Moms of Bad Sleepers Please Come In...

Suzi-G- · August 2010

I mean really bad sleepers. I'd really like to hear your experience. What was your kid's issue? What all did you try? What helped/didn't help? When did it get better?

KKMMex · August 2010

I had a non-napper. As an older infant, DD #1 would take maybe two 30-minute naps during the day. As time went on and she became a toddler, that dropped down to one 30-minute nap day.

I used to put her in her crib and just let her play in there until she fell asleep, so I'd get maybe an hour's break during the day, while she'd get her 30-minute "nap."

When she was about 18 or 20 months old, I'd put her down in the afternoons as usual. She would poop in her diaper, then smear it on the wall and all over her crib. After that happened about 5 days in a row I decided she was probably done with naps.

When she started preschool the teachers told me she RARELY napped during rest time. She was the only kid like that in the class. So I knew it was just her personality and temperment. Some kids just don't need as much sleep as others do. Some kids are just not nappers.

As a baby, she went through a period of waking up less than an hour after we put her down for the night. She would waken frequently and it was always a struggle to get her back to sleep. So at six months old we tried letting her cry. It was excruciating but after 3 nights she was finally sleeping through the night again.

DD #2 has NO sleep issues. She naps 2 to 3 hours a day, plus sleeps through the night for 11 hours. They are truly exact opposites when it comes to sleep.

SigmundsGirl · August 2010

We blamed reflux ofr most of Evan's poor sleep habits as a newborn. When most newborns are sleeping 15 hours a day, Evan was maybe sleeping 8 in a 24 hour period.

When his reflux got some better he started sleeping 2-3 hours at a time. When he was 3 1/2 months old he freaked us out and slept for 8 hours straight for a about a week. Then he was up again every 2-3 hours. We eventually decided to do progressive waiting and we let him cry. Now he sleeps from 8pm-7am. He will occassionaly wake for a bottle around 2.

He has always been a crappy napper and we are lucky to get 2- 30min naps from him during the day and then whatever amount of time he sleeps in the car to and from daycare.

Some days are better than others, but the progressive waiting was what worked for us at night. Now we are dealing with sleep issues related to teething, or so we think.

Good Luck! I hope it gets better soon!

rayskit10 · August 2010

Truitt was a very, very bad sleeper. Now at 3.5 he is an amazing sleeper. I am in the camp of "it's a milestone each kid reaches on their own terms." He was so bad we ended up letting him sleep with us, which helped a little but he was still very tossy turny all night long. What really helped us the most was just him getting older and having a higher level of communication. We would talk to him a lot about having his own bed, about being a big boy, etc... And it worked. Now I can barely remember all those sleepless nights. Mathis is a great sleeper and now when he has something like teething, I wonder how I ever survived when T was up like that every night.

nvp05 · August 2010

Rena was a horrible sleeper the entire first year. She napped maybe 30 minutes at a time. The only thing that helped when she was a newborn was napping on me so I was literally stuck on the couch or bed with her. When she was a little older she would only nap in our bed. She slept through the night around 5-6 months but not consistently. She was usually up every 3-4 hours and hated her crib! She slept much better in a bed so there were many nights I would sleep in the guest room (next to her room) and bring her back to bed with me. Not the ideal solution, but I was become crazy woman from being so sleep-deprived and that wasn't good for any of us!

It got much better her second year and now she's a great sleeper. She sleeps 11 hours at night and takes 2 hour naps during the day. I wasn't comforable doing CIO (although DH wanted to try it) although I will probably do it if my next baby isn't a good sleeper!

Hang in there, it does get better! Everyone told me this but I didn't believe them until it just kind of happened for us! And ditto rayskit, now when Rena is sick or teething and up a lot, I also wonder how I survived that first year with such little sleep!

LisaK2b · August 2010

rayskit10:

Truitt was a very, very bad sleeper. Now at 3.5 he is an amazing sleeper. I am in the camp of "it's a milestone each kid reaches on their own terms." He was so bad we ended up letting him sleep with us, which helped a little but he was still very tossy turny all night long. What really helped us the most was just him getting older and having a higher level of communication. We would talk to him a lot about having his own bed, about being a big boy, etc... And it worked. Now I can barely remember all those sleepless nights. Mathis is a great sleeper and now when he has something like teething, I wonder how I ever survived when T was up like that every night.

this in bold. Ally's freaking teeth still hasn't cut and it's RIGHT THERE. It's been RIGHT THERE for like 2 weeks now and just needs to pop out already. She woke up every 10-15 mins last night, and this is with teething tablets and motrin. Forget about the oragel because that just makes her more crazy. The only thing that reassures me is knowing that this won't be FOREVER and that eventually when she can understand what I'm saying (around 15-18 months) it'll be so much better. She even cries when she's in bed with us. At least with Emmy, she co slept well.

somethingchangd · August 2010

Ollie was a terrible sleeper from birth. As an infant he would go all day long without sleeping at all, and then only sleep in 2 hour stretches at night (with hour + wakings). But he isn't one of those kids who does well without sleep - he's miserable when he doesn't sleep enough, he just fights it like a madman.

