Anyone's LOs wake a zillion times a night? Did sleep training help?

kah01009

DD does this, and even though we put her down awake at all nap and bedtimes, we sit next to her and read a novel or something. It's the closest we've been able to come to independent going-to-sleep. DD likes to see us there and needs the binky to fall asleep, so we give it to her when it falls out. I know, I know, but I actually feel pretty proud that we got to this point (putting down awake, no feeding to sleep, no rocking or holding, no co-sleeping...we've come a long way!). Our only main crutches are the binky, swaddle from time to time, and seeing us there. We EBF and I nurse DD around 10pm, 1am, and 3am (bedtime is 6:30-7pm and wakeup is 6am). DD wakes about 3-4 times between feedings. Sometimes giving her the binky works, other times we change her diaper, revert to the swaddle, etc. Sometimes she's just up for 1.5 hours! Sleep training is in our future. For those of you who did sleep training, do the nighttime wakings really go away?? Or is this just a developmental thing?? It's not like she's waking up screaming, she just wants to be awake!

KatieKim0815

DS uses a paci (we put about 5 in there so they're accessible). We don't swaddle anymore. We basically do the Sleepeasy Solution and it works! He STTN now and it's lovely. We don't often stay in there with him. We might rub his back for 30 seconds or more because having us sit there sort of gives him a hope we'll pick him up. The first night took 40 minutes for him to calm down (but we went to his side in few minute intervals) and it got shorter each night from there!

JJ1973

Mom of an 8 month old, here...we just started sleep training last evening for this issue. My LO was waking almost every hour - it was ridiculous, and not improving. It also got to the point that he only wanted to nurse back to sleep. Holding and other strategies we used to comfort weren't working anymore. He does use a pacifier and we were dependent on the magic sleepsuit. Long story short, we weaned our LO of the night feedings last week. I do a dreamfeed at 10pm, but do not nurse him when he wakes at night. Our sleep consultant (yup - it was THAT bad that we hired a sleep consultant) told us that pacifiers are absolutely fine and relatively easy to fade out at the toddler stage, so we're continuing to use them. He has them sprinkled all over his crib so that there is always one accessible for self-soothing. Death to the magic sleepsuit - it is no more. Last night, we stayed in the room with him after we put him to bed, but did not hold him. My husband patted his head and shooshed while seated next to the crib until LO fell asleep. Wow - there was a crazy extinction burst, but after that - he had a really good night. We'll see what tonight holds, as we're taking the same approach. I never wanted to do anything remotely CIO with my LO, but things had gotten completely out of control for us, and I do believe this approach will be helpful for him.

hopecounts

We're on night 2 of Ferber and it has helped amazingly really fast. I had night weaned her to 1 feeding before we started but she was still waking up numerous times a night. On night 1 that stopped, she sort of  woke at 10 (put herself back to sleep  before I could do the 1st check) and then woke at 4 to eat and that was it. It was crazy. 

It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected and she only cried for 21 min. the first night and then 12 last night when put down. at 4 she fussed for a less than 2 min. night 1 but last night cried for 8 but went to sleep on her own.

I'm now wondering if I was interrupting her sleep  by rocking/holding her and putting her down asleep. Either way  none of us have slept this well since she was born and I'm so glad we did it.

kah01009

You're all giving me hope! I'm in the process of weaning DD from nighttime feedings now (we're only doing 10pm, 1am, and 3am at this point, for 1-3 mins only), and once that's done, we're thinking about following the sleepeasy solution method of sleep learning. Naptime isn't terrible despite our sleep associations. It's the waking up multiple times a night that's killer.

DD falls asleep unswaddled, in her crib, but we sit next to it until she falls asleep b/c she's so dependent on the binky and can't get it on her own yet! So, our sleep associations are the binky and seeing us (though we read a novel or something the whole time...as little interaction from us as possible). And, at naptime, we can't seem to get over the 30-min hump. She wakes after 30 mins exactly and won't go back to sleep despite our efforts unless we swaddle her. Then she'll sleep for another 1.5 hours! Going down for the night is the same, and pretty easy, but then she'll wake 5 times throughout the night and we need to give her the binky, change her, or swaddle her to get her to go back to sleep. Thankfully, I'm following the sleepeasy solution for night weaning, so our feedings are dreamfeed style. I can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel with that!