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Attachment Parenting
IncogNeato
member
Truthfully- anyone fix a crappy sleeper with AP friendly methods?
IncogNeato
member
I need to know if this is actually possible. IRL I have two sets of friends- the AP, cosleeping, rocking to sleep, but their kids suck at sleeping friends and the CIO, sleep training friends whose kids all fall asleep now without a peep, STTN, and are chipper during the day.
I don't want to let LO CIO but she's a cranky fussy mess ALL THE TIME. I'm miserable, anxious, and depressed, my marriage and sanity are suffering, it is clear that LO is suffering from lack of quality sleep and I don't know what to do.
Our main problems are getting her to fall asleep at bedtime, and getting her to fall asleep and stay asleep (or go back to sleep) at naptimes. I'm not trying to reduce or eliminate night feedings at this time (she generally nurses once or twice and usually goes back down without too much fuss.)
Every few weeks we decide that we need to suck it up and do some kind of gradual extinction but then LO gets too upset and I melt down and cave, which only makes it worse, I know. In the light of day, CIO starts to sound like the only way to end this madness, but when she's crying I feel like it goes against my maternal intuition.
So... what do I do? She really can't be put down when asleep or she pitches a fit so rocking/nursing to sleep don't help, she doesn't sleep if we try to co-sleep and I don't really want to anyway. At the moment we have a strong bedtime routine: I nurse her, read some books, put her down drowsy but then she wakes up and tries to crawl around while crying and DH and I spend an hour or so going back in every few minutes to pat her back. She cries when we leave and tries to do pushup (she prefers to belly sleep), and usually calms down when we lay her back down and pat her. However, she will wake up after 10 minutes and start crying again. Rinse, repeat, until I'm a mess and she's exhausted.
Her naps are 30-45 minutes long and she wakes up tired and crying from them. I try to pat her back and get her back to sleep but it's a struggle.
HELP! Either tell me how you fixed your crappy sleeper's crappy sleep or I feel like I'll have to leave home and make DH CIO with her. She NEEDS to get some sleep!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Truthfully- anyone fix a crappy sleeper with AP friendly methods?
Honestly, you pretty much described our situation when DS was that age. And the few times I decided to try CIO, I ended up abandoning the efforts too because it was too hard on all of us. I really do feel your pain, I know it feels like there is no end in sight.
With that said, have you tried "wearing" your LO to sleep? Once DS refused to be rocked or nursed to sleep, the only way I could get him down was to "restrain" him in the Ergo. I swear I've worn down our carpet so much because some days/nights the only way to get him to sleep was by walking for HOURS around the house in pitch darkness. And like your LO, I never felt like he was getting enough sleep because he was cranky and fussy a lot and would wake up crying.
We pretty much just kept trucking on through doing what ever would work (other than CIO because I had written it off) until he was about 11 months. We moved him into his own room on a floor bed and night weaned him. We let him cry but we layed next to him until he fell asleep. The first night it took 40 mins of off and on crying but he wasn't hysterical like he was 6 months prior to that. After a few days he was STTN most nights and he now goes down for a regular 2-3 hour long nap each day.
I think in our case we just had to wait it out, he wasn't ready for sleep training at 6 months. But by 11 months he was and we worked it out. I really hope you find something that works sooner but just know that it won't last forever.
::Hugs::
We have improved, but definetly not "fixed". I don't think it is accurate that Ferber=awesome sleeper and AP=crappy sleeper. My sister used Ferber and my niece fell asleep with only 10 minutes of crying. I think it is more laid back baby=good sleeper, high needs &/or high energy = crappy sleeper. We went from every 45-90 minutes to 2 wakings for 12 hour period by...
1. ROUNTINE, ROUTINE, ROUTINE - wake up same time, nap at same time, and bed time at same time. If he wakes up early from a nap I do whatever I can to get him to go back to sleep (wear him, lay with him, rock him, etc.
2. A little pick up/put down. I lay him in his crib once he's asleep if he wakes up when I lay him down I pick him and repeat. When we first started I sometimes spent his entire nap picking him back up, but now at most I have to do it twice
3. wearing to sleep, otherwise he is a hitting/squirming mess
4. Accepting that babies don't always sleep 12 hour stretches and go down without a fuss. All babies are differnt. Some sleep great some don't, Some walk at 9 months some don't walk until 18 months, Some will go to anyone and others don't want to leave mom's arms..... don't use your friends babies as measuring sticks for your own sleep success
***with all that said...if your marriage, life, babies quality of sleep, is HORRIBLE it may be time to take more drastic measures to get a quick result. However if you can reframe things and take a little time (it took us 3 weeks to see progress) then yes you can do "AP sleep training". CIO isn't going to cause permanent harm and it will only be a small (very small) impact on how you raise your child
Good Luck to you (and everyone else who posted)
i just wanted to add that for us, "AP methods" were the only option. my DD was like yours, very difficult to sleep. around 11ish months we found CIO worked very very easily - she was definitely ready, and i think our constant nursing/rocking/etc was actually bothering her. it was awesome (and yes i had read Ferber and Weissbuluth and NCSS and every other sleep book imaginable).
