Sleep Wanted!

Hi there,
Go and get the book Healthy sleep habits, happy child by Marc Weissbluth M.D. It realy helped me. It gives a ton of advice for various situations as wel as a breakdown by age and solotions that includes crying-it-out or no-cry method. Hope this helps.

Hi L.!

How does your son go to sleep? Do you put him down awake or rock him to sleep or nurse him to sleep? If you rock him or nurse him, it may just be that when he wakes up in the night he doesn't know how to soothe himself back to sleep without your help. If you decide to do the cry it out thing, I recommend buying Ferber's book, the method works and you can check on the baby at relatively close intervals. Even so, it is sooo brutal to get through and I recommend doing it on a long weekend where you don't have to go to work for a few days (like upcoming labor day weekend). And if you drink, have plenty of alcohol on hand to help you get through it! For us, the first night took FIVE hours of crying before he finally fell asleep, and then he vomited as soon as we put him in his crib for the next 4 nights. You really have to be committed to make it through.

It took us about a week and a half before our baby would go to sleep without crying, but he started sleeping through the night, 10.5 hours straight by the second night and he had never done that before (he was about 10 months at the time). Now he is 17 months and we still have to do "refreshers" more often than I like but every time he gets sick, or a tooth comes in, or we travel, he stops going to sleep without protest and we have to start over. But it is never as brutal as the original training and usually only takes a night or two.

Good luck! I hope you get some sleep soon!

L.

L.,
I have a son who did not sleep thru the night until 20weeks, and at that point my husband and I were both back to work. It was very difficult. I was lucky because he justed stopped waking up.
My advice, and this is only my opinion, please do not take offense. I think your son my have become reliant on you. By one year he does not need the night time nutrition. From speaking to other moms about similar things I think that your son has become dependent on you for the night time comfort when he wakes up. He should not be hungrey for a midnight feeding anymore. I know it was sooooo difficult for me to stop nursing my boy. He is my baby and I did not want to malnourish him at all! I had a personal battle with myself and I had to let go. Like I said this is only one opinion.
E.

L.,

Our son didn't sleep through the night until he was into his 7th month. Both my husband and I were working full time, so we would trade off nights where one of us would sleep in the basement for a night and the other would get up with him. I was feeding him pumped breastmilk. At the same time, my milk was drying up (I was trying everything to keep it going) and we were planning a Mom/Dad vacation to Vegas so I started transitioning to formula. I swear, as soon as he was getting formula, he slept through the night.

I'm not sure if it was a total coincidence or what. It's just what happened in our house - and wow, what a relief it was. I'm due with baby #2 in the next couple of weeks and although I plan to breastfeed him while I'm home...as soon as I start heading back to work I'm considering supplementing with formula.

Good luck.

T.

I agree 100% with L. G. Your son does not need nighttime nutrition; he is getting up for comfort and out of habit.

Every parenting style is different when it comes to sleep training. Some use Sears method, or Pantley's "No-cry sleep method," while others use Ferber.

Ferber worked very well for us, and while it was rough the first 1-2 nights, it worked. We still need to re-train her every so often, but it's never like the first time we trained her.

I'm not saying you should use Ferber...like I said, every parent has their own style. Ferber just worked for our family. My point is, I think your child needs to be sleep trained in some way; the nighttime feedings are not necessary at this age.

We trained her NOT because we wanted our sleep, but because simply, she was old enough to sleep through the night and not need any nighttime nutrition. The nightly wake ups were out of habit and sooner or later, they need to be stopped. Just like you train a child not to pee on the carpet, not to throw food, etc.

I'm in the same boat but my 1 year old is starting to fix it himself. I was so frustrated. He would wake up once in the middle of the night and i would give him a bottle knowing he didn't need it for nutrition but it was the only way he would go back to sleep. I tried letting him cry it out and go in there and lay him back down but nothing has worked. But for the past 2 weeks, he all of a sudden stopped. I will hear him wake but he is only whining so i leave him and now i think he is beginning to figure it out. I say be patient, try to ignore him unless he is wailing. It's perfectly ok to let him whine and talk himself back to sleep. Good luck and be patient!

