So you would think with the 3rd child, you'd have some tricks and tools to handle anything and wouldn't need any advice. HOWEVER, this baby is different than my other two, so I am stumped. She is 10 months old, and doesn't sleep well.
Due to space limitations when she was born, we co-slept. She has always breastfed. We have tried different formulas, but she doesn't seem to like any. Now we have moved into a bigger place and she has her own room. She can be dead asleep but can sense the movement into her crib and instantly wakes up. We have tried flannel sheets, microwavable stuffed animals to warm it up, laying her on a boppy so it "feels" like someone is still holding her...still wakes up.
She is also my cat napper. She can take a 10 minute nap, and is good to go another 4 hours. She isn't fussy or cranky like she is tired...ever. I also suspect she may have reflux because she can be dead asleep and then start thrashing and making distasteful faces and it wakes her up. I also think this is why she sleeps better in her carseat. And yes, we tried having her carseat in the crib and it didn't make her sleep any longer.
We made some brief attempts at cry it out...I'm not a big fan of it, and my older 2 need sleep for school, so it didn't last long. Plus, she got super worked up and afraid of her bed, so she is back to sleeping next to me. I don't mind so much, but she still wakes up every 3 hours or so to nurse...at 10 months old! Like I said, she isn't acting cranky, but she just isn't sleeping like I would expect her to.
SO...short of berating me for inconsistency...what other things should I try to get her to sleep longer, better, without nursing? She doesn't take a bottle or a pacifier. What would you do?
I dont know what the "right" thing to do is. But when she wakes and cries for more than a couple minutes, you can tell its not going to stop because it gets louder and shes more upset, I put her in bed with me and we go back to sleep.
Shes 8 months old. Will this make her want to sleep with me til shes 10? Probably not, but we all sleep well.
I would keep her in bed with me! She is still a baby and probably just wants her mom. Adults typically do not sleep alone...and we ask our little sweeties to? You are doing a great job by attending to her needs at night! Mothering doesn't stop just because the sun goes down. Since you don't mind, why change? We had 3 in and out of our bed for years. They are all grown up now, 28, 30 and 33 and did not suffer any weirdness because of our family bed LOL! Keep up the good work Mama!
When my nephew was 22 months my SIL asked the pediatrician when her baby would wean himself (which he did at 25 months - just a couple of months past the norm), he smiled and said, "Don't worry, he won't take them to college with him." lol
I never regretted letting my son sleep with us and nurse at will. I think babies sense even the thought that we might push them outside their comfort zone. My thinking is that you cannot expect a baby to understand our reasons for not responding to them when they cry. It is up to the child to interpret reason and cause and there is just no telling how one might interpret the event differently from another. Babies need love, acceptance, and care to be obvious. This is how they learn to love, accept, and care. Baby's are very in-tune and get more than easy access to the groceries by sleeping next to the milk supply. Did you know that when a baby nurses the baby's EEG brainwave patterns entrain to the mother's and the EEG readings become identical? When someone is directing a compassionate thought toward another person, the frontal lobe of the brain will entrain the same way. Many of the primal brain functions develop best when a child a constant senses of connection with the primary care-giver. There are good reasons why, in the most peace-loving peaceful-living cultures around the world, the child sleeps with either the mother or both parents the first 2 years of life.
We never had a crib. When my son was about a year old, we put a double mattress on the floor in his room. Once he did stop nursing during the night and still nursed to sleep, occasionally I would lay down with him in that bed and leave him to sleep there. At first I did this only rarely. It was quite easy to just roll out of bed and leave him sleeping. If he woke up and toddled into our room to finish out the night with us, he was welcomed as if he was missed. Had he felt we were frustrated and pushing him away, he would have felt threatened and would have fought against falling asleep in his own room. He gradually got more and more comfortable sleeping alone and by the time he was 24 to 30 months he only came to us due to dreams or illness.
Recent research on the practice of letting babies cry it out is proving that it often has deep and lasting negative affects that are worth avoiding. If I were you, I would listen to my own instincts. That is why we were given instincts. A good night's sleep is a precious thing!
I would first and foremost get her checked out for possible reflux. I wish the pediatrician had checked rather than constantly saying our baby was fine (she wasn't).
I would also look into probiotics for infants. I know Klaire Labs has one safe for infants.
I would see if your dd is reacting to foods (with you breast feeding, YOU also would have to get off them). Cow Dairy and Gluten and possibly eggs are very common allergens.
Having white noise may help.
