves company.

I wish you all sleep filled nights. I love hearing all your stories - good or bad.

 

[Noelle610]

Bananaz, I'm glad you had a good night!

Aimee, that sounds so awful. I'm so very sorry for you. I do know it's common for babies to regress around 8/9 months.

I just got back from the doc, who perscribed me Trazodone for my insomnia. Apparently it's very popular/effective for postpartum insomnia and better for longer-term use that the Klonopin. Hope it works as well! She was great, though, and very understanding about how real it is.

 

[libbylou]

Last night friggin sucked. LO was up constantly until around 1am when I finally got her settled in our bed. She nursed constantly (literally nonstop)from 1am until around 6:30am when I tried to get her settled back in her crib and she refused. I maybe got like 5 hours of broken sleep again because of the constant nursing and moving around in bed.
And she fought her morning nap for a good 45 mins.
Guess she wanted to make sure I was an anxious exhausted mess for my PPD support group this afternoon?

Will come back and catch up with the rest of the thread later. Need to go have a shower while she's napping cuz God knows it won't happen once she's awake