Sleep confusion
GrantHenson
member
Hello Ladies
My LO is just over six months old and is still very far from STTN even if you consider 5 hours to be STTN. We started out with her at the side of our bed in a bassinet until she was to big to do that and then we started to try to get her into her crib. Now keep in mind my baby has never gone to sleep on her own she was quite colicy when she was born so got used to being rocked and or fed to sleep.
Moving her to her crib never went smooth. The max that she everslept in there was 2 hours and as time went on things just got worse and she took longer and longer to fall asleep and would wake up every single time I put her down. When we would get her to the crib she may wake up in only min's. After months of this my husband and I were at our wits end hating evenings, getting no time together and I was exhausted through the day as well as baby not sleeping well.
At this point she is sleeping in my bed with the husband and I and thats not all that much better, except I do not have to get up to feed her and there is less time spent getting her to sleep. I did not plan to bed share when I had the baby and I am not sure how long this will go or when would be best to try her again in her own bed or how to go about doing that.
I have read tonnes of stuff on sleeping and sleep training and to be honest I dont know where to start I am overwhelmed. Many people swear by the graduated ferber but I dunno. I have been trying to avoid the CIO methods and I really dont think my baby will go for it. Do I just suck it up and have her in my bed till she is ready or what the heck.
Re: Sleep confusion
My main issue was mainly only getting my LO to sleep in the crib on his own for nights and naps so we had simpler issues to tackle than your it sounds like. So we did our own modified Ferber after I read the book and after 2days, he STTN. And this is after him waking up multiple times at night. We're still working on naps, but I can even see some improvement there. So since Ferber is working for us, this is what I recommend.
But whichever method you choose, definitely read the book the method was based on instead of simply researching it on the internet.
We did graduated Ferber. Actually we did Ferber lite... (The Sleep Easy Solution), and it worked for us. It took about four days. This is for night time sleep. Naps took a bit more work, but at least we were getting sleep at night to be able to deal with the fight that naps proposed. Naps took about two weeks. Now LO sleeps 11 hours a night and two solid 1.5 hour naps during the day.
CIO sucks when you are going through it. It was the hardest thing ever. No one likes to hear their baby cry. The trick is consistency. If, after a week, you have been very consistent and see no improvement, then try something else. Not every method works for every baby.
I hope your nights get better!
I tried to do the easy method earlier however it was too late it seemed. She had already developed the pattern of eating small meals very frequently so when I tried to do it she would have been napping too often. I have never been able to get her to fall asleep on her own, so it has always been either nursing to sleep or rocking to sleep etc.
We have had a routine since she was about 3 months old. After dinner say 6 or 630 she gets play time with dad, from there we go to the bath tub, brush her gums, she gets a short lotion massage while getting dressed and then fed. From the feeding there was a time she would fall a sleep and I could put her into her crib but that did not last long. It was getting where putting her to bed was taking over two hours and she would still not get a streach of sleep after that. I was exhausted, I was angry at my husband (who works in the am and baby wants nothing to do with him at night). So I started bringing her to our bed.
bed sharing has not stopped her frequent waking but we are both getting more sleep because it doesnt take an hour to get her to sleep.
I generally follow an order/routine of sleep, eat, play. I can't remember the book since i read it with my first who is 8!
From newborn, I lay baby down awake, but drowsy. At 6 months or so, for my baby it was after about 2 hours. My babies never wanted to be soothed to sleep, so I started laying them down awake when they were around 3 weeks old. It was never a problem and they almost always went to sleep with little or no fussing. If they started crying, I would go in and check on them, hold them for a bit, etc..and then try again.
I wish I had better advice for you. Good luck!