Wont sleep in crib....

michpedelle85

I nurse/rock DS to sleep. I always have and then I would put him in the Rock N Play. We weaned from the rock and play well over a month ago and the crib was going okay, he would wake ever 2-3 hours and then wouldnt go back to sleep after 4am so he would sleep in my bed with me until 7am. Now, at night and for naps I rock.nurse him to sleep and the second he hits the crib he is awake. I tried CIO, i tried to soothe him with crib music, white noise rubbing his back etc... he will not sleep anywhere but my bed or the rock n play. I now sleep with him in my bed and he sleeps through the night. I had to do this just to get some sleep or I would be rocking him all night. He is getting too big for the RnP as he can almost twist up and fall out of it (eek!). I need help getting this child in his crib!! Any advice?!

loisloan1118

I was in the same situation (minus the nursing, DD is formula fed).  I could get her down in her crib asleep but once she woke up I was screwed because it was so difficult to get her back to sleep!  I would tip toe around and get so mad at DH if he made any noise after 7:30pm.  Some nights she'd end up in our bed at 4am, sometimes 11pm on - just so i could get some sleep!  We'd tried CIO but I was never committed to it and the longest i'd let her cry was 5-10 minutes and i concluded that it didn't work for her.  

It got the worst 2 weeks ago when she got a cold.  I knew something had to give.  Once she was feeling 100% better I decided to try Ferber.  Night 1 was Saturday night and it's really working!  she's been able to go to sleep on her own right away for the past 2 nights - with just 1-2 minutes of crying.  Where it's been more challenging is waking up in the middle of the night.  She's still crying for a good 30 minutes twice per night.  

My advice is try CIO again.  I never thought it would work for DD.  

Be prepared to miss him snuggling up to you in bed.  As much as I like getting more sleep & knowing that she's learning to self soothe - I miss all the cuddling a night!  

Whatever you decide to do - good luck!   

Karen1998

I agree with the PP.  The nursing/rocking to sleep is probably your culprit and you can fix that (and the wakeups) with sleep training.  CIO rarely doesn't work - it's usually that the parents stop it too early.  It sucks to do it, but it really can change things for the better.  It took only one night here to see some improvement, and about 3-4 nights to turn him into a baby that would go to sleep easily on his own.  It's so much easier to put him down now than it was when I had to rock him to sleep and make sure he was fully out before putting him down. 

I realize that you probably like some part of the nursing/rocking to sleep.  I still do this at the 11pm feeding.  He doesn't actually need it, but I enjoy the cuddle time.  Though, sometimes he wants to go back in the crib and skip cuddle time. So, you can still do it, but I've found that it's better to make sure that your LO can go down without it at most naps and sleeps.  Our pedi actually recommends that we put LO down drowsy but not asleep at least once a day.  I do it for every sleep but that 11pm one.