Up every hour at night. Help!! (long)

farmwife

Ok, I just can't take it anymore.  DS had been a FABULOUS sleeper...would go to sleep between 8 and 9 every night, and sleep until about 6 getting up only once to nurse.  He'd been doing this since we started him in his crib at about 6 or 7 wks old.  We thought we had it made.  Had a week or so where he was up an extra time or 2 when I started back to work, but soon settled into a routine and was back to "normal".  Then about 6 weeks ago his sitter had her own baby and was off for 2 weeks and it just all fell apart.  He started by being up every 2-3 hrs, but he'd still go down easily enough after I nursed him.  I figured it was just due to his routine being disrupted.  When he started back at the sitter's, he had one night where he slept like normal, then went back to being up every 2-3 hrs.  Well, since then its gotten progressively worse.  To the point where he now is up every HOUR.  And if he's not sound asleep when I put him down he wakes up and cries...or just wakes up and is okay until I get out of his sight-then he cries.  We started bringing him in bed with us just to get some sleep, and of course he sleeps fine there-he'll sleep all night easily, but we don't sleep as well.  Plus, its getting cold at night and when he is in bed with us, I sleep on top of the sheets so that I don't forget he's there and pull the sheet up in my sleep...but its getting too chilly to sleep on top of the sheets anymore!  Last night I was able to get him to sleep about 3 separate 1 hr stretches in his crib...but I just don't know what to do anymore.  He's not hungry, b/c as soon as you pick him up he is fine (or at least as soon as I pick him up, not always the case with DH) and if he is in our bed-he might fuss a little, but give him his paci and stroke his face a bit and he goes right to sleep-no nursing required.  However, in his crib, the paci and the same basic soothing techniques do nothing-just makes him cry harder.  I wondered at first if he might be teething, he's been drooling and chewing on everything for months now, but I can't feel any sign of a tooth yet and he's generally happy during the day (well, except for showing a bit of jealousy towards the sitter's new baby-he wants to be held by her a lot and he cries when she holds her own baby-who knew a 6 mo old could be jealous?!).  He's not napping that great, but he's never been a good napper.  I am really starting to think he just wants to be with us at night-b/c he's happy when you're holding him or if he's laying next to you.  This is also the way he was for the first 6 weeks of his life, he would only sleep when he was being held.  I hate to just make him cry if his fear is that we've "abandoned" him...b/c won't that just make him feel like yes, mommy and daddy really have abandoned me!!   But this is exhausting and I just don't know what to do anymore.  Any advice/tips/thoughts?!  Sorry this is so long, I'm just at my wits end!

Ciconrad

We had similar issues with Joseph at 6 months.  He was never really a great sleeper, but at least would go 4-5 hour stretches.  Then all of the sudden it became 2-3 hours and he was waking up, then every hour he was crying for us.  After weeks of trying everything and thinking it was teething or separation anxiety and just being at our wits end, someone on the the nest suggested the book "Sleepeasy Solution".  It does advocate a modified CIO (with check-ins every 10-15 min) but goes into a lot of detail about how to get your child into healthy sleep patterns and routines and why its important for them to be getting good.  It goes through sleep issues and how to correct them through age 5.  We ended up doing the CIO and after 2 nights, he was STTN.  He is a great sleeper now (we are currently goign through a little bit of nap issues but I referred back to the book and am using their hints to get him to take longer naps - again, its working really well!).  I highly recommend it!

valerieanderic

How long do you let him cry for when he wakes up? I know it's so hard to let them cry, but if he's not hungry, maybe he'd go back to sleep after crying for a little bit???

farmwife

Thanks for the recommendation...I'll look into that book.  I've been considering some sort of CIO/Ferber but didn't want to just do it blindly so I'm glad to have a recommendation. 

I have let him cry for probably 5 min at most before going in.  I did try just staying in the room and rubbing his belly when he would get upset...it would calm him down for a couple of minutes, then he'd cry again, I'd rub his belly, he'd calm down for a couple more minutes, and so on and so on for about 45 minutes and I couldn't take it anymore.

He's been really grumpy the past couple of days and pulling at his ear off and on so I'm taking him to the pedi tomorrow AM to rule out an ear infection.  If he checks out fine there, I think we're going to get serious about some sort of sleep training b/c we just can't keep going like this.

JessiLW

Sorry I can't be of much help as we are in E X A C T L Y the same position right now. But I did want to say that I can def. comiserate with you. I hope that things get better for you (and me) very soon.