Do Elephants Fly? or Am I Just Sleep Deprived (Everyone Please Read)

#1 - you are the mommy. You may need to tell your mom that you are the final say as to weather or not the baby cries at a certain time. Yes, with grandma around there is plenty of help for soothing babies, but sounds like grandma is undermining you here. If grandma refuses to comply with your wishes for the baby, you may need to move out... I would tell her this too.

#2 - is it the best idea to travel to sleep train your baby? Travel really messes babies up and by the time you get him sleep trained at your sistser, you'll have to fly home which will probably mess with the set up schedule and you may have to do it all over again.

I sleep trained using the methods in "Healthy Sleep Habits." We also had tried baby wise, but I coudn't get my daughter to go longer than 2 hours between feeding to save my life. I LOVE Healthy Sleep Habits. I used the extinction method and I started when my daughter was 8 weeks old. We'd already been to the pediatrician for her 2 months visit and he told us that if Allison had already slept in 6-8 hours stretches on her own that we could let her cry it out whenever we were ready. I had already gone back to work and I was a complete and total zombie. Just ask my husband... late one night when I would not get my daughter to go to sleep. He woke up (or maybe just got out of bed... I don't know if he was asleep) to find his daughter crying in her crib and his wife crying on the couch. We started sleep training the next night (or was it the one after that... either was it was a Friday night so we had the weekend). We used extinction method. About 8 pm we started a bedtime routine... it consisted of a diaper change, a nursing session (or a bottle) and a song (acutally it was 5 or 6 songs... I was having a hard time laying her down to cry). Anyway, I laid her down for the night and the first night she fussed for about an hour. It was hard, but I was exhausted and fell mostly asleep while my husband watched a movie. That night she woke up about every 2 hours (that was her norm at the time), and we did not go into her until it had been at leat 6 hours since her last feeding since I knew she wasn't hungry... she just wanted to be put back to sleep. The second night same bedtime routine, but this time she only cried about 20 minutes before falling asleep, and she woke up less at night. Third night no crying before falling asleep, and she only woke up when she needed to eat.

Thats not exactly the end of the story. Sometimes she still woke up for no reason, but in general, she is on a great sleep schedule. Now at almost 8 months she is on a very predictable day and nighttime sleep schedule (in spite of the every other day variance of my work schedule) and she now sleep 12 hours a night straight... no more waking up for feeding.

Letting her cry it out was one of the best things we ever did for her and ourselves. She is a champion night sleeper, and I was able to get quality sleep myself. After we sleep trained her I could usually get 4-6 hours straight, and then another few hours after feeding her. Certainly not the 8-10 hours I would have liked, but I could function well during the day and every few months the amount of uninterrupted sleep I got got longer until this past month I got back to 8 hours (yeah!). We have changed her bedtime routine some (added a story, added a music crib soother, and now we always include a special blanket). Allison is well adjusted, cheerful and incredibly loving. She has a very well rested mom and dad, which is one of the best things we can give her. Your baby won't be damaged by being allowed to cry it out, they won't feel abandoned or hopeless. The gift of sleep (and the ability to self-soothe to sleep) is one of the best things you can give your family.

Good luck. I would start with a talk with your mom... she needs to get out of your way and let you parent your child your way. If she can't step out of the way, alternate living arrangements (if at all possible) may be necessary. Good luck... feel free to contact me if you have any questions... ____@____.com

Please, PLEASE reconsider the cry-it-out method. This is such a tough, heart breaking method because it IS devestating. Harvard recently released a study confirming that too much crying can be psychologically damaging to infants. Your child doesn't even have object permanence yet - he has no way of understanding that someone is coming back for him!

Instead there are other things you can do to encourage sleep. My first impression is to switch from regular formula to soy formula. My son had a miserable time sleeping until we disovered he had a dairy allergy. Once I cut dairy out of my breastmilk, it was like night and day.

My next suggestion is to read DR Sears' information about High Needs babies. Some are simply born needing more contact. He has a book about High Needs children and tons of advice on his website at www.askdrsears.com

Two more books I recommend are Sweet Dreams by Dr Paul Fleiss or The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley.

Babywise was written by a religious fanatic who was excommuniated from his own church for his teachings. The American Academy of Pediatrics specfically warns against that book, stating that scheduling infant feedings leads to dehydration and low weight gain.

I know this is hard but it doesn't have to be a battle between your needs and the baby's. You don't have to train your baby for your convenience. Please consider your other options, options that will serve both your needs.

Good luck, sleepy mommy!

When my first child was 6 weeks old I called my mom in tears, I told her that I never got off the couch,never showered and all I did was nurse my baby. She is the mother of 4 so she has some experiance,she told me to feed my baby well, burp her and change her diaper then to put her in her crib set a timer for 15 minutes and take a shower or move to some other part of the house where I could not hear her. when the timer went off I went to check on her and she had cried her self to sleep. After 2 days she was sleeping 6 hour every night she would sometimes wake-up and fuss a little but I would let her work it out on her own. Even if she out and out cried I would give her 10 min -15 min before I would get up and go to her. I used this method with all three of my children and they slept through the night at 6weeks,8 weeks, 3 weeks. All of my children have put themselves down for naps and to bed because the know that there is no other option. I don't mean to sound like a mean mommy but some things in our household are not a negotiation and bedtime is one of them.

We did sleep training with our son, and it was definitely the hardest on us! The first night, it took him almost 8 hours, checking on him every 15 minutes but not picking him up, for him to go to sleep. The next night, it was only about 4, and the next night it only took about half an hour. It was VERY hard that first night, and VERY tempting to just give in and hold him, (sleep with him on my chest, or whatever) but it was so worth it to be able to -finally!- be able to put him to bed, after his routine, and have him stay there and simply go to sleep. I know that not everyone has this same type of experience, but that is how it worked out for us. Good luck!