Sleep Thread

ladyjenna13

Figured it might be a good idea to put this topic out there.  I know that each parent has a different experience with how their children sleep, so I think sharing ideas and suggestions on this might help other parents who are struggling with kids not sleeping consistently.  It seems so long ago that my own child slept peacefully through the night.

Now....not so much.

ladyjenna13

On the weekends I have no problem with him sleeping with us.  Last night it was like he came into our bed just to fuss.  That is not cool.

It does have benefits, like bonding and feeling closer to our young children.  But at the same time, it is OUR room, and OUR bed. He is expecting to be there now, and that was made very clear last night.

Prime

ladyjenna13 said:

On the weekends I have no problem with him sleeping with us.  Last night it was like he came into our bed just to fuss.  That is not cool.

It does have benefits, like bonding and feeling closer to our young children.  But at the same time, it is OUR room, and OUR bed. He is expecting to be there now, and that was made very clear last night.

This is exactly what we are trying to avoid.  We want to have our space and for him to feel comfortable in his.  Easier said than done of course.  We were doing really well with it until teething started.  Now he starts the night in his crib and around midnight my wife takes him to the guest bed with her. 

ladyjenna13

@Prime - Sounds like my house every night for the last two months.  Teething....not a big fan.

futant462

What's sleep?

Wulfgar

For us, my wife has always laid down with our son.  Until we moved into a big boy bed it was on the couch since my wife is a huge couch sleeper.  Unless my son is really cranky, he usually doesn't wake me at night and most nights he sleeps through it.

There have been a few very rough nights when he had night terrors or other things that would mean I would have to do late night drives to try and settle him down.

ladyjenna13

He has two teeth cutting now, so his fussiness is hair-trigger at this point.  Aware of that, last night I gave him a dose of pediacare at bedtime.  He slept until 3:15, and if he does that I have no problem with him coming into our bed at that point.

I am of the mindset that the whole sleep training thing can wait while we try to manage his toothing pain.  It is the initial cutting that drives him crazy, and he has two uppers right now doing that.

Coltsdad

As bad as the front ones are, the molars can be just as bad, if not worse... depending on the child.

ladyjenna13

Last night he went down a little after 8pm.  He wakes up at 12:30.  Wife and I debate if we are goig to sit up with him in his room and try to get him back down, or put him in our bed and get some sleep.

He ended up in our bed, with me alone, because my wife was snoring last night and was trying to get comfortable, so she was going between the couch and the guest room. So from the time he woke up until 5am I did not sleep.  I basically got two hours of shut eye.

Packers Bears tonite.  He can stay up until midnight for all I care. But actually, this might be a good night to have him pass out from pure exhaustion. The problem is my wife is so hung up on him getting 10-11 hours a night, that she would never let him stay up past 8:30, and even then he would only get 9 hours.

He seems fine with just 9. His teachers are not noticing him becoming fatigued during the day. 

Sleep deprivation is NOT cool!  But......Packers v. Bears tonight makes it all worth it!

ladyjenna13

Decent night last night.  The boy slept straight through from 7:45 to 3:30.  The bad is that he only slept for an hour once he got into our room, so at 4:30 this morning he was wide awake ready to go.

Baby steps.......

ladyjenna13

Woke up at 12:30 last night and came straight into bed with us.  We tried giving him a little more bottle last night before we put him done, thinking a fuller tummy might help him sleep through the night.  Didn't work.

We had to wake him up this morning, at 6:00, so that is a positive to take out of it. 

But instead of sleeping vertical, he decided to sleep with his head on me and his feet on my wife.  So I was waking up every hour or so out of paranoia about popping his head in a horrible co-sleeping incident.  That was not a positive.

ladyjenna13

polooo26 said:

Put my kid to bed last night and woke up this morning to him next to me. I must have slept through him getting in bed with us. Solid sleep, just probably only 6 hours of it though. Everyone stayed up later than normal last night.

Six hours????  Must have been awesome.  I have fantasies at work about sleeping that long, uninterrupted.

ladyjenna13

apbloye said:

My 15 week old slept from 10pm last night to 7am this morning. Its becoming a regular thing.

Ahhhhhhh.......I remember those peaceful nights.  Get your sleep now, because there is a very high probability that once teething starts, that will all change.  My boy used to sleep from 7:00 until 6:00 at 15 weeks.  That ended right before the teeth popped out.

ladyjenna13

Not fun last night.  Woke up @ 12:30, wet through his diaper, so we all woke up and I changed his crib sheets while she changed him.  He was pissed off at the world and did not want to go back down.  Figured his teeth were messing with him, so we gave him a dose of pain med and got him to calm down enough to sleep with us after an hour. 

I hate having to rely on the pediacare.  But I am to the point where I feel he might need it more than ever now.  What do you guys think in enough when it comes to the pediacare??  Every night...once a week??

Coltsdad

I appear to be the lucky one right now that has 2 kids that both mostly sleep through the night... occasionally they wake once, maybe twice a night, but you usually just check on them, fix whatever the immediate problem is and they go right back to sleep.

Wulfgar

What we did was give pain medicine while teething as needed but we only usually gave half a dose.  This way we minimized the dosage and he still got the relief that he needed to sleep.

Prime

We are going through our first round of teething right now.  First one broke through at the end of last week and last night he slept through the night for the first time in almost 3 weeks.  We are hoping to make that two in a row tonight.

Thankfully for me, I tend to sleep through him fussing in the night and my wife is kind enough to take the brunt of that since I have to go to work the next day.  He really has to get upset for me to wake up.

ladyjenna13

Went down good.  Gave a dose, but it was more for his busted lip from a fall. 

Woke up @ 12:30. Came into our bed and sleep good for the rest of the night.  Got some decent shut eye actually.

Spapeggy

We def do not let baby in bed. It's the only place that is left to be just ours. Baby can snuggle but no sleeping with us. I want to cave often esp since I ebf and she's up so much. I sahm and ds is 3, dd 5 mo. I need sleep so so bad

ladyjenna13

He went down normal time.  Woke up @ 11:00 and the wife sat with him for ten minutes before putting him back in his bed.  He screamed and yelled at us for a good half-hour after after that before falling asleep.  Woke up at 4am and slept with us until we all woke up at 5:30.

 

ladyjenna13

We are slowly getting to the point where he may possibly sleep through the night.  Went down @ 8 last night.  Woke up @ 2 in the morning and came to our bed, where he fell asleep right away.

Next move is to let him sleep in the bed with us for 10-15 minutes and try to get him back into his crib.  The problem will be trying to stay awake for 10-15 minutes at 2 in the morning.