sleep questions (Ferber, night wakings,etc.)

kafunder

We have been trying to Ferber for the past 2.5 weeks. After 3 days, we had some success. Those 5 nights were glorious. In the past week, the LOs have been waking up and crying again, and DH and I have been so tired that we haven't been as consistent with Ferber as we probably should have been.

In particular, DD has been waking up every hour starting about 4 hours after we put her down (around 11pm). She'll wake up and cry, we'll check in at the intervals, and after about 20 minutes, she soothes herself to sleep. She then wakes up 40 minutes later (she has a cold/cough so I think when she coughs so that isn't helping). These night wakings have coincided with the fact that the past few days when we've gotten home from daycare, she's been getting tired before 6pm and falling asleep during her last bottle, which we usually do at 6:30pm.

 With all this info, my questions are:

1. Has putting your LO down earlier helped with night wakings?

2. Given that DH and I haven't been overly consistent with Ferber, do you think it's best just to restart from the beginning? Any advice?

Oh, and the LOs are pretty good about going down for the night. Up until recently when DD started falling asleep during her bottle, we've always put them down drowsy but awake.

LMH1209

One thing I've learned with DS is that disruptions like illness, travel, teething, etc. can throw off sleep.  Some kids seem to bounce back on their own from their disruptions, but that's never happened with DS.  As an example, we had to re-Ferberize for at least a couple of nights after pretty much every out of town trip for the first six months to a year after we initially did sleep training. 

Anyway... I wouldn't try to Ferberize while your DD has this cold.  I would wait until she's well and then start again.  When you do try again, do your best to stick with it. 

ETA:  I think my last paragraph was a bit abrupt.  What I meant was that consistency is key with sleep training (or really, any training or discipline).  I think that my own inconsistency was one of the reasons that DS struggled with sleep for so long.  I don't want anyone else to suffer as long as we did

tomandcourt

I think you're going to have to wait out the cough until you try again. J is dealing with the same thing right now and it's throwing off his sleep, too. You never know - maybe once the cough is gone she'll STTN!

rnin02

My DS seems to always get ear infections with any lingering cold (fortunately not many!) and our first clue is that he has trouble with sleep.So maybe get your DD checked out. Other than that, I've nothing helpful, sleep was a battle for us until about 7-8 months or so.

emack

Such cute kids! I would definitely make sure that babies that age are going to bed no later than 7 or 7:30, and it sounds like your DD might be more in the 6:30 range.  A cough/cold will definitely mess things up, but I found that being consistent with a bedtime routine and approximate time were the most important things I've done for sleep hygiene in our house. Even if kids are getting the same quantity of sleep starting later and waking up later, it's not as good quality (because of the timing of brain rhythms, etc) as early sleep. Good luck! It must be so much harder with twins...