When he was about 8 weeks old I discovered that if I wore him for naps in the Baby K'Tan he would nap for an hour or more, although he required 20+ minutes of an elaborate bouncing/shushing/vaccuming/hair dryer routine to get him to fall asleep. He took every single nap (3x a day) attached to my body until he was 6 months old. At that point I did a combo of No Cry Nap Solution techniques and some very minimal CIO techniques. (If he really fought me I would let him cry for 3-5 minutes and then go back and nurse him to sleep. The crying seemed to wear him out or focus him enough to be able to fall asleep, but he wouldn't ever actually CIO.) Naps are ok for us these days - he even had months when I could put him in his crib wide awake and he'd roll over and go to sleep. Unfortunately a trip OOT forced a regression and now I'm nursing him *almost* to sleep for naps (although technically he goes down awake, just very drowsy).

As for overnight, he's never had a problem going down for the night. I nurse him to sleep and within 15 minutes he's in his bed, out cold or drowsy and ready to fall asleep. But unfortunately he wakes up 2-3 times a night, even now. I nurse him back down and he usually goes down ok, but it's brutal not getting a decent stretch of sleep in 15 months. For awhile there he was down to 1 nightwaking, which he came to entirely on his own (no CIO or anything), but the OOT trip ended that. We've been home for a month now and he hasn't improved. I don't know how to get his nightwakings down again, considering it wasn't anything I did the first time - just a natural maturation.

We have tried CIO in the past and it simply did not work for him. He doesn't cry it OUT, he cries it UP. He gets progressively more upset until he virtually explodes. (At one point I let him CIO for 1.5 hours and he never even came close to sleeping.) I am hopeful that once he becomes more vocal I will be able to discuss sleep issues with him and they will resolve that way. I also might try the Jay Gordon nightweaning method, but not until I don't have any trips out of town scheduled (since I don't want to deal with another regression after weaning).

Fact is, my kid is just a lousy sleeper. I feel like I've tried everything and nothing has worked - it's just who he is. The only thing that has kept me sane in the past 15 months is acceptance of that fact. When I fought him on it I was miserable, he was miserable, my husband was miserable. But when I just deal with the wakings in survival mode, we're all a lot happier. He's not going to be 14 and needing me to put him back to sleep at night, I'm confident of that. We'll all survive one way or another.

mom2ll · August 2010

I've experienced 2 crap sleepers... Lucky me! Luca was a crap napper.. However, he has gotten better with MDO. I think the structure and peer pressure combined really work for him. His night time sleep has been awesome since 8 months when we did CIO....

Lila is an awesome napper and a crap night sleeper. We've tried EVERYTHING... nothing works... I hope to be human again someday...

kreeper611 · August 2010

rayskit10:

Truitt was a very, very bad sleeper. Now at 3.5 he is an amazing sleeper. I am in the camp of "it's a milestone each kid reaches on their own terms." He was so bad we ended up letting him sleep with us, which helped a little but he was still very tossy turny all night long. What really helped us the most was just him getting older and having a higher level of communication. We would talk to him a lot about having his own bed, about being a big boy, etc... And it worked. Now I can barely remember all those sleepless nights. Mathis is a great sleeper and now when he has something like teething, I wonder how I ever survived when T was up like that every night.

I'm the opposite now. Cooper was a great sleeper from the beginning. He's had some rough patches but for the past 3-4 weeks he's slept like crap. Now, he's only usually up once each night, but he'll throw in a night of 2-3-4 times every few days and I just keep telling myself that it wouldn't be quite so hard if we weren't used to sleeping 8 hours for so long.

For a while I let it go because of the ears and I think this week the issue is his teeth. But as soon as we plug him in, he rolls over and goes to sleep pretty easily. We try not to pick him up - but the hard part is that he can stand now so it's fighting a losing battle. We're about to go more hard core CIO. I need to break the idea that "if I cry, they will come."

Suzi-G- · August 2010

Thank you all, I feel better knowing others have struggled with sleep longer than we have. Some very well meaning people made me feel very bad about Cooper's inability to sleep lately and I've just been very down about it.

