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Attachment Parenting
jaymiegerard
member
Is DS (8months) the worst sleeper ever?
jaymiegerard
member
Am I the only one going through this?
DS has never STTN. The fewest number of times he has ever woken up was 2, and that was only once. On average he wakes up 5-6 times a night, but it can be as often as 10 times... yes TEN TIMES IN ONE NIGHT. Two nights ago he woke every hour, and last night he woke every hour and a half. I think, this time, it's because he keeps rolling onto his stomach and wants to be on his back or side and can't figure out how to get back without help.
We have done everything in every book and nothing helps him sleep. We even tried CIO at one point, but it still didn't eliminate night-wakings.
I nurse him and he eats solids. He's not hungry (though I feed him when he wakes crying b/c he wont stop crying otherwise). I don't want to wean him completely, but am starting to think I need to.
He is happy and healthy all day, and his naps are decent... but they've been better.
Any advice that doesn't include letting him scream his head off for hours would be helpful... Or anyone just letting me know they are going through something similar would help too!
Thanks,
One Very Exhausted Mother
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Re: Is DS (8months) the worst sleeper ever?
Hello, I understand your position. I have a very similar story to yours... I tried just about everything (even the crying) and noting worked except bed-sharing. That may not be right for you and I really didn't want to do it but after 8 long months of trying everything I too was exahusted, so we bed-share and she wakes less (but certainly doesn't go more than 6 hours.
Maybe my advice won't fix your problem but I learned to accept it more... seriously the best thing I could have done for everyone was be more accepting that I was 'needed' more at night by my daughter. Now at 2.5 she is a much better sleeper but she is far from what I would have 'expected' but now that doesn't matter to me, she is happy, alert, and very energetic so she gets enough sleep.
I remember the first months I was tired and I heard some momma talk about her toddler who still woke several times at night... I thought 'nooooo' but she taught me some other important things... one being that I needed to take good care of myself... if I needed I would go to bed earlier, and I made sure to get out and take a walk.. read a book or visit with a friend this helped "refresh' me and made me 'deal' with it better.
I hope this helps.
Little Rose is 2 1/2.
I can't be of any help, but I can certainly reassure you that you are not alone. My daughter is definitely competing for the title of worst sleeper ever. She has never slept longer than a 4 hour stretch (and that was twice EVER) at a time. She fights bedtime and naps like it's her job, and gets by with very little sleep (9-10 hrs/day total, with naps). When she is awake she is a happy, pleasant little girl, but when she approaches bedtime she is a disaster. Once she is asleep, she wakes about every 1-2 hrs. We have tried everything short of letting her CIO, which I honestly do not think would work anyway as she is quite a determined baby.
I agree with the PP about adjusting expectations. I spent the first few months of her life thinking "she'll sleep better when she's X months", then being disappointed that we'd get to that point and no change in her sleep. Now I just accept that sleep is a challenge for her, and that she will eventually outgrow it in her own time. I am exhausted, as is my husband, but we know this is temporary and some day we will look back and miss her needing us so much. In the meantime, we try to give eachother breaks, take help from relatives when we can get it, and encourage eachother along.
(Very) long story short: you're not alone!
My first child (now 3) was an impossible sleeper. Up 4-6x per night until she turned 13 months old. We went through phases of co-sleeping (bassinet & in our bed), putting her in her own space, swings, etc. Routines with & without baths, music, white noise-- changed bedtimes, looked for earliest sleep cues, etc. We even tried CIO around 10 months-- both Ferber & extinction method- and neither worked. At 13 months old without any 'effort' on our part she STTN from 6pm-6am and only woke for teething from that point on (rarely).
My 2nd child has STTN on his own since he was 8 weeks old (now 6 months). Both are 100% breastfed (I've read double-blind studies that show no difference in sleep habits between BF & formula fed babies somewhere along the line!). They have different personalities, and what I mean by that is they seemed to need a different amount of comfort/touch/love to feel secure in their own skin.
You are not alone, follow your heart & instincts and everything will work out. In the meantime, line up a babysitter if you need a nap and/or to take a moment to yourself. Good luck!
Ok, I'll be the one to say it. This is ridiculous. I'm all for meeting your baby's needs, but in this case, your baby needs to sleep. It's not healthy for an 8 month old to be awake that often, and you're not doing yourself any favors by being exhausted all the time.
I'd draw the line at this point, if I were in your shoes. 8 month olds don't need to be sleeping all night (mine wasn't) but they also don't need to be up 10 times, and you don't have to doom yourself to years of sleeplessness. I'd find a sleep training method that I was comfortable with (doesn't have to be CIO, though for me, it was - Ferber) and stick to it. You have to teach a baby how to put himself to back to sleep - they don't just know and some don't just figure it out on their own. I've heard good things about the No Cry Sleep Solution - seems to take a while but also seems to work. Read sleep books. Even if you're not into CIO, read Ferber - there are a lot of interesting, useful pieces of info there that I didn't know.
Good luck. I can't even imagine how tired you must be.
Are you bed-sharing? DS woke every 2 hours from 7 months to 12 months, more often when teething. I would just latch him on and go right back to sleep, so it was tiring but not a burden. Since 12 mo, he gradually (mostly) self-lengthened his sleep (again, save when teething). I say mostly because we did start gently encouraging him that "milkies are asleep" if he wanted to nurse sooner than every 4 hours. Reading the Kellymom sleep info helped me understand that night-waking is very normal (and healthy) even if my child might be on the high end of it, Having changed expectations helped me feel at peace with what DS's body leans toward. Not every family is willing to just go with it, and that is fine for them. But, if you end up being fine with going with the flow, that also is a valid choice.
https://kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleep/
https://kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleepstudies/
When you say that baby wakes 10 time per night, what does night mean to you? Is it is something like 7pm to 8 am? Is baby actually tired and ready for nightime sleep at 7pm? is baby actually ready to wake for the day before 8am? DS didn't adopt any sort of consistant bedtime until about a year. Going by his sleepy cues at night rather than the clock made evenings smooth for all of us. Also, we started to pick up his morning cues and wouldn't pressure him to go back to sleep when we recognized those cues and it was an acceptable time to us. If he simply couldn't go back to sleep and it was before 6, we would hand him some soft-quiet toys or a book for him to play with in the side-car while we continued to sleep.
More Green For Less Green
Thanks everyone for your replies. Just hearing that others are going/have gone through this made me feel a little bit better.
I brought him in bed with me the whole night last night and he woke up even more than the past two nights! BUT, I got to see what was going on that was waking him... every time he woke he would roll over in every direction and eventually stop on his back or his stomach and decide "I don't like this position!" and scream. I think that, right now, he's waking because of developmental milestones (almost crawling, babbling new letters every day, rolling around like a champ).
I don't know exactly what this means in terms of how to get more sleep, but at least I feel like I have some sort of explanation of why it's worse than ever!
As far as the CIO comment, I know, I do get what you are saying about the baby needing sleep and me needing to draw a line, but I just don't think it works for all babies. It helped him fall asleep on his own, but night wakings never went away, and night wakings are the problem.
And just a side note: I decided to try something I found called the Holistic Baby Sleep System that uses chinese medicine (acupressure) to help reset the baby's sleep cycle. I'll let you know if it helps!
Thanks again for your support :-)