Need Advice on gettin DS to STTN!

cdeleonowner

I am 33 weeks pregnant and my son and daughter will be 18 months apart. My DS most of the nights still wakes up every night to get a bottle. I keep telling my DH we need to change this before our DD gets here or it will be harder. I don't want to make him CIO. I wouldn't mind letting him CIO for like 5 min. at the most but wouldn't go any longer. If we go in there and were to try to rock him then ne thinks it is play time at like 4 or 5 in the am. Any one have anything similar that they went through? TIA.

backtoback2311

I wish I had advice for you, but DS is 8 months and we go through the same battle.  DS wakes up 1 to 2 times a night wanting a bottle or wanting to play if we pick him up.  Thanksgiving was so tiring for him that DH let him take a 4 hour nap in the evening, so DS was up from 1 to 4 am!  We go through this about twice a week.  If you learn any tricks along the way, please pass them forward.  For now, my sympathies!

NYMOM2005

You might want to try offering him less to drink when he wakes up for a bottle.  To get my DD to SSTN I started to offer her only 4 oz when he woke up (only because I knew she didn't "need" to eat in the middle of the night).  If I heard her at night, I would go make the bottle, feed her in the dark in her room and put her right back to bed.  I kept decreasing the amount in the bottle and eventually she SSTN.  I also found it helpful to time her schedule to get a bottle right before bed and add a nighttime routine (eg. jammies, bottle, book, bed)  I now have 4 kids under 5 going to bed at 8pm... yay for mommy time!

HarrietNJMommy

My advice would be to do CIO. But since you don't want to go that route (and letting him cry for only 5 minute stretches isn't going to really do anything), I would read the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution". It DOES work, but takes a LOT of time AND patience. My friends that don't like CIO have done this method. It's very exhausting and can take up to 2 hours to get your child back to sleep.

I did CIO with all 3 kids and I have 3 really good sleepers right now.

GL!