5 Month Old Not Sleeping - Chatham,IL

Have you tried to give him cereal before bed time. He may not be getting enough to eat before bed time.

You know what? Some kids don't sleep all night until they're 2 or 3. Getting a full nights sleep isn't something I knew much about until our little guy was almost 3 and we let him sleep with us all the time.

Once he did that he slept all night. I got rested and didn't mind the snuggling.

Hey, I know where Chatham is :-) I used to work there.

When you say you are trying to break him of the habit of falling asleep at the bottle or pacifier, are you still letting him eat each time he wakes (if he wants to, that is)? I would say, let him eat as much as he wants. Some babies just need to eat more at night. They grow out of it, but for now, do what works.

There does seem to be a lot of pressure to not let them fall asleep at the bottle or pacifier, but prior to their first birthday, it really is ok. It's comforting to them. As they get a little older it's a good idea to try and find a different way to help them fall asleep. But you really do have to do what works.

We did some co-sleeping at that age. Our boys would start the night in their own bed, but if they woke in the middle of the night, we brought them to bed with us. We found that WE got more sleep that way. We found that sometimes when our boys woke up, it was because they were looking for comfort. When they woke up in our bed, they would kind of feel around for one of us. Once they realized we were right they, off to sleep they went. Just a thought.

Try talking him for walks in the stroller in the afternoons.
Fresh air seems to really help tire them out.
I never thought CIO was for babies under a year old.
You and Hubby might have to trade off nights - one night you look after baby, next night is Hubby's turn - that way you each get a good night's sleep every other night.
Have his ears checked.
Sometimes teething and ear problems go together.
It might be that laying down is causing some pressure in his ears, so he cries to be picked up.
It could also be that he's having a major growth spurt - and needs more to eat.
He will out grow it eventually but it's really hard on everyone when you are going through it.

We used the Ferber method, it worked for us, it worked for our child. That said, even Ferber recommends that you comfort your child if they are not sleeping because they are in pain, sick, or distressed because of life change. you can always begin, resume, or refresh your sleep training efforts once they are past that blip.

Best,
F. B.

I realize you have 3, and I only have one so you may think I have nothing to offer but I have son almost 7 year old who did not sleep through the night until 19 months old. We had a consistent bedtime routine etc. My guy is one who just seems to think he is missing something when sleeping and fights it- he was hard to put to sleep, always. I always thought I just did something wrong and failed in this arena... I had several friends w babies the same age sleeping all night at 6 months..... Yes I admit I was a jealous zombie :-) Then fast forward 1 year + many but not all of these friends ended up w non sleeping second or third children. Turns out - in most cases, they were lucky w their firsts, but it was nothing they did right or wrong to turn them into great sleepers. Your baby is so young- not even six months. I understand sleep deprivation. Please remember how young your baby is and even though his sibling slept, he may not. Love him cuddle him and know it seems like a long night now but in a blink of an eye he will be sleeping all night and potty trained :-). If you all sleep better bringing him to your room at 3 am go for it, get as much sleep as you can now- he really may just grow out of this - good luck.

My daughter was a horrible sleeper until she was around 8-9 months old. She NEVER slept more than 2-3 hours. I tried several methods of sleep training (even CIO, which I dislike but I was desperate... Didn't work for my dd either.)

What wound up working was to co-sleep. I never considered it an option before, thinking it was a "bad habit" I wanted to avoid. The nights of no sleep wore me down, and I wound up pulling her into bed with me. She slept better, and even when she woke up most of the time she went right back to sleep. Funny enough, after it started co-sleeping with her, she actually wound up sleeping BETTER in her crib, and it was pretty easy to gradually transition her back into it after she got past the super-fast developmental age. (Seriously, between milestones, growth spurts, teething, etc. this age is HORRIBLE for sleep... Baby needs momma.) She was mostly sleeping in her crib by a year old, and by the time she was 18 months she only slept in my bed during an active growth spurt, when she was sick, or when I wanted her there for snuggles. :)

Good luck finding something that works for you. :)

I can offer sympathy. Buckets of sympathy. However, I don't have any advice. Nothing my husband and I did changed the fact that my oldest didn't sleep longer than 3 hours per night until 14 months old. Just about the time my husband and I were convinced we were the worst parents ever and would never sleep again BAM! He slept through the night. I remember because for the first three days we didn't even mention it to each other. We sorta walked around holding our breath and ignoring the three hundred pound gorilla in the room. We were so afraid we were going to jinx ourselves and it was utter bliss to sleep so long we didn't dare look a gift horse in the mouth.

Truthfully we can take no credit for what I believe was a developmental issue. He was a hungry baby and no matter how much we fed him or what we fed him during the day that boy would not sleep longer than three hours. He woke up hungry and ready to eat. Period. We tried CIO three separate times (7 months, 9 months and 12 months). Without a question it made the situation worse each and every time we tried it. We talked at length and concluded we don’t believe babies cry to manipulate. We believe babies cry to communicate needs. We concluded us taking turns each night was fine by us. We concluded that for the time being we’d back off, keep feeding him bottles overnight and reassess at a later point or when we really felt we were reaching our limits. We felt in our core he wasn’t mature enough developmentally to make it through the night without eating. Then like magic he slept through the night, the overnight bottles went away and the whole thing became a distant memory.

I know from talking to my small circle of friends not all babies sleep through the night. Some do, some do so within a few months and the worst take until age two or longer. It’s one of those dark truths no one seems to talk about but if raised, then everyone seems to point the finger back to bad parenting. Babies aren’t robots. They don’t all do things the same way. Not all methods work on all babies. While any form of CIO is held up as the gold standard of sleep training, I don’t think it’s much more than a possible tool in the toolkit and like any possibility there’s a real possibility it might not work. Limited sleep sucks but you can’t make a baby do something he or she is unable or unwilling to do. Once we made our game plan and also our peace with limited sleep, it was actually easier to endure. We kept the focus on it only being a phase and we’d get through it somehow, together as a united (tired) couple. Good luck.

P.S. We didn't co-sleep. We made a pallet on the floor of the nursery. Both my husband and I spent a lot of nights sleeping on the nursery floor. It ensured at least one person could sleep undisturbed.

Have you thought "outside the crib?"
My kids were round the clock grazers for a year (normal for breastfed babies) but my youngest was the worst when it came to laying her down anywhere but in our bed.
It may have been reflux, I don't know, but I found if I let her sleep in her infant car seat, or even the swing, she stayed asleep longer.
ETA: I will add that we DID co sleep, not all night, but once baby woke up to feed baby came to bed with us. There was no way I could function during the day if I had to get up and down several times, not to mention the havoc and stress a crying baby causes for the rest of the family!