I am currently trying to teach my 7 month old to fall asleep on his own and am going crazy listening to him cry. Help!!!
So it took a month but we did it!!!! He can now fall asleep on his own in his own crib!!!:) He still a bit of help from me but i am not nursing him to sleep anymore. Even better when he does wake up at night to eat he nurses and then he goes right back into the crib and fast asleep. Thank you for kind words. the worst is over and i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
A.
Hang in there-- you might try listening to music or watching TV (both loud). There's nothing to be gained by hearing him cry, if you're trying to help him learn this new skill. I don't know any babies who liked learning to fall asleep on their own, but I know many babies and parents who slept better once the baby had learned the skill.
Good luck!
I would find some infant exercises for him to help tire him out before you lay him down or even a little motion light with different shapes that he may watch to help him relax. The crying should go away with in the hour but I wouldn't let him go for longer than that.
Good luck and god bless
I don't have any advice for you, unfortunately, but we just started the same thing with my 1 year old daughter last night. Last night it took an hour of crying, and tonight she cried so hard that she vomitted. I really want her to learn to fall asleep on her own, but this king of training seems harsh. i'll check out some of the books the other people have recommended. Best of luck & hang in there...I've heard from SO many people that the Ferber method (or some variation of it) works and it is an invaluable lesson both for you and for the baby.
E.
I tried the "Sleep Lady" method and it really worked for getting my daughter to go to sleep on her own. I can now lay her down after bath, story and bottle while she is still awake and she will snuggle in and go to sleep on her own. We are still struggling with some night time wakings 2-3 times a week, but it gets better as time goes on. I suggest trying her book, besides her "Sleep Lady Shuffle" she also has a lot of information about how much sleep a baby needs and other good background information on sleep. Good luck!
A.-
Stick with it! Sleep training was the best thing we did! We approached it rather slowly and actually started with the middle of the night wake-ups. If he woke up during the night when we knew he wasn't hungry (like shortly after a feeding), we waited 20 minutes before responding (felt like forever!). Really quickly he and us were able to differentiate when he was really hungry (didn't stop fussing/crying at the 20 min mark) and when he wasn't (actually would fall back asleep after about 5 min). Once we knew that he knew how to fall asleep on his own, we tried it at bedtime (our backs were killing from bouncing him until he fell asleep!). We had one night were he cried hard for 20 minutes and then fell asleep. After that, bedtime has been a breeze! He often talks to himself and sometimes fusses a bit but always falls asleep on his own in about 5-10 minutes. The hardest part was naps. He really resisted falling asleep on his own for them. We just stayed consistent - doing the exact same things for the routine, in the same order (even reading the same book!). After a couple of days, he was yawning and rubbing his eyes before the book was finished! We still have some trouble with the naps every now and then but most of the time he just goes right to sleep. Stick with it. It will make things much much better for you. I know I am a better mom because we all sleep better now. BTW - I really liked the Jodi Mindell book - Sleeping through the Night as my guide. And for naps, I never let him cry for more than 1 hour, and often cave in at the 30 minute mark. At night, we still keep the 20 minute rule because at this point (my son is almost 9 months and we started all this at 6 months), we know if he is crying for that long at night, something is up, otherwise he would go back to sleep.
Good luck!
I am a single mom of 1 child who is 2 year old now and I honestly feel that it is still too young to teach them to go to bed on their own. We have a routine that we eat, do bath about 7:30 and then he starts rubbing his eyes and he gets a bottle and i lay him on the couch. He sometimes falls asleep and I remove the bottle and sometimes he finishes it half asleep but wants to cuddle and rock. So he sits on my leg hugging my chest and a few rocks and pats on the back and he is asleep. lay him down in his crib and or the couch until I am ready to move him and he sleeps through the night. I was a nanny for a while and kids dont understand it is bed time and you have to go to sleep till they are like 1 1/2 maybe 2 years old.
Hope this helps.
J.
A helpful book that you might consider reading is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. Our pediatrician recommended it to us and it really helped a lot. It goes through each stage of a child's life and talks about how much sleep they should get from an infant all the way to adolescence. To get our son to sleep through the night, we used a combination of what Weissbluth said and the sample routine mentioned in The Sleep Whisperer. Also, a video monitor is definitely helpful when sleep training - that way you can see how they are doing and gauge when to/when not to walk into his room to pick him up. Good luck!
A.,
I don't have the greatest advice for alternatives to the cry it out strategy. Just support. I definetely know what you are going through. We used it with my now 10 month old with some reasonable success. At first I would cry when he was crying..... I found that the best way to get through it was to distract myself with other things (shower, cook, have a drink on the patio with my husband). Or leave the house, leaving someone with more resilience to the crying with him and go to the gym, get a cup of coffee, etc. Sitting near where he is crying just makes 10 minutes seem like 10 hours.
The other thing is to offer some encouragement.....you are teaching your little one a very valuable skill, and they will be better off when they can sleep unassisted. I promise it gets better, but don't be surprised if it takes more than the often advertised 3-4 days. It took mine about 3-4 weeks until he would routinely fall asleep by himself without crying. It WILL end, I promise. Also remember that it you cave in to his crying now and try again when he is older, it will only be harder and he will cry longer and harder.
This may not have been the most helpful response, but know that there are others that have gone through it...!
One thing you might want to try is a slow transition, rather than trying to do this all at once. If he normally falls asleep in your arms after 30 minutes of rocking and snuggling, try doing the snuggling for 28 minutes instead. Then quietly put him in bed and walk away. DON'T go back to "check on him". Make sure that bed is all set up ahead of time (lights out, blankets ready to be pulled up, etc, so there is as little disturbance as possible.)
Snuggle for 28 minutes this week, then switch to snuggling for 26 minutes for a week. It is a slow process, but it should teach him to sleep on his own.
Oh my! These days go by so fast! Being able to sit and have them fall asleep in your arms should be treasured - don't rush it! I just looked at my 10 year old the other day and thought how wonderful those times were. It's good for you to take the time to relax as well - trust me the dishes, laundry, vacuuming and cleaning will wait and still be there later.