however it lasted only 2 weeks with her STTN. then it all got horrible again, and every other time we tried to CIO, she woke with a 102 degree fever. this had happened twice before she was 11 months as well but we thought it was just a fluke. but no, apparently i'm one of the few people where CIO actually had a physical impact on my child and so not only did i feel bad for letting her cry, i was actually making her physically ill. (and yes i brought her to the doc each time, no discernible illness, but they did see the fever every time so i'm not nuts). ANYWAY i know this is rare so i'm not trying to scare you, i'm just saying that in our case we had to other options.
she would not sleep in our bed either, thought it was play time, so we got her a big bed in her room (mattress and box spring on the floor at 19 mos -- at your LO's age you could try a futon mattress on the floor and LOTS of babyproofing). i lay with her till she falls asleep, then go get up and do my thing and go to bed in my own room. when she wakes in the middle of the night, i go lay with her and finish the night there. it works for us. she is still a crappy sleeper, but nowhere near as bad as she used to be.
do you think your LO is having a tough time due to milestones, like learning to crawl? that would explain a lot about the crawling around the crib. they often have trouble sleeping when they discover new things, or have a mental leap (that we can't see). you can read the book The Wonder Weeks for a great spot-on analysis of the more difficult fussy stages babies go through.
good luck!!!!!!!!!
I read NCSS and had taken all of the bedtime tips I read here and on Dr. Sears site to heart and tried for months to help Josie sleep. She was waking every hour sleeping in her crib and then we'd bring her to bed around midnight. We were bedsharing most of the night until last week. DH finally got tired of it and I was a walking zombie because I was literally feeding her all night long. It got to the point where she wouldn't go in her crib in the beginning of the night. I had to go to a wedding and leave J overnight. She STTN without me. I knew at that point she could do it and realized I had to change something. We tried Ferber but the check ins made her more upset. I did extinction CIO and she STTN and is way happier now than ever. I am too.
This is to say, with my child gentler methods didn't work. She really did need to learn to self soothe. I've heard her wake up a few times and put herself back to sleep within minutes, it's amazing to me.
I wish more gentle approaches would have worked because it was hard for me to hear her cry but now that it's been done I wish I had done it sooner. It was harder on me than on her and now I'm happy I'm no longer a slave to a baby that won't sleep without me.
Francesca Pearl is here! Josephine Hope is almost 3!
I'm obviously in the minority, but I personally feel that the Ferber method is VERY AP. I think that when a baby does not know how to sleep on their own, then it is very selfish to not teach them the skills they need, to get the sleep they require.
If you actually read Ferber's book, his program and techniques are so that crying is minimal and sleep should improve almost immediately. Usually when a baby/child does not benefit from his program, it is because the parents are not actually following the program correctly. Obviously the program won't work for everyone, but he tells you what to do, when it's not working.
It looks like I'm in the minority, but we never did traditional sleep training with DS. However I strongly believe in setting the stage for good sleep so we've had a solid bedtime and naptime routine since 8 weeks and we make getting sleep a priority. DS's naps were pretty much crap until 8 months when he started crawling and then they became relatively easy. At 20 months he was still waking 1-3 times per night so we nightweaned by sending DH in when he woke. Since then he's become a great sleeper - easy to put down, STTN all but 1-2 nights per week and if he wakes now he just needs me to lay by him for a minute and then he's back to sleep. I strongly believe that this is because we've always attended to him and he knows if he needs us we'll be there. Yes, it was a long, long, tiring road and I'm sure we have plenty more challenges ahead, but I still think it was worth it.
The thing to remember about Ferber (and I've read the book and don't believe the method is awful or anything like that) is that it often has to be redone after sickness or teething or other schedule disruption so it's often not an easy, permanent fix either.
Mine didn't. I can't type it all out on my phone, but nothing worked for us - not NCSS, not Ferber, not HSHHC, nada. Finally, right before LO's first birthday, I was left with no choice and had to let her flat out CIO. I couldn't bear it, and for 3 nights, I left DH home with the monitor to keep the situation under control. The first night, she cried 35 minutes, the second, 15 minutes, and the third she just whimpered. Our sleep problems have been solved and now all of us in my house get a GREAT night's sleep. IMO, that was the AP thing to do. I love seeing my baby roll over when I put her in her crib.
GL mama! It's not easy, but it works!
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I never used any particular 'method' for CIO, but what I will say is that I did initially go in to her in intervals to pat/soothe as I had read about doing that. However, it became very quickly apparent that each time I went in she would get more & more hysterical. That method did NOT work for her. Eventually, I just let her cry. It sucked. BUT- she was close to a year old & I was at the place where my sanity and marriage were suffering. So I don't regret it at all.
