Need advice on sleep training

HisBetterHalf

So Nora is NOT a good sleeper and its driving me crazy.  It had me in tears last night.  Let me give you my scenario and tell me what you think.

I bring her up for bedtime routine at around 7:30pm.  I wash her up or give her a bath and then put her PJs on.  Then we go in her room and I give her her last feeding (she's BF, just started cereal 1x/day).  She just about always falls asleep from nursing but not before she's had enough to eat.  I put her in her crib either asleep or VERY drowsy and she is fine.  She sleeps great for anywhere between 3 to 6 hours (so until sometime between 11 and 2).  Then she starts fussing/whining.  I usually don't go to bed until 11.  I try not to go to her but she gets loud pretty fast and I don't want her to wake my husband or daughter.  I usually end up going in to her room and trying to give her her pacifier however that has not been working lately.  She just keeps crying and eventually I have to pick her up because she's not going to stop.  Sometimes I can rock her back to sleep and put her down and sometimes I have to nurse her to get her back to sleep (I know this is not good, and she's probably not even hungry but I don't know what else to do).  So after she goes back down, she will start fussing again usually within 2 hours.  Repeat above and then again after another 2 hours until she's up for the day around 7am.  I'm totally sleep deprived.  She's a horrible napper unless we stay in the house all day which is difficult with a 3 year old.  I usually get a good morning nap out of her (2ish hours) if we're not going anywhere.

 I'm looking for some advice on sleep training methods or something that might work for us.  I'm not opposed to CIO.  The only thing I won't do is co-sleep. 

toadnfrog

first, I need to say that I think it's awesome that she sleeps for a six hour stretch when she first goes down!  my son never did that at 5 months.  I also think that feeding through the night is still very common at 5 months and wouldn't consider weaning at this time.  she could be hitting a development milestone...crawling soon?  that often makes them more wakeful.  But, from someone who co-slept and whose son NEVER slept in his crib and woke all night long forever, I would be thrilled at your situation....so maybe I'm not the right one to be responding!  LOL.   

HisBetterHalf

I guess if I was going to bed at 8pm too then it wouldn't be as much of an issue but that is not possible.  Once both kids are in bed that is when I clean up the house, work out, and have some alone time with DH.  At the earliest I could get to bed at 10:30 probably.  So I'm not getting ANY uninterrupted sleep.  I sleep in 2-3 hours spurts and its totally killing me.

lsufan

I don't have much advice, but we're in the same boat-- although I don't think I've ever gotten 6 hours of sleep out of Thomas during that first stretch.  I would be so psyched if he did that.  As soon as we can get my middle son out of the crib, we'll move T in there and hopefully let him fuss a little longer before going to get him.  Eventually we'll let him CIO a few minutes at a time, but I'm not quite there yet.

Temp108743750006959

three things come to mind: you wrote that you pick her up. can you comfort her and then put her back down fairly quickly? you might have to do this many, many times at first (pick her up, put her down). sometimes it doesn't occur to us that the 'pick up' doesn't have to be a constant holding. You can pick her up and put her back down. do not put on lights, sing, walk, etc. just comfort, kiss, put her back down.

can you try a dream feed? pick her up an hour after she goes down and nurse quickly, put her back

at 6 months we did CIO for the first time. it was rough, but he was more aware of us. but I am not so sure that's the solution i'd try first.

grja

I wish I had some advice because I've been there and you feel so helpless. My DS is 2 1/2 and has always been a horrible sleeper. I tried EVERYTHING and nothing ever got him to sleep. Even now, he wakes up. I know this is not what you want to hear, but some kids just aren't sleepers. My DD who is almost 5 months is an awesome sleeper, has been from day one.

I'm telling you this, not to depress you, but to let you know that some kids just aren't sleepers and it might not be from anything you're doing wrong. I felt so guilty with DS because people were constantly making me feel like I was doing something wrong and he was a bad sleeper cause i made him one. But now that I have a child that does sleep, i realize that its out of your control. The best thing to do is just keep working at it until it gets better. 6 hours is a good stretch for any baby. It seems like you need to adjust your schedule to make it work.