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XP from 6-9: need help w/6mth sleep habits...

hiskittenhiskitten
in Austin Babies

ETA:  Her dr said she should be sleeping through the night.  At 5 mths she was 16lbs (75%) & she said she obviously wasn't starving so go ahead & start CIO.  But how do I do that when she wakes up soooo often?! 

I have no clue about her sleep patterns.  We just moved so we've finally gotten some type of schedule during the day.  I usually nurse her & put her down (awake) for her first nap around 10:30am, she sleeps for 45 min to 1.5 hours.  She's up for a few hours & then goes back down btwn 1-2pm & usually stays down for 1-2 hours.  She'll take another quick nap around 6, maybe 30-45 minutes & I put her down for the night around 8.  She usually sleeps until 12 & then wakes up at 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 & is up for the day at 8.  Seriously?  What do you do with that?  I've been breaking all the rules & will bring her into bed at the 5/6am waking & I can usually get her to sleep until 730/8. 

This isn't new.  She's always been up every 2 hours or so.  The only new thing is the regular(ish) naps & the fact I can put her down awake.  She might cry for 5-10 minutes during the day before her nap, but she'll eventually go to sleep.  At night, I've let her cry for 15-20 minutes & she'll usually go back to sleep, but I can't do that every time she wakes up (my 3 year old shares a wall with her room!).  I usually get up at the 12am feeding, let her cry through the 2am, get up at the 4am & then bring her to bed at the 5-6am.  What the hell do I do?  How do I break her?

Oh, and she's been EBF.  She won't take a bottle or a paci, so its all boob, all the time.  She ate rice cereal for the first time last night, 2tbsns w/about 2 oz bm before bed & she woke up 2 hours later.  I'm at a total loss.  Do I have to just let her scream all night?

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Re: XP from 6-9: need help w/6mth sleep habits...

  • mlf625mlf625

    The first thing you want to do is NOT listen to the doctor when it comes to sleep.  IMO, most pedis don't know much about sleep and just go off of their own experience or what some medical book said.  What do you think?  Does your baby actually seem hungry?  If not for the doctor's comments, would you still be considering CIO?  If so, if I were you, I'd go pick up a sleep book - I recommend Ferber or Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child).  

    But really - I'm sorry.  That's a whole lot of waking and I was really frustrated when we went through a similar issue with DS at that age.  He was up every hour or two all night long from 4 months - 5 1/2 months.  We ended up doing CIO.  It worked, and it worked fast.  We cut his bottles from 8oz to 6oz to 4oz to 2oz, then went cold turkey and let him cry.  It didn't take longer than a couple nights, and only the first night was awful.  Can you gradually cut back on how long you nurse at night?  Then when you get to the CIO part (assuming you'll do the intervals you can read about in Ferber), maybe have your DH do the check-ins so she doesn't think you're there to feed her?

    I feel your pain on having a toddler nearby - DD and DS share a wall and I was hesitant to sleep train DD partly because of that.  (As of last week, she was waking 2 times a night, minimum.)  We ended up cranking DS's white noise machine for a few nights and going for it last week.  DD started STTN on night 2 and is now going on a week with 0 wakings.

    Good luck. 

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  • smb29smb29
    We did ferber around 5ish months when M still had 2 night wakings and I could no longer function.  We decided to try to drop the first night feeding and I would still get up for the second one if he woke up.  We would cluster feed before bed just to make sure it wasn't hunger.  Dh did the check ins so he didn't see me and think food!  If she is still used to getting multiple feedings a night, you might want to cut back slowly, but we went cold turkey.  He cried a few minutes the first night, a little bit longer the second night and that was it.  Within two weeks he dropped the second feeding on his own and has slept through the night since except for the occaisional teething or illness.  If you don't want to drop all the feedings at once, I'd try to drop the midnight, bring back the 2am, drop the 4am and get up at 6am.  You want her to try to stretch that first sleep into a longer and longer time period, rather than waking up every 4 hours.
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  • FaonFaon

    I'm chiming in because we're almost to 6 mo. and we've been blessed w/ 12 hour overnight stretches for quite a while now. (I say this ever so humbly, carefully, and quietly, for fear that it will stop!)

    I think your daytime schedule sounds pretty good and great job w/ the naps & putting her down awake. For night, the only recommendation I have is to do a dream feed before you go to bed (I know this is debated, but it's worked for us. Alden goes down at 7:30 and I do it 9:30 or 10.) I might actually try to phase this out soon though, and agree with you that your DD's wakings are probably not from hunger.

    Going back over, I do think her nap 3 is too close to bedtime. I'd make sure she's up by 6 so she has two hours wake time before bed. Any way you could try nap 3 a little earlier? We're so fortunate that we didn't have to do Ferber (well, ish for naps maybe, and again I'm saying this sooo quietly), but I don't think 15-20 min. seems that bad for her to get herself back to sleep at night. It is rough w/ your 3 y.o., but hopefully it would be over in just a few days.

    Hope things improve soon; that's a lot of wake-ups and I feel for you. 

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