Somethingchangd, what you write sounds SO familiar, those are our nights exactly. And I'm afraid CIO won't work for the same reason, especially now that Cooper's so mobile. He stands up and screams and screams. But I may try it again, who knows, at this point I'll try damn near anything. And you are absolutely right, attitude/acceptance is what has gotten me through until I let nosey people make me feel bad. My main saving grace is that Cooper never seems to suffer from the lack of sleep, he's just as happy and cheerful as can be--I need a padded room and a vat of coffee but he's just fine.

And Kreeper, hang in there, I'm sure your little guy will be back to normal in no time. If it makes you feel better, I can assure you it doesn't get easier w/ practice. The lack of sleep is cumulative, multiple wake-ups every night for months on end is worse, much much worse.

LisaK2b · August 2010

Suzi-G-:

Thank you all, I feel better knowing others have struggled with sleep longer than we have. Some very well meaning people made me feel very bad about Cooper's inability to sleep lately and I've just been very down about it.

Somethingchangd, what you write sounds SO familiar, those are our nights exactly. And I'm afraid CIO won't work for the same reason, especially now that Cooper's so mobile. He stands up and screams and screams. But I may try it again, who knows, at this point I'll try damn near anything. And you are absolutely right, attitude/acceptance is what has gotten me through until I let nosey people make me feel bad. My main saving grace is that Cooper never seems to suffer from the lack of sleep, he's just as happy and cheerful as can be--I need a padded room and a vat of coffee but he's just fine.

And Kreeper, hang in there, I'm sure your little guy will be back to normal in no time. If it makes you feel better, I can assure you it doesn't get easier w/ practice. The lack of sleep is cumulative, multiple wake-ups every night for months on end is worse, much much worse.

I just want to add that my mom kept Ally overnight last night so we could sleep one full night. Well...I think I went into like a coma and felt like sh!t when I woke up this morning to go to work. I guess my body isn't use to straight sleep like that.

AbbyMae · August 2010

Big hugs to you! DD was a terrible sleeper. I don't remember all the specifics, but she was doing the hourly+ wakings from about 2.5 months till 7 or 8 months...a good night was a 3 hour stretch!

In our situation, I really think most of our sleep problems were due to DD being dependent on nursing to sleep and I let her create a very bad habit (mostly due to being in survival mode and that was the easiest way I knew to get her to sleep).

Things that helped:

-I tried The Baby Whisperer's EASY (Eat, Awake, Sleep -You) routine around 3 or 4 months and that routine helped her a TON when I stuck with it?she was still bad night sleeper, but napping during the day got a little better.

-Putting her in her crib BEFORE she got overtired for a nap helped a bunch.

-A few small board books and extra pacis in her crib.

-A video monitor. I didn't get it until she was about 10 months old but I noticed that she was crying in her sleep and I had been rushing in too soon and waking her in the process Tongue Tied !!!!!

-Long story short regarding CIO - didn?t work all that well for us?overall DD just gets even more and more worked up after 30 -45 minutes. It was a miserable few nights and we ended up even more tired than before. (I DO let her fuss for a up to 5 minutes sometimes, so maybe that is CIO. Usually though, if she's REALLY crying something's bothering her: she's scared, she's hungry, she's teething, etc...)

- When I was vigilant and consistent (and had the energy to be vigilant) about NOT nursing her to sleep (nursing her but putting her down drowsy but awake?sometimes more on the awake side) she started to do so much better.

She still didn?t sleep through the night until I completely weaned her at 14 months (just about 3 or 4 weeks ago), but she would only wake 1-3 times a night -once before I went to bed, and once or twice later which allowed me to get enough rest to feel a little more human.

My goal was to nurse to a year so I started to try to wean her around 11.5 months and dropped her bedtime nursing first (she didn?t fight it at all-I was shocked). Then I started dropping her 2 daytime nursings. We were still nursing to sleep at 13 months anywhere from 1-3 times a night though.

To nightwean her, I started to offer her a sippy cup of water or milk at night instead of nursing her. I would sometimes just rock her and hold her instead of rushing to nurse her back to sleep- it would take longer to settle her down, but slowly breaking that habit is what I believe helped her the most.

I honestly don?t know if she would?ve slept through the night any sooner if I had nightweaned her earlier (and still nursed during the day)?I tried a few times, but it was exhausting and I just didn?t have the energy to stick with it. Maybe she was finally just ready to STTN?who knows...

I hope the above rambling isn?t too confusing. I want to encourage you that it WILL get better and that you aren?t the only one with a terrible sleeper. I know I felt like I was the only one whose baby wasn?t sleeping through the night at a year + old. Hailey still isn?t a great sleeper but she has gotten better?

Want a personalized experience?

Moms of Bad Sleepers Please Come In...

Re: Moms of Bad Sleepers Please Come In...

Choose Another Board

Search Boards