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Attachment Parenting
Another Post on Sleep Advice
I feel like these have been posted a lot lately, but I am really stressed out about this and everyone's advice for me has been to let DD CIO.
My DD is 5.5 months old and for the past 5 days, she has been fighting sleep. The first night it took an hour to get her to bed. Each night it's been progressively longer and now we're up to 2 hours. Naps are becoming just as troublesome.
DD falls asleep if she doesn't realize it (we're in the car, I'm holding her, etc.). But as soon as we start our bedtime routine or as soon as I gently put her sleeping self down, she's wide awake. She will give me constant eye contact, move around constantly to keep herself awake, smile, laugh, and make noises. It would be really cute if I wasn't trying to get her to sleep. As soon as sleep starts to take over, she gets really upset and cries. We've tried everything - rocking her, swaddling her, holding her downstairs until she falls asleep and then transferring her to co-sleeper, laying in bed with her until she falls asleep and then transferring her, etc.
We always start the night off with DD sleeping in her co-sleeper and then when she wakes up in the middle of the night, we bedshare the rest of the night. I don't know if she's just getting to the age where she's noticing more and doesn't want to be left alone in our room or what's going on. I don't want to have to go to bed with her at 7:30 every night and I don't want her to CIO. I am wondering if we just need to bedshare all of the time and I just need to lay with her until she falls asleep and then leave the room. I was hoping to not bedshare the entire night. Half the night seemed better to me (and more comfortable for me) and I thought it would be an easier transition to her crib when we eventually get to that stage (which will be whenever our current situation stops working for our family).
Any advice or ideas? I would greatly appreciate any AP perspectives you may have. Thank you!!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Another Post on Sleep Advice
At that age, I would think something is going on developmentally that is making her fight sleep- either teething, or getting ready to conquer some awesome new skill like rolling or something along those lines. That has been my experience when DD has suddenly started fighting sleep out of nowhere. What works for us is just to do whatever we can to get her to sleep without making her CIO. When she was younger that meant wearing her or nursing her for long periods of time. Now it means bringing her to our bed or going out for long drives when we have access to a car (we don't own one).
GL!
Hang in there, mama! I know every baby is different, and I only have 1 to base my experience on. DS is 13 months old. He usually is pretty good about bedtime and naps, so I know that something is up when he has trouble. That "something" might be a developmental thing, sickness, or teething. I would say the developmental things are the hardest in some ways, because lying down with him tends to get him even more excited at those times. Anyway, we always manage to get him to sleep somehow (without CIO), and in a few days or a week, everything settles back to normal.
It seems like everyone I know does Ferber or CIO, but I just ignore them and do what feels right for my LO.
Advice = Wait It Out.
We went through this too - I had to nurse DS, then cuddle him on my chest until he passed out, then roll him onto my bed, wait....then move him to the crib. It could take up to 2 hours for him to stay down. It was hard, I was exhausted and frustrated, and we are living with my in-laws who finally coerced me into CIO. I tried it for 4 nights and I regret every second of it. A) It didn't work. LO just ramped up the screaming.
I was bawling my eyes out the entire time and everything in me felt it was wrong and terrible, but I had all these people telling me "you're doing the right thing, just hold out" and it made me so mad, but I thought that since I did it one night, I had to stick with it or I was just torturing him for no reason.... I REALLY regret it. I regret not listening to my own mommy voice that said it was wrong for me and wrong for my son.
The good news - after 3...yes THREE months of this crazy bedtime routine, LO went back to "normal" and now I just nurse and lie him down awake and he rolls over and goes to sleep.
Hang in there and go with your gut. A baby who has sleep issues is the hardest baby to stick to AP with , IMO because it's so hard to be sleep deprived for this long (LO is 11 months and still hasn't sttn - not once - not for longer than 3 or 4 hours). I hope that he will just start sleeping better soon. I might be tired but I don't regret cuddling and nursing him and spending extra time with my baby while he's still a baby. I will always regret those horrendous 4 nights when I let others have to much influence over my parenting.
Good luck and trust yourself!
Definitely sounds like something is up... Hopefully you can just wait it out and things will improve on their own.
One thing that jumped out at me is that you were saying that when you lay her down she's making eye contact with you - which means it might be too bright in the room?? She could be getting to the age where she's just more sensitive to her sleep environment. You could try making some subtle changes like making the room super dark, white noise, etc. to help her sleep.
Other than that, I don't really have any advice. My DD was a terrible sleeper until a couple months ago when we did some very gentle sleep training - but I wouldn't have been comfortable doing it when she was as young as your DD.
Good luck!
DS and I are going through the same thing right now and like you, everyone is telling us that we're just going to have to let him CIO. Thankfully DH is totally on board with me and we just nod and change the subject. Like PP suggested, we are just waiting it out.
Our LOs are hitting some major developmental milestones right now, and DS is teething as well. We're going on week 2 of this behavior but the reward for us is that a few days ago DS rolled from back to belly, then from belly to back. We had a party in his room in the middle of the night while he entertained us and himself with his newfound skills!
So no words of advice, only encouragement. Hang in there... this too shall pass. Just do what you need to do in the meantime to get her to sleep and to hold on to your sanity. Good luck!