Honestly, looking back (she's 6 now), she has the exact same personality that she did back then. This kid is like a dog with a bone when she wants something- she just persists & persists & will not let up. This despite us being very consistent from the beginning (including CIO!) of not giving in & sticking to our guns. It's just her personality. So I am fully convinced that had I not done CIO then, she'd still have sleep issues. As it stands, she still has trouble settling down & getting to sleep because she's wired from the time she wakes up until bedtime- but she knows that she is to stay in her room, quietly, so she does. And you know, she's a pretty great kid despite being stubborn as a mule & she still loves me
Have you tried reading any no-cry sleep books and seeing if tips work from them?
I got both kids to sleep on their own from the baby whisperer's tips. No cry sleep solutions and sleeplady shuffle are 2 other no cry books I've heard good things about.
While I dont think CIO is terrible, it wouldnt be my first source when trying to fix sleep issues.
GL!
DD is a rather crappy sleeper, but with time and patience, I think we're getting there. Mind you, DD is 14 months and we're still not there, but are seeing distinct progress. I think it can work, but you have to be consistent and more determined than she is.
BTW, one reason she might be so tired is that 45 minutes isn't a full sleep cycle, but it is a common point in the sleep cycle to wake up. We had to (for a while) put DD back down after 45 minutes for almost every nap. After doing it for a while, she tends to stay asleep through a whole nap; she had to learn how to get over the most active part of the sleep cycle.
I didn't "fix" DS, but he did learn how to sleep on his own, with limited intervention on our part. It happened around 12 months. He STTN most nights these days, and basically puts himself to bed. The last week has been hell, as he cuts some new teeth. So... I go to bed earlier to compensate.
Ditto to PP about the power of routine and naps.
One of the best pieces of advice I got from a friend, while I was pregnant, was that I should never expect to get an uninterrupted night's sleep again... and to count myself lucky if I did. She still gets woken by her 8 years old occasionally - bad dreams, not feeling well, mommy-i-want-a-glass-of-water, whatever.
I stopped looking at STTN as a measure of our success as parents, and started to just roll with it. I know that DS will be sleeping on his own in high school. Some day, I won't even know where he is at night. I'm enjoying the time I have with him now.
I agree 100% and it's taken me 2 kids to figure come to that realization. We followed the method and as hard as it was on *me* I forced myself to be the one doing the check-ins and such as I had been the primary soother, rocker, nurser, bouncer for the first 7 months of his life. I was not going to make DH do it and run away from my responsibility and my commitment to him to help him sleep better...In a way I wanted him to know that I was still right there (with the checkins) and that I hadn't disappeared, and that we were doing this together. That's very AP, IMO.
Thank you all so much for your responses. I really appreciate it. I ran to the library to get both Ferber and NCSS and I'm determined to find an approach that will fit us. For the past two nights I've had some success getting LO to fall asleep initially at bedtime and for naps (first time ever) with no crying. However, she continues to wake up from naps every 10-20 minutes so I've been playing around with graduated extinction which, unfrotunately, seems to upset her more. After her third wake-up in one hour I decided to give her 5 minutes to work it out and she fell asleep and has stayed asleep for nearly a half hour, her longest nap stretch in days.
I'm working to incorporate a lovey, establishing a stronger nap routine and to find the ideal bedtime and I'm hopeful that things will continue to improve. Just to reiterate, I'm not trying to get her to STTN or give up night feedings. I just want her to go to sleep with minimal distress for both of us, and to stay asleep long enough to be well rested. I THINK we may be starting to work towards this.
Wish us luck and best of luck to all of you as well!
To add: I was in a bad place when I was writing my OP and it means a lot to have all this anonymous support. It's so hard to see your baby suffer, which my LO has been because she is chronically overtired and miserable. DH and I have suffered along with her because we want her to be healthy and happy. We had just spent a week with family at the beach with other babies who were well rested and slept great while out darling child screamed at everyone and left me in tears with efforts to get her to sleep and stay asleep long enough to be rested.
I'm feeling much better right now and I'm hoping that with every sleep book known to man on my nightstand (not just HSHHC which has great info but was making me feel like a total mommy failure) that we can help LO find her sleep groove.
Oh, and she's still sleeping! 45 minutes and counting! Finally, she's made it through one whole sleep cycle, poor little thing.
Hugs, I've so been there. DD1 was a craptastic sleeper and after being bounced for every nap and nightwaking during a family vacation with other babies as well at 9 months old and that's when I turned to sleep training. I felt terrible that my child was some non-sleeping freak (and bless their hearts my family is AWESOME - to the extent that my parents will wear my kids in the Ergo and bounce them to sleep no questions asked) I was just completely worn out, burnt out and my relationship with DH was suffering. We did sleep training with DD when she was 10 months old (right after that vacation) and we got her at least to the point of going down and staying down for awhile. It took her until she was about 2 years old to fully STTN but I'm really glad we did what we did then... With DS (who is now 7 months) I could see the signs of getting to that dark non sleeping place and didn't want to spend another 3 months of this battle. He has a much more easy-going personality than my DD (she was colicky, spirited, intense baby) so the sleep training has been going really well and he's a MUCH happier baby (and I'm a more rested mom too!). Good luck, stick with it and eventually they will sleep!