Please help us with sleeping problems.

I am posting this on several message boards in hopes that some experienced Mommy out there will understand what we are going through and have some real advice. My daughter is 9 months old tomorrow and nighttime has been hell since she was born. She has never slept through the night, not even close. She has gone through teething (she now has 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom - and who knows, maybe there are more coming in right now that I can't see) . . . she has gone through the developmental wakefulness thing where she gets wild at night for a week or so before a big leap (she is crawling and standing & cruising while holding on - what other big leaps could she make right now? I don't think she is close to walking because she can't yet stand on her own for more than a second or two. But my husband did walk at 9 months so it's not out of the range) . . . and she has gas and still has gas. We usually give her a bedtime dose of gas drops (and Tylenol if we can see a tooth coming in and/or nothing will pacify her).

The first thing out of your mouth will be cosleeping. Been there, done that. She basically coslept with us for the first 8 months. She would spend the early part of the evening either in her crib (very rare) or her swing and move to our bed later. We were able to transition her to her crib at 8 months. She wasn't sleeping well in our bed and we were all losing sleep. She would wake up every 30m-1h to nurse. The current situation is that she goes to sleep in her crib around 6:30-7:00 and will usually sleep until 11pm or so, nurse, and then on a good night sleep again until 3am or so. This is not a problem. I have *no* problem with getting up to nurse her every 3 hours or so. I *do* have a problem with getting up every 20-40m and not being able to get her back to sleep. This morning she woke up at 3am. I nursed her and put her back in the crib. She woke up 20 minutes later. I refused to nurse her again because she had obvious gas (I'm thinking from overfeeding?) I tried to rock her to sleep but nothing was working so I nursed her again. She wouldn't fall asleep. I brought her into our bed and she started to crawl and pull up on my back to reach over and touch my husband. It was so ridiculous that we had to laugh. I finally took her back into her room and gave her another round of gas drops and Tylenol. She fell asleep after 10 minutes or so and woke up around 6am. Nights like this are also very typical here and kill us. It's always 3am -5am that are the terrible hours. WHAT CAN WE DO HERE?

I am exasperated and frustrated and feeling hopeless. I feel as if I have done everything possible. She is always so tired and rubs her eyes frequently during the day. I end up driving her around in the car sometimes because I want to make sure that she gets her sleep. We are all so sleep-deprived and after nights like these, I am so strung out in the morning. So if anyone can offer some wisdom, insight, advice - I would greatly, greatly appreciate it.

(BTW, I am not a fan of CIO. I really, really, really don't want to resort to that. We did do a "modified" CIO to transition her to the crib which consisted of my husband rocking her to sleep and patting her from the side of the crib)

Oh and thanks for reading this far. It's Claudia, BTW. I can't ever log in here with my username.

[mommax3]

Claudia,

Is there any way that you guys could fix up a place to sleep in her room so that when she is wakeful, one of you can go in there and lie down so she can see you? She could either cuddle up with you, or stay in her crib but know you are nearby?

Another thought is to not let her go to sleep so early in the evening. Does she take regular naps, like a morning and an afternoon one? I would play around with the scheduling of those a little if I were you......and try not to let her go down in the evening until more like 8. Easier said than done, I realize. Try pushing it back by 15 minute increments. With mine, if they got TOO tired, it was horrible trying to get them to sleep.

I feel for you.....I am horrible at sleep deprivation and I have definitely experienced it! It will pass but that is no help when you are in the midst of it. I had one that never, ever slept through the night until he was 15 months old. I thought I was going to die from exhaustion. Now he is my best sleeper of the three....go figure.

Keep us posted.....I have missed hearing from you! Any word on your Air Force assignment yet?

Sally

[Phoebe]

Claudia- I want to start off by saying I sympathsize with you. We have gone through similar events with our daughter, now 5 months. By 9 months I think I would be pulling my hair out from lack of sleep and frustration. How is your daughter napping during the day? I found when Ella wasn't napping well (our current problem), she didn't sleep well at night. She wants to nurse all the time like your daughter.

You said you weren't a fan of CIO. Crying it out? I know it is hard. I have resorted to doing that during naptimes because Ella wakes up every 20 minutes or so. So I can relate, but I know she can soothe herself because she can find her fingers and put them in her mouth. She won't take a pacifier anymore which helped her in her early months. I feel like a human pacifier most of the time.

My suggestion is that all babies are different so you may have to try a bunch of different things to see what works for her. What worked for our first child, hasn't worked for our second. A book that has really helped me is "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child". I found it at Barnes and Noble. I would send you my copy but I am still using it. Other people have recommended it and found success helping their child sleep better.

I wish I had more insight to offer. I hope you get some sleep soon!

Jennifer

[Flynn]

It seems to me that there are two issues here,

1.) putting baby to sleep without it being WWII every night
2.) getting baby to sleep through the night


Here are my thoughts.

Let me preface me dealing with issue #1 with some background. When we had our daughter we were lucky enough to have several friends and family members with young children or infants. Watching their situations was INCREDIBLY helpful and ironically they all had issues with sleeping.

It freaked me out actually and I swore we would do whatever was necessary (within reason of course) to foster good sleep habits with our own child. It was a mutual goal for myself and my husband from day one (which in hind sight was a big plus in our favor). Our pediatrition was instrumental in helping us achieve our goal and very supportive. I don't think we would have been nearly as sucessful as we were, had we been utilizing a different doctor. EVERYTHING she suggested worked and worked FAST. I would have had to be a complete idiot not to continue doing what she advised with the positive results we were getting.

