What happened to sleeping?

NM86

As I write this, William is standing up in his crib while holding on to the side, staring towards the door and calling out what sounds a lot like "heeeey" every few seconds.

He will no longer nap or sleep and if he finally passes out from exhaustion he is awake within 45 minutes. He used to be such a good sleeper...what happened?

Even at night it's a struggle to get him to go to sleep. He will be up every 3 hours.

I don't want to do CIO, and we couldn't really do it any way because he doesn't cry...just fusses. If he is in his crib after 30 minutes I get him out. But he is so fussy all day long...

Any ideas or help?

We do a bed time routine, and if he wakes up in the middle of the night I will make him a small bottle and put him back to bed. He will then fuss around in his crib for 30-45 minutes before he falls asleep.

NatesLady1309

NM86:

I don't want to do CIO, and we couldn't really do it any way because he doesn't cry...just fusses. If he is in his crib after 30 minutes I get him out. But he is so fussy all day long...

We have always had sleep issues too, more for naps than night. I don't want to do CIO either, not really. My suggestion would be to leave him in his crib if he is only fussing, even if it's been 30 minutes. I used to just get her up too when she would do that, but earlier this week, she fell asleep after playing and fussing on and off in her crib for OVER half an hour. I was amazed, it was the first time she'd done this. It happened a few times over a 2 day period but now, no more. It sucks. Anyway, I say leave him if he's only fussing and see what happens. I would only get him up if he needs to eat or a diaper change. Otherwise, it can just be his "chill time" where he's being minimally stimulated. I feel guilty leaving her there when she's awake but I have to get past that because she needs the down time even if she won't sleep as long as she's not screaming. Hope that made sense.  

dmsny

Honestly if he is not loud or crying, I would leave him be in the crib. My mom tells me all the time that O needs to learn how to entertain herself and I see some value in that. If she is just hanging out, I let her hang out. I saw on the monitor this morning she was awake but did not go in for 15 minutes because she seemed fine and was just rolling around and not making any noises.

aglenn

DS has been fighting naps like crazy for weeks now.  Seems like forever.  I think he's so busy with learning to get mobile that he just can't sleep well.  It doesn't matter if he's at home where it's totally quiet, or at day care or out and about; he just catnaps a few times a day and that is it.  He crashes pretty quickly at night but is up 8,000x during the night.  We're back to bedsharing because I can't take getting up so many times.  Yawn.

I agree with pp that if he's just fussing and not really upset, I'd give him time and see if he goes back to sleep on his own.  He may be trying to work it out and you're getting him right before he would go to sleep.  It's worth a try, anyway.

MollySm

I've always read (in Healthy Sleep Habits and in some other book, I can't remember which) that for naps you should leave them for an hour.  To me, even if they aren't sleeping that's at least a decent amount of rest time.   We started that with Lucia awhile ago, and she now always falls asleep at some point during the hour.  Being alone is not a bad thing.  Even adults need some alone time every day, it's not surprising that babies would need the same thing.  

The family I used to nanny for did this with their baby, and it really sorted out her naps.  She finally started falling asleep more quickly, and staying asleep longer.