Even at just after one year old, we put a baby-bottle of water in a hanging pocket from the crib and taught her she could give herself a drink of water in the middle of the night. I know your baby is too young, but that is just a few months away, and we quickly moved from the baby bottle with water to a sippy cup with water in it).
And I really really wish doctors would take our complaints of our child not sleeping well more seriously. Here is a post with lots of ideas although they are for various age ranges: http://itsnotmental.blogspot.com/2009/01/sleep-timing-of-...
I honestly think the stress of my younger dd not sleeping added to her myriad of medical and psychiatric (caused by the medical) problems she slowly started developing. Stress is a killer and Sleep is a critical yet under-addressed component of HEALTH (http://itsnotmental.blogspot.com/2008/07/sleep-critical-y...)
Hi S.,
I am sorry to say that I have no advice because I am living the exact same way as you are. But my son is 19 months. And he wakes about 5 to 6 times a night. He has never slept good and did the cat naps too. I tried all your tricks, I even got a noise machine for his room. It didn't work, I tried CIO once or twice and he would get so worked up and almost throw up, and that was only 3 to 5 minutes. We still co-sleep and I deal. I wish I had a magic cure/answer. I am going to read your responses next to see if I can find something that works. Good Luck.
It's perfectly normal, IMO, for a 10 month old to need to nurse during the night. If she's co-sleeping with you, nursing at night should cause little disturbance. My daughter dropped one night feeding at 11 months, herself, then the last one at 13 months. She's still a baby at 10 months. If you can hold out a little longer, she will outgrow the need to nurse at night.
I have a few suggestions: Have you tried an air purifier in her room? I use that w/ both my boys and it drowns out noises in the house so they can sleep and not wake at every little thing. How about you putting a tshirt in the crib with her that you have worn all day? Make sure she is eating enough solids throughout the day. She should not need to eat in the middle of the night. It is now a comfort thing/habit for her.
Get the book, "Sleeping Through the Night" by Dr. Jodi Mindell. She tackles all kinds of sleep issues at all different stages of development. Even if you don't agree with her modified CIO method, you can at least gain understanding about what could be going on. Babies wake in the middle of the night but they don't know how to get themselves back to sleep unless you teach them. With both my boys, I used a combination from her book and the Baby Whisperer. You have to find what works for you and what you are comfortable with. The CIO worked for both my boys. My current 12 month old does great falling asleep on his own. He has been doing it for about 3 months now. And we didn't just throw him in the crib and shut the door. There is a bedtime routine(flexible, but still a routine), song to sing or book to read, lights out and reassurance if there is crying(but no picking up!)
I see nothing wrong with her sleeping with you, but you seem to be looking for an alternative and the sooner the better. I have friends whose kids are 4 and 5 and child is still in bed with them.
Good Luck!
no berating here. I think you've tried it all, show a willingness to move on, & are stopped in your tracks until you get her onto the cup/bottle. At 10 months, she may totally skip the bottle & that's a.o.k. I guess my only question would be: does she only nurse? Have you tried her on foods yet? That would help the reflux.
It's up to you to decide whether or not the CIO method is appropriate for you. My only comment would be....sometimes the whole family has to "suck it up" in order to get past stumbling blocks. It really won't hurt your older children to lose a little bit of sleep over it.....:)
I also am a catnapper! Totally get your comments on that! I can recharge in 2 minutes & am good to go for hours, too. Drives my DH nuts! But....I do believe this is part of the issue. She needs to learn to sleep peacefully at naptime....which will then lead into better nighttime sleeping. Do you use dim lights, soft music? That seems to be the only things missing from your list!
I think my only recommendation would be to contact the sleep clinic at your local hospital & ask for helpful hints. Good Luck!
Try pick up/put down. She cries. She gets picked up. She settles, she gets put down.
I also sat in my DD's doorway during a rough period. She could see me, but I was not right next to her. I would also work on a better bedtime routine. We were guilty of that, too. We give DD a bedtime snack most nights because we found she slept better. Like a little cereal or something.
Here, too, my SD needed her sleep, so some of our sleep habits were in part to allow the older one to sleep.
I'm not a CIO fan, either. It took a while, but we did find something that worked. Hang in there.
If you think reflux is an issue, see her pediatrician.
Hmmm, have you read/tried the No Cry Sleep Solution? Or the Ferber method? Ferber will require a bit of crying, but not as much as full CIO.
And it sounds like you know you've been inconsistent. How long have you tried each of the above? A week? Or only a day or two? It might be that something you've tried actually would work at this point, so it couldn't hurt to revisit one of your original ideas again and try sticking to it for 2 weeks.
Just a thought.
