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Babies: 9 - 12 Months
I'm on the verge of insanity
brought on by lack of sleep. Part of me is screaming, "That's it! This can't continue! It is not okay to be waking every 2 hours at 7 months old." The other part of me thinks, "Aww.. he must be really uncomfortable cutting all those teeth... it could be a growth spurt... oh God, what if I'm not making enough milk".
At 2 am last night I had made up my mind that a form of CIO was in order. Now, I feel like maybe I'm over reacting and this is just a phase. I know... there are books... I should read a book, do some research. Who the hell finds time and energy to read books and research how to help your child sleep when neither of you are currently getting any?
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Re: I'm on the verge of insanity
At 7.5 months I cried Uncle and borrowed a friend's Ferber book. I started as soon as I'd read it cover to cover and was ready. It was so hard, but so worth it. We still have the occasional bad night. But she sleeps. And she knows how to put herself to sleep. Its great. I'd highly recommend doing the reading beforehand and finding an approach that works for you.
I was very anti CIO, until i realized it was more cruel to have a baby who couldn't sleep without you, and woke every 30 minutes, and was always exhausted and desperate for a good sleep. I gave in, and was so glad I did.
Good luck.
Every two hours is rough -- is he teething? If he's sick/teething etc I say you just have to suck it up and get up with him.
If he just wants to be with you or knows that if he cries you'll come get him then you might need to do a little modified CIO.
That's so tough, no matter what, you need your sleep also, maybe your DH can take a night or 2 a week so you can get some sustained sleep (with earplugs)!
Is he crying/screaming every time he wakes up? Or is he moving around in his crib, whining and making noise??
What will happen if you just let him be? There have been times when DD has been in her crib crying and I will stand in her room watching her for a few minutes to see if she settles back down and falls back asleep. She usually does. I try not to pick her up because if I do she'll often fully awake and it will take longer to get her back to sleep then if I just let her be.
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See, this is where it's so hard to determine what's going on. Up until a couple weeks ago, he was pretty much getting up about 2 times a night He'd go down at 7:30, then get up around 12:30, then around 4, then up for the day around 8. It wasn't that bad.
Now he's up close to every 2 hours, sometimes there are three hour stretches. He did just get a lot of teeth in. He's working on his sixth tooth, but he never woke this much when he was working on the first two and those seemed to bother him more. He is all out crying when he wakes for the most part. I wait and see if he'll fall back asleep and will let him fuss for 5 or 10 minutes, but 90 percent of the time it escalates.
He's also always fighting me on the naps. It's always been this way, but now it's even worse. He will let me rock him to sleep, but wakes up screaming as soon as I lay him down or shortly after.
I just can't figure out if all of this is brought on by him being uncomfortable or by him just wanting me to be there with him. Of course, I have no problem soothing him if he's in pain, but I don't want to be setting up bad habits if that's not the issue.
Thank God my H is an amazing man who really helps me out at night. He gets up to bring K to me at least half of the time. I would be a walking zombie at this point if he didn't.
We've had a variety of things causing varying degrees of night waking hell for the past....2.5 months. First is was milestones, then it was teeth, then it was a cold, then it was 4 teeth AND a cold, and now he has more teeth coming in.
Bennett was a sleep crawler when he first learned to crawl. He would start crawling in his sleep and would bang his head into the wall until he woke up.
He just slept 3 hours - he's been up 5-9 times a night for several days now, so this is a big deal!
I say hang in there if you think it's a milestone or teething or anything. I know it totally freaking SUCKS though!!! SUCKS! SUCKSUCKSUCKS!
I was so tired one night I told DH he had to take DS because I was concerned I'd hurt him - I was THAT delirious. DH took him in the car for 2.5 hours in the midle of the night while I slept. It was GLORIOUS!
I have no advice for you, but you are not alone. Seth usually has one stretch during the night of 2-3 hours, but for the rest of the night is up every hour. This has been going for a long time. Once upon a time, he got up only once a night.
Like you, I'm not sure how I function. I go to school and work full time. On maybe 5 hours of broken sleep.
Maybe Ferber would work, like Lanie says, but I can't and won't do it. You CAN learn to go to sleep without crying to get there. But if it works for you, great. It just won't work for my family.
I hope things get better. I don't have any great words of wisdom for you, but just know you're not the only one with an older baby who is waking more than a newborn.
i was at this point 2 weeks ago. same thing, she'd been sleeping and then started waking up every two hours. i was delirious.
we were trying to start her in her crib for the night and then wait till she woke and then move her to our room but in the pnp. it didn't work, so we are completely co-sleeping now. she's in our bed with us the entire night and i'm finally getting sleep. and she's back to waking up at 12 and 4 to eat. then up at 8.
but i'm not sure we're doing the right thing. i wonder all the time if i need to keep trying the crib.
just typing to say we are there too - CIO isn't an option for us because he's sick right now. I'm generally very anti-CIO, but if we hit a stretch where he's not obviously teething and not sick, and his sleeping is still SUCKS (I'm talking up every 45 minutes over here, and sometimes up for 2 hours before he'll go back down), we might have to start to look into it.
FWIW, the baby whisperer method worked for us in the past. we will try that again before CIO.