Hi L.,
Wow your story sounds like how my life USE to be. My 2nd daughter who is also breastfed just turned 11 months...and we had this same problem from when she was 5-9 months old. We only have a two bedroom house at 3 months old we put her in to share a room with her sister (who is 2 1/2), but after a week we ended up moving her back to our room due to all the night time wakings. I take 100% responsibility for the baby I created....a very dependent baby who needed me ALL NIGHT!!! Every little peep she made, I would run to get her and as a breastfeeding mom...you know the easiest thing to do to get them to calm down and go back to sleep is nurse them. :) Obviously NOT the right thing to do, but certainly is the easiest and quickest fix to make sure everyone gets some sleep & the whole house doesn't wake. I like you...thought I had it all figured out, as my first daughter slept 12 hours at 3 1/2 months old. Anyway, after 4 months of this going on I was totally stressed out, sleep deprived, and absolutely miserable. And one day I just said that's it, I have to sleep train her somehow, at this point she had just turned 9 months old. I went to library and got 4 sleep training books by various authors...skimmed through them to see which method my husband & I agreed with 100% and it was: The Sleep Easy Solution by Jennifer Waldburger & Jill Spivack. My husband took a 2 week vacation so we could start the sleep training & night time feeding weaning process. Oh, also for us...she was a horrible napper as well, so we were working on: no more night time feedings, sleeping through the night, and taking naps. We followed the book to the T and I kid you not within 4 nights I had her totally weaned from feedings and within 7 days sleeping ALL NIGHT. The naps took a little longer (the book even tells you naptime is harder than nighttime), but within 7 days we noticed improvement and within 11 days she had it pretty much mastered. Now just 2 months later (she's now 11 months old) she is a wonderful sleeper, napper, and an amazing little girl. I have my life back and I'm a much better mommy now that I'm not sleep deprived. :) I wish you the best of luck in finding the solution that works for you and your family. I can't give enough kuddos to The Sleep Easy Solution book...it was my saving grace.
Good Luck!
~V.

L.,
My kids are 17 months apart- similar to yours. My daughter who was the first, slept through the night at 7 weeks- but my son didn't until 9 months. In retrospect, I thik it was my own fault. Every little peep he made I would run in to get him- I think I was so concerend that he would wake up my daughter. Then, it just became a habit for him and me- he got so used to me tending to his every need at night that he then needed me to get him back to sleep. Once I figured this out I started to let him be. Remarkably, he didn't wake up my daughter- I guess she slept much more soundly that I had thought she would. And, eventually, I broke him of the habit of needing mommy in the middle of the night.

Just a warning...I think I have done many similar things like this (without realizing it until after the behavior is ingrained in both me and my son) and now I have a little boy (wonderful as he may be) who still has a very hard time being away from mommy and really is VERY shy.

Good luck!!!
K.

Hi L., I have that same problem with my daughter...same situation. I think she does this if she goes to bed and is still a bit hungry, or most of the time she needs that comfort (of nursing) when she's teething. This is just the pattern I saw with her, maybe its the same with your son.

All I can say is my heart goes out to you!! I am in the same boat. My LO is almost one and still doesn't sleep all night. She's mastered standing and I have to go in and lay her back down 2-3 times a night!! Not to mention her room is upstairs! My older two kids are camping next week and hubby is on a business trip. I am leaving the monitor off and going to go cold turkey for both of us. She doesn't eat at night just needs us to pat her back to get back to sleep. I was worried about her waking the other kids so I'd run to quiet her. Not next week. And my son sleeps through anything!!!
Good luck to you and I hope to get sleep sometime again also! LOL
desperately seeking sleep mommy to four
H.