at wit's end! Need advice

EJMG

My son is 5 1/2 mos. old. ?He naps well during the day but his nights are killing me. ?He goes down by 7pm, he's up for a feeding at 11:00 which is fine and he's out again by 11:30... and then... 3:00am rolls around and he thinks its morning. ?I've tried feeding, not feeding, holding and rocking, crying it out, I've tried it freakin' all! ?He'll play in his crib for 20 min. then start crying hysterically and sweat through his clothes he's so upset. ?The crying doesn't stop when I hold him either... he doesn't want to be calmed, he want to play and he's royally pissed off! ?Usually by 5am I've calmed him and fed him again and he'll nod off for another hour or two but it's killing me. ?Any advice, any at all?!?!?

expecting-n-tx

My DD will get up at 4am if she naps to much during the previous day, how much is he sleeping during the day? Maybe try this, I end up with a cranky baby by bed time but her sleeping at night is worth it in my opinion.

KathrynMD

did you actually let him CIO - as in don't go in the room at all?  don't hold him, don't talk to him, etc?  I would try taht for the 3 am wake up. 

SarahMay77

My DD did this at about 5 months, too.  We co-slept for most of month 5 when she'd wake during the second half of the night.  She slept great w/us.  Then, at 6 month, her naps took a nosedive and she started waking earlier in the night and not going to bed easily at bedtime (which she's always done really well).

We decided to do full CIO for the post midnight wakings.  She wanted to play, not eat.  It worked quickly and her naps improved, too.  She's sick this week, so we may have to start over again, but we had 3 weeks of great success before that.  I wanted to avoid CIO as long as possible, but once we finally did it I was glad we didn't drag it out any longer.

I'd recommend checking out a few books if you have time.  Each baby is different. 

MegGary

Have you tried putting him to bed at a later time?

That or it's just a faze. DD did this for a week awhile back. OMG DH & I where about to lose it. For your sake I hope it is.

carolinag

we had to use ferber's CIO methods around this time. within a few days he was sleeping like a champ!

kipper1128

KathrynMD:

did you actually let him CIO - as in don't go in the room at all?  don't hold him, don't talk to him, etc?  I would try taht for the 3 am wake up. 

Ditto - it may be harsh, but at 6 months, the skills to self soothe are there, you just have to give them a chance.  And that might mean 20-30 minutes of horrible crying.  But they will get tired and fall back to sleep.  No baby will cry forever.  It's true.

BabyCakes3

How long is he napping during the day?

I did tons of sleep training research & it sounds like he's waking out of habit. I would just do checks at certain intervals but let him CIO. DD was doing this at 1am & 4am & we did Sleep Easy. I would do checks but nothing else. The most she ever cried was about 30 min but even that was off/on.