Teaching him to sleep on his own

[Hope22]

This SUCKS!! Darwin is in his crib right now, crying and fussing, has been for about an hour. I'm here beside him, I refuse to leave him alone, but we're trying REALLY hard to teach him to sleep alone and I need some support.

I love co-sleeping, but he's started climbing over my legs and can get out of the bed - it's dangerous. He also can't nap well unless he's with someone, preferably in bed napping with him. I need him to be able to nap alone and soothe himself back to sleep, as he's started taking LONG (2.5-3 hour) afternoon naps rather than several naps through the day.

We've been at this an hour, and I already gave up earlier this evening and let him get up until he started to get tired again - I'm sticking to my guns, I refuse to give in, but this is ridiculously hard. He's so upset, I know he's confused, wondering why I'm ignoring him. I know he's not hungry, he's just overtired and doesn't understand what's happening, but it's so upsetting just listening to him cry!

I keep going back over, every 5 minutes, to soothe him a bit but I want him to stay in his crib - please tell me this is going to work, it's breaking my heart.

 

[pip holder]

Well done sweetie - keep going, it'll be worth it in the end, you're doing GREAT

 

[BabeeAngel]

I did this with Aubrey, the first few days are HARD, but it gets easier day by day... just try not to quit, because if you do then he's cried and fussed for nothing, but if you stick with it he's doing it for the good in the long run!

 

[TigerLady]

From what I have heard and read, CIO is absolutely horrendous (as you are experiencing) for the first few days. But then (if it works) gets better and was worth it.

I truly hope he settles soon, hon.

 

[Hope22]

Wow, he did it. We started at about 8pm, I posted just before 9pm and was feeling quite stressed at that point. It's now 12:30am and he JUST fell asleep. For the last hour (yep, I said HOUR) he's been 90% asleep, sitting up. Any time I tried to lie him down he woke up shrieking, so after three attempts I just left him. He sat there, head bobbing, like a kid trying to stay awake in a really boring class. Eventually he put his head between his feet and fell asleep folded in two!

I rolled him over onto his side and he's sleeping peacefully now. We feel horrible, this wasn't something we EVER planned to do, but his sleep problems have been getting worse and worse and I have to go back to work in January. We were so worried about him continuing to miss naps any time he's with a sitter and the entire family has been missing sleep at night because he's waking up over and over to comfort nurse; if I'm going to be halfway coherent at work it has to stop. I've also noticed signs that he's not getting enough sleep (he's crabby, gets overtired easily, etc.) and I want him to learn to sleep well now so we don't keep having issues down the road.

Hopefully after tonight things will improve; he typically learns things quickly and once he's got it he acts as though he's been doing it forever, so I hope that's the case with sleeping! I don't think I'll sleep well at all tonight, I'll probably spend the night making sure he's still okay in his crib, but if this works we're all going to sleep better in the near future. I'll keep everyone updated, please wish us luck.

 

[Sherileigh]

I'll be watching for more updates on this as we're next!!

 

[DaisyBee]

Wanted to say good for you!! I give you huge props for sticking with it

 

[BabeeAngel]

Good job!

 

[TigerLady]

That sounds so hard!! I hope we don't ever get there... but if we do, at least I know other have had to face it and have gotten through it.

I hope tonight goes better!

 

[Hope22]

Well, things fell apart a bit last night after I last posted. He woke up at 2:30am and wanted to nurse, and I relented - I figured he must be thirsty after all the crying. He had his milk and then, while he was drowsy but awake I put him back into his crib. He howled for about 20 seconds, rolled over and went to sleep.

At 4:30am he woke up again, much more agitated. After nursing him again (this time it was just for comfort, but I couldn't say no as I thought he might be thirsty again) I put him down and he SCREAMED bloody murder. He howled for an hour. I was so exhausted, I thought I'd bring him into bed, but not nurse him - he continued to howl. Clearly he wanted to be nursed to sleep. Again he ended up asleep in a sitting-up position, and this time it only lasted a few minutes - soon he was up screaming again. That's when my head pretty much exploded and I nursed him back to sleep :S

So I did a stupid thing, set us back, and now it's Christmas eve and we've got family staying - not a great time for a baby to howl all night. Today when he went for his nap I put him in his crib, which is a step for me (usually he sleeps on me, or I get into bed with him). He did stay down for longer, 1.5h on his own, so it feels like we made SOME progress last night. Normally he's up after 30-45 minutes if he's left alone for a nap so maybe all is not lost.

Tomorrow night or possibly the night after (depending on when our house is back to just us again) I'm going to start again. I know we can do this as a family, it's just really tough.

 

[polaris]

Well, things fell apart a bit last night after I last posted. He woke up at 2:30am and wanted to nurse, and I relented - I figured he must be thirsty after all the crying. He had his milk and then, while he was drowsy but awake I put him back into his crib. He howled for about 20 seconds, rolled over and went to sleep.

At 4:30am he woke up again, much more agitated. After nursing him again (this time it was just for comfort, but I couldn't say no as I thought he might be thirsty again) I put him down and he SCREAMED bloody murder. He howled for an hour. I was so exhausted, I thought I'd bring him into bed, but not nurse him - he continued to howl. Clearly he wanted to be nursed to sleep. Again he ended up asleep in a sitting-up position, and this time it only lasted a few minutes - soon he was up screaming again. That's when my head pretty much exploded and I nursed him back to sleep :S

So I did a stupid thing, set us back, and now it's Christmas eve and we've got family staying - not a great time for a baby to howl all night. Today when he went for his nap I put him in his crib, which is a step for me (usually he sleeps on me, or I get into bed with him). He did stay down for longer, 1.5h on his own, so it feels like we made SOME progress last night. Normally he's up after 30-45 minutes if he's left alone for a nap so maybe all is not lost.

Tomorrow night or possibly the night after (depending on when our house is back to just us again) I'm going to start again. I know we can do this as a family, it's just really tough.

I think Christmas is a really tough time to try to do this, I think you should just do what you need to get over Christmas and then start again when things are back to normal. I know I couldn't put myself under the extra pressure with family staying. It sounds really hard, I can see us going through similar in the future but am just not going to think about that for the moment!