How Do We Get Our Son to Sleep Through the Night??

Hi J. -

My best advice to you is NEVER to let your son "cry it out". It makes him feel bad, it makes *you* feel bad, and it really doesn't do any good for anyone. I don't know exactly when this school of thought began, but there are definitely those who will tell you that your child "needs" to learn independence, to be on his own - and I've always found this notion to be utterly ridiculous. Your son is still a BABY. He needs you, he relies on you. Don't be in a hurry to break that bond you have now, because it's only going to be a couple of years before he starts saying "I don't need your help, mommy!"...

Anyway, with that said - your son sounds exactly like mine. And mine went through the same phases; there would be a week when he would sleep for 10 hours straight and we'd be relieved, then for 2 or 3 weeks he'd wake up like 5 times a night. It's normal. It's exhausting at times, but normal. If it seems to help to let him sleep in your bed, do it. I promise you that it will not last. People are quick to say that such behavior lays the foundation for bad habits later, but I've found that this is largely untrue. Yes, babies are clever, but your son is not manipulating you. He'll outgrow it, and it won't be long before you find yourself wishing to be back where you are now...

(My son just turned 4 in January - and already he doesn't need my help! LOL. It makes me a little sad sometimes now, because I remember being in a hurry in the beginning, too - When will he sleep? When will he eat real food? When will he potty train? Then it seems like you blink and it's all over!)

*EDIT: I just re-read your message and noticed that your son is asleep by 9pm. This seems pretty late to me. I know it sounds weird, but your son may actually be having trouble sleeping because he's a little sleep-deprived by the late bedtime. I would try to get him in bed closer to 7pm...

J.-
How funny Jack and my little guy, Jace, seem to be VERY similar!!! Jace is super easygoing and loves everyone! He is social, happy, and up until a week ago-a little bugger at nighttime too. Jace would do the same thing, he would fuss....wait...listen.....fuss...wait...oh yeah, I hear footsteps. It's amazing how brilliant babies are (I had a daycare for quite some time, they are wonderful, intelligent beings) and it sounds like Jack (and Jace in that means) know how to get mommy and daddy to attend to their every need. Despite our crazy, sleepless nights. I am proud to say that Jace is 7 1/2 months old and the past week of sleep has been a Godsend to us!! We are sleeping-hurray! After a week-in-a-half of "crying it out"--which is hard believe me, I had to take myself out of the hearing range (ya know, the office upstairs, etc) so I didn't give in to his cry. We let him cry for 35 minutes before when we decided we were sick of this sleep pattern. It is really unhealthy for your baby, and yourself, to have a child who cannot soothe himself back to sleep on his own. When we continually come to the rescue (which we did up until the past 3 weeks), we are teaching our children how not to self-soothe. It's a difficult challenge J., but I'm glad together my fiance and I stuck firm to our baby Jace's sleep challenge----awwww the dark circles are gone and a happy baby awakes in the morn. SOOO thankful to see us rescue him for the day!!! Best of luck- feel free to write me! Also, I did make sure after he was done "fitting" that he was safe, secure and snuggled for sleep. And then I was.

Hi J.-

We also had a little trouble in this area as well until we finally decided after we had ruled out everything else, that it was just too quiet in her room and that was waking her up. We turn on a small fan that we put in her doorway facing out into the rest of the house so the air isn't blowing into her room, but just the hum of that little fan for whatever reason has made all the difference and our daughter now sleeps right thru the night with her "background music".
K.

I also read that children's sleep pattern involves waking. And that there is no avoiding it, the trick is if they can soothe themselves back to sleep without you. Unfortunately, I can't offer any magic solution.

We also struggled with getting our son, now 2 1/2, to sleep through the night. I found the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley quite helpful. It involves creating sleep logs so that you can reflect on what you did during the day on the nights he didn't need soothing so that you can repeat it and hopefully achieve the same result. And we do feel that it worked for us. We had also been putting our son to bed at 9 pm and found that an earlier bedtime did seem to help.

Now at 2 1/2 our son still occassionally is up in the middle of the night. Instead of crying for us though, he just comes into our room and wakes us up. Then you have to decide whether to try and get him back into his own bed, which probably will involve some crying, or let him get in with you. :)

Like Kristin had said, and her and I very much seem to be on the same page, he'll only be small for such a short period of time. You'll only have memories of when he longed for you to hold him close and soothe him.

J.

Have read the book, "Sleeping Through The Night"? It is so good! The book covers all aspect of children and their sleeping needs, such as, how much sleep a child needs. I haven't read the whole book yet because I skipped to the sections that were relevant to my situation, but from what I read I feel so informed about my child's sleeping issues. I love it!

Gabe

I hate to have to say it, but you were told right about letting him cry for awhile. Little ones can wake quite a few times through the night and need to learn how to comfort themselves to go back to sleep. If you go get him every time he wakes up, he will not learn to go back to sleep. Maybe try a night light in his room so he is not in the dark, if you don't have one already. You may have some bumpy nights ahead of you when you let him cry because he is expecting you to come in, but once he learns that you are not coming he will start to cry less in the night. If he does cry for a long time though, then he may need a new diaper or something, so don't just ignore him for hours or anything, but he needs to start learning at some point that nighttime is when you sleep and don't get up for awhile.

Hi JoAnn,

I don't have any advice, just wanted to let you know that this happens to a lot of people. My son is 17 months and usually only sleeps through the night if he's in our bed. I didn't intend for that to happen, but I finally just needed to get some sleep myself and there you have it. We have tried everything, read every book, taken a lot of advice - nothing has worked. My theory is that my son wakes up and realizes he's alone and would rather not be. His toddler bed is currently in our room (another trick we decided to try, maybe if he could hear us breathing, know we were in the same room - didn't work), he starts out in his own bed and usually ends up in ours around midnight. I don't beleive in letting them cry it out, though out of desperation I tried it, no dice there either. It was just heartbreaking for me and caused my son to fear his crib for weeks. So at this point I just try to encourage him to sleep in his own bed all night, and sometimes he does, and I hope in the future when he understands better that he'll stay in his own bed. Perhaps I've created a monster here, but like I said - at some point I had to get a decent night's sleep since I hadn't had one since before he was born. Good luck, you are not alone.