Our daughter has slept through the night since she was 10 weeks old and while I think she was born a good sleeper, we fostered what we wanted and did not fall prey to "easy fixes" that cause more problems down the road. We learned from our friend's mistakes and were freakishly consistent. I thing that helped us a ton in the beginning when we were still learning how to make this work. Are we perfect parents? FAR FAR from it!!!! We have our issues, but sleep is not one of them so take this with a grain of salt.

Issue #1
I would agree with the women so far who have offered a later bedtime to start with. We used 8:00 for a while until my daughter went to one nap. Now her bedtime is 7:00 because she is pretty tired at the end of the day. I am making the assumption that your daughter takes two naps since she is only 9 months...

After you choose an appropriate bedtime stick with it. Consistency is your friend. We vary about 30 - 45 minutes sometimes but never more then an hour. If you daughter knows what to expect without doubt, she will not fight bedtime so much. Is she soothed by baths? Does she have a special stuffed animal she is attached to? Use these and foster whatever helps her relax. My daughter falls asleep to the same CD every night. It helps us be able to clean up after dinner without disturbing her and it is part of our "routine" and what she expects. My daughter has helped me push the buttons to turn the music on since she was 6 months old. She always turns out her own light with me and we usually have a few stories. My daughter is always asleep by the time the CD is over (about 35 minutes). That's kind of our bedtime ritual. Develop your own so your child is participating in her own fate of going to sleep.

After you get all of that hammered out, I would strongly encourage you to TRY the CIO method. I am curious why you said you would not like to "resort" to that method? It sounds like you have tried everything under the sun and are miserable...not fun!!! Instead of seeing CIO as cruel, or a method you promised you would never "resort" to, think about it as a gift to your daughter. You are teaching her not only to have healthy sleep habits but you are teaching her to be able to comfort herself. Your daughter is smart and will learn that she can't get you to comfort her anytime it suits her.

Set an egg timer to whatever you can handle as far as letting her cry and not going into her room. I started with 30 minutes and my daughter luckily fell asleep at 28 minutes. It was awful but she slept 10 hours for the first time so I was encouraged to try it again the next night. Little by little her screaming subsided and now bedtime is one of my favorite times of the day because she participates with such joy. She looks forward to our books and music and actually waves to me as I exit her room. Did this happen right away? Heck NO!!! I'd say it took two weeks before she only cried less than 5 minutes.

With your daughter it's a lot different because she is used to sleeping with you...then as she switched to the crib, you guys seem to comfort her until she falls asleep. If she cries beyond the egg timer go in, comfort her (don't feed her whatever you do!!!) and LEAVE again. Try this for 5 days and see what happens. I bet your daughter will surprise you with what happens.

Issue #2

For most children who have normal weight and are getting the nutrition they need, no child needs to be fed at night. It's a comfort thing and that's it. My daughter weaned herself to one feeding per night very early in her life. I was lucky. She was born very large so I think this contributed to her not needing so much food for an extended period of time. The second feeding took some work on my part. At the encouragement of my pediatrition, I just stopped feeding her. The first night she cried for 25 minutes. The second night it was ten. The third night it was barely 5 and we haven't heard from her before 7:30 since then. Not even when she's teething. Did I cringe in my bed, willing her to put herself back to bed!!! YES YES YES!!!! It was awful but the payoff for everyone involved was too valuable to screw it up with me being weak!!!


Some final thoughts:
I am giving you the short version in the interest of time here so if this sounds like it was really easy for me, it wasn't!!!! It was really hard -- I cried sometimes and became kind of a shrew to my husband. We supported our goal though together -- teaching our child healthy sleep habits so her life and ours would be the richer for it.

We saw all of our friends and family struggle with this issue and we did not want to fall into the same pitfalls they did (or what we view as pitfalls). I personally think co-sleeping is a recipe for more problems down the road than it fixes short term so we never did this. My daughter has never slept in our bed (except for about 5 naps when she was less than a month old) or in our room. Her crib has always been a place of relaxation and sleep.

I came into this parenting role with the idea that sometimes the adult has to make hard decisions (that are less than ideal for the adults) with the interests of the child as the most important. The first time I had to put my philosophy into practice was with this sleep issue. It was the first lesson my husband and I could teach our daughter in order for her life to be the best it can be. Nobody excels when they are tired.

You sound like a very caring and loving parent who really has tried everything. Try CIO for 5 - 7 days consistentently and see what happens. From the vivid description of your situation, you really don't have anything to lose and everything to gain!

Good luck! I wish you a long nights sleep very very soon!!!!

[SueC]

Yes, I would have to agree with what Flynn said. We decided when our first daughter was about 5 months old that she should be sleeping through the night. My husband is the one who wanted to let her cry it out, and he practically had to restrain me, but I swear, by day 3 she was hardly putting up a fuss at all when we put her to bed. I became a believer at that point, and we did it with our second with equally good results. Whenever they would get sick, we would have a minor setback, but in general, they have been terrific sleepers and nappers. Although I felt horrible letting them cry, I decided I wasn't doing them any special favors by not allowing them to figure out how to get themselves to sleep. I have friends who are still laying down with their kids who are over 4 years old because their kids absolutely will not go to sleep by themselves. My kids are 4 and 2 now and I literally put them in bed, give them a hug and kiss and walk away. That's all they expect from me since that is all I have ever done. Good luck--I'm sure it is exhausting to go such a long period of time without a decent night's rest!