Should we do some sort of sleep training?

KYmama9286

So Nicholas used to be a champ when it came to sleeping. Started STTN at like 8 weeks and was great a napping and just in general didnt fight it very much. We've done CIO since the beginning but it wasnt really CIO since he would literally only be fussing for 5-10 minutes before falling asleep.

So around 7 months or so he just decided he hated sleep. The only thing I can think of is this was around the time that he was going through a lot of developmental growth: started crawling, eating table foods, etc. Then after 7 months came the holidays with traveling, things being out of the ordinary schedule wise, etc. Next thing I know he is 11 months old and is literally up until 11pm every night. We start "bedtime" at like 7:30. Usually we give him his bedtime bottle, he falls asleep while eating it and stays asleep when we put him down but will only sleep for like 10 mins then will wake himself up and cry. At this point (and we might sound cruel) we let him cry until he falls back asleep which usually is like 30 mins of fussing/crying then he goes to sleep and sleeps for like an hour or two then wakes back up.

Usually at this point its been 3 hours since his last bottle so I go back in and offer him more and he will eat usually (either he does a full feeding or doesnt want anything to do with the bottle). After the 2nd "bedtime" bottle he either is wide awake and wants to play or he is just inconsolable even with me holding him, rocking him, etc. It then takes another like 45 minutes to get him down and then usually he stays asleep until 5 or 6am, wakes up takes a bottle goes back to sleep until like 9:30. What happened to the baby that used to go to bed at 7:30 and wake up at 7:30?!

For a while I thought the poor sleeping was due to him being sick (since he has been sick pretty much off and on since Nov) then I thought it was teething and now I think hes just gotten into a habit of bad sleeping which I would really like to break. Anyone have experience with a certain kind of sleep training that you would recommend for someone with our problems? DH has a much easier time just letting him cry and is starting to get mad when I go in and give the 2nd bottle (I figure hey, more calories! and he thinks that I am just getting him used to needing 2 bottles at night when he went months without that). I want to try something so its not a stressful evening every night. Plus with his poor sleeping I never want to leave him with a babysitter or family because I don't want them to have to deal with him.

So this is really long now but any advice would be appreciated! TIA!

 

tiffyr0se

I really liked the No Cry Sleep Solution.  Basically you just take baby steps from how C wants to fall asleep toward how you want C to fall asleep. 

It is possible that he now wants the bottle to fall back asleep, though I guess he's not actually going back to sleep.  We had an incident with Cole where, in the rare event he woke up at night, we would walk in, hand him a bottle, and go back to bed.  It was so easy, so we went with it...until he suddenly started waking up multiple times a night wanting a bottle.  So we took 3 days to break him of nighttime bottles, and he started sleeping through the night again.

Good Luck. If you really like the extra calories, is it an option to leave a full bottle in his bed for him to grab when he wakes up?  You would still probably have to break this at some point, but it might be good for the meantime.

Superchicy

I really like the Sleep Lady Solution with DD.  It was a nice medium between CIO and NCSS. NCSS was just too gentle for her, but CIO get her so worked up that she just could not fall asleep.  We did SLS for a week or two and then did Ferber but with really short intervals, like 2 min, and then went in and consoled another few minutes but without picking her up so she didn't get too worked up. 

Like your DS she would either be up and ready to play or just an absolute mess without me in there, and CIO just made it 10 times harder to get her down.  We though would literally be up 2-3 hours at a time at night, or up every 30-1hr all night long.  GL!  I hope he starts sleeping again for you!

KYmama9286

tiffyr0se:

Good Luck. If you really like the extra calories, is it an option to leave a full bottle in his bed for him to grab when he wakes up?  You would still probably have to break this at some point, but it might be good for the meantime.

Thanks for the suggestions! The problem w/ leaving the bottle in his crib is he still cant drink from a bottle by himself. Between a full bottle being too heavy for him and him just not having the coordination figured out he just cant do it. He can hold it himself if we are holding him but we still havent gotten to the point where I can just hand him a bottle...ahhh that will be the day :-) haha 

KYmama9286

Superchicy:

I really like the Sleep Lady Solution with DD.  It was a nice medium between CIO and NCSS. NCSS was just too gentle for her, but CIO get her so worked up that she just could not fall asleep.  We did SLS for a week or two and then did Ferber but with really short intervals, like 2 min, and then went in and consoled another few minutes but without picking her up so she didn't get too worked up. 

Like your DS she would either be up and ready to play or just an absolute mess without me in there, and CIO just made it 10 times harder to get her down.  We though would literally be up 2-3 hours at a time at night, or up every 30-1hr all night long.  GL!  I hope he starts sleeping again for you!

I've never heard of the Sleep lady Solution-- was it a book? I am intrigued :-) The thing with his sleeping is that it isn't so much affecting us (since we are usually up until 11pm anyway, granted we would like to enjoy that time as a couple not listening to a baby scream) but I just hate that its this battle every night. I know its not a healthy sleep pattern to get into and I have problems w/ my own sleep that I want Nicholas to develop a good sleep foundation so he doesn't become a crazed insomniac like me.  

Superchicy

Here is a website about it.  We followed it for a couple of weeks to get her to lay down on her own.  I think that for us it made a huge difference with Ferber knowing she could actually lay down on her own and go to sleep, and I didn't feel so bad about letting her cry a little.  Even now that were back to her sleeping like crap because of her teeth, she will still lay down for the night on her own, she just won't lay back down again when she wakes during the night.