My LO is overtired and I can't break the cycle

JLK0414

DS is 6 months, and I feel like I have tried everything to get him to nap. Rocking, patting, nursing, and it seems nothing works. I watch for his tired signs but honestly they are very subtle not too mention I can't watch him every minute because of my other child. His nighttime sleep is horrible, and he is just miserable during the day. Most days he is up from 530 am until 630 pm with no nap. I really don't want to do CIO but he needs sleep desparately! It breaks my heart to see him so sleep deprived. He is short 3-4 hours of sleep a day. I don't know if I am looking for advice or just getting my frustrations out. I really don't know what to do.

SummerBabyLove

I'm sorry you are going through this.  DD2 is an awful napper too.  Have you tried blackout shades/curtains and white noise?  Just some ideas on what has helped us a little.

JLK0414

We do use white noise but it doesn't make a difference.

Cricket81

For us, ds is really ready for a nap about 2 hours after he wakes up. Ben if he doesn't show cues, that's when I settle him down, nurse him, and he falls asleep. If he's fighting me on it, I let him quietly play with a toy on my lap for a few minutes and try again. Could teething be keeping him awake? Have you given him Tylenol ever to see if that helps?

pb&jojo

I know 6 months is on the later side for swaddling, but have you tried that (legs in, arms out)? Mine still likes that closeness feeling.

Sometimes when she is fighting sleep and squirming a lot, I hold her hands down at her side until she's still asleep....works in no time

Maelara

Silv3rlining said:

Have you tried babywearing?

This. N always falls asleep when I wear her.

MitsB707

Have you tried swaddling and listening to Baby Got Colic? That was ds's go to song for a long time.

brown214

This will probably be an uncommon opinion but we did the ferber method and it has worked wonderfully for us. My lo was the same way. Terrible naps and it would take 45 min. of bouncing for him to go down at night and I would have to put him down at least 3 times before he would stay asleep. The ferber method worked in about 3 days for us. He took to it well and now falls asleep in less than 10min with no crying at all.

Rushmore

brown214 said:

This will probably be an uncommon opinion but we did the ferber method and it has worked wonderfully for us. My lo was the same way. Terrible naps and it would take 45 min. of bouncing for him to go down at night and I would have to put him down at least 3 times before he would stay asleep. The ferber method worked in about 3 days for us. He took to it well and now falls asleep in less than 10min with no crying at all.

Amen to this.

Even if you don't decide to go with the Ferber method, there is a lot of great info on sleep in his book. I am so glad I bought the book.

For me, I wore my son for his naps for the first 7 months of his life before we sleep trained.
What I did in the weeks preceding the sleep training was getting him on a schedule. I would wear him in the sling and walk/bounce him to sleep in the same place at the same times every day.  We also had a short simple routine before each sleep period (bring him up to his room, look out his window for a minute, turn on the fan, kiss his stuffed animal and then bounce him to sleep).

When it came time to sleep train him (out of pure necessity since he was getting really big I couldn't hold him anymore for long periods and I also felt he wasn't sleeping very well anymore like this) the schedule we had in place really helped.

But that's just what worked for me. There are a lot of suggestions/problem solving ideas in Ferber's book and you don't necessarily have to CIO.

Hang in there!

mrsnorthernbell

A friend of mine had this issue. The dr eventually found out she had bad heartburn and prescribed medicine. Http://northernbellemama.blogspot.com

BelhurstBride

I was going to suggest baby wearing, too. It's the only way DD2 sleeps during the day, partly because of DD1. 

hollandmama

When LO wasn't able to sleep I had to take him our for a walk, he always falls asleep on the stroller but I'm a FTM and I guess this may become more difficult if you have 2 LOs.

katiedid0907

We read a book called the sleep easy solution and it had some really great tips. We weren't able to eliminate LO's night waking though and ended up going the CIO route. CIO works, but the first 2 nights were miserable for me. So definitely use it as a last resort. My LO STTN after a few nights though. He is still a crappy mapper but I feel better now that he sleeps well at night. HTH!