Sleep Training Attempt 1=FAIL

Karenbird

Thanks for all the advice, ladies.  We tried what the pedi recommended last night; soothing DS when he woke up in the middle of the night, but not feeding, until he went back to sleep.  He screamed.his.head.off.  Screamed.  Not whimpered, not fussed, hollered for all he was worth.  I did HSHHC with DD, so I am not afraid of CIO, but this was beyond anything DD did.  

I feel so hopeless;  I know naps are important.  When I got DD's in order, it was like we turned on the "happy baby" switch.  But we can't get his naps in order b/c he is in daycare (I was home with DD) and he has been a light sleeper from day one, whereas DD was not.

 

eeclem

Ugh. I'm so sorry. In the Ferber book he gives a method for weaning off of night feedings where you decrease the amount of ounces in the bottle over time. Maybe worth trying?

QueSrah

Oh yes, DD did the scream like there's no tomorrow for 45 minutes at a pop the two times the first night we did the CIO.  But by the second night it was only 20 minutes each time, if that helps.  I think she's stubborn though - there's no quiet whimpering "aren't you going to come to me?" - it's all "I'm mad as HELL!"  Anyway, I feel your pain, so {{hugs}} and

I'm trying to give less milk at night too.  I'm not sure it's helping a lot yet (I'm might be doing it too halfheartedly in an effort to avoid being engorged myself), but it's worth a try.

amh_navyblue

I feel for you--DD#1 took a long time to sleep through the night...I'm just waiting to see how things will go with DD#2, though for now we're still in the no real schedule stage...you comments about naps make me worry a bit--DD#2 will be in day care much earlier than DD#1 was...

One thought on the night time wakings--maybe instead of going cold turkey every time he wakes up, you could try to drop one nighttime feeding at a time, just like with weaning when you drop one feeding at a time.  

Good luck!

 

Karenbird

eeclem:

Ugh. I'm so sorry. In the Ferber book he gives a method for weaning off of night feedings where you decrease the amount of ounces in the bottle over time. Maybe worth trying?

I'm willing to try anything!  Thanks for the idea - Ferber will arrive by UPS on Saturday.  :-)

Karenbird

QueSrah:

Oh yes, DD did the scream like there's no tomorrow for 45 minutes at a pop the two times the first night we did the CIO.  But by the second night it was only 20 minutes each time, if that helps.  I think she's stubborn though - there's no quiet whimpering "aren't you going to come to me?" - it's all "I'm mad as HELL!"  Anyway, I feel your pain, so {{hugs}} and

I'm trying to give less milk at night too.  I'm not sure it's helping a lot yet (I'm might be doing it too halfheartedly in an effort to avoid being engorged myself), but it's worth a try.

I think decreasing the amount makes a lot of sense.  He is almost exclusively on formula at this point (sniff), so I think we'll just start making smaller bottles.   I'm glad to hear that your DD was a mad as hell baby and that the sleep training still worked.  I was so shocked by his reaction that I was wondering whether he was ready, but now I'm thinking it is too soon to tell.

Karenbird

amh_navyblue:

I feel for you--DD#1 took a long time to sleep through the night...I'm just waiting to see how things will go with DD#2, though for now we're still in the no real schedule stage...you comments about naps make me worry a bit--DD#2 will be in day care much earlier than DD#1 was...

One thought on the night time wakings--maybe instead of going cold turkey every time he wakes up, you could try to drop one nighttime feeding at a time, just like with weaning when you drop one feeding at a time.  

Good luck!

I'm sorry - I didn't mean to make you worry!  One tip I do have is that a huge help to us was putting a humidifier in DD's room (the cheaper, noisy kind).  Before we did that, she was waking when DS woke, but now she even slept through last night's incident, and the rooms are right next to one another.  It seems stupid in hindsight, but I had never given any thought to the fact that a baby crying in our little townhouse would be potentially disruptive to our older LO.  But the humidifier did the trick. 

Our ped recommended picking the feeding that was hardest on us, and start by trying to drop that, so last night we tried to drop the 3am feeding.  We'll try again tonight, I guess, but maybe with the modified approach of a smaller bottle instead of no bottle.

 

 

Hey Jellisy

I'm so sorry and I am right there with you.  Sending you good thoughts.

DCtoLowcountry

Thanks for the reality check - we'll be attempting this in the coming weeks and will keep you posted.

mommmyz

Sending lots of good sleep thoughts your way...and keeping a few for my little guy too! This morning I told him I was going to remind him about all of this sleep drama when he was a teenager and all he wanted to do was sleep!