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November 2012 Moms
9 month old terrible sleeper
Background - DD2 is now 9.5 months old & always been a terrible sleeper. I'm looking for advise and success stories on how to get her to sleep more than 1-2 hours at a time. DD1 is 2.5 years old & I feel terrible about having to spend so much time getting DD2 to nap/sleep. I'm open to Controlled CIO.
Baby always has tummy & digestive issues. Reflux. GERD. Gas bubbles. Spit up a lot. Terrible BF problems all along. She su is very hard, so I'm guessing a forceful let down caused too much milk too fast & thus the issues with spit up. She's been in Zantac this whole time. I now offer her both breasts but she's now really distracted & doesn't always want to BF except to fall asleep. She has had horrendous colic too. So with all that the only way to get her to calm or sleep was to stand, rock, swaddle, BF to sleep for months. Now she BF to sleep. We have a bedtime routine & shortened nap routine. She yAwns instantly and rubs eyes. But I hate having to BF her to sleep now. My DH doesn't help at all with her sleep problems. She screams a lot & he just can't handle it. She instantly quiets in my arms. So Once BF to sleep I will wait & lay her in crib. She wakes at the 30 minute mark everytime. So I will try to BF to sleep again for another 30 minutes. This also happens all night long, except its about every 1-2 hours. Every single night this whole time. She is almost walking by herself, has 4 teeth & another one just cuttin through now. She has always been 95% height & weight. She eats 3 meals of baby & finger food. Snacks of Cheerios or puffs & BF in between.
Awake between 6/7am. Nap 10am, 3pm. Bed 8/8:30pm.
So 1) how do I approach stopping BF to sleep? And all night when she wakes/stands/screams? She falls right back asleep on the boob.
2) I want to wean. I've tried pumped milk or formula in a bottle & sippy - wont take it. She drinks water out of the sippy fine.
3) I've tried controlled CIO. She hyperventilates & is hysterical. Just keeps standing when I lay her down continually. After 20 minutes of checks I'll pick her up & BF or rock her & she'll fall asleep. But then wakes up again continually.
I'm so tired!
Baby always has tummy & digestive issues. Reflux. GERD. Gas bubbles. Spit up a lot. Terrible BF problems all along. She su is very hard, so I'm guessing a forceful let down caused too much milk too fast & thus the issues with spit up. She's been in Zantac this whole time. I now offer her both breasts but she's now really distracted & doesn't always want to BF except to fall asleep. She has had horrendous colic too. So with all that the only way to get her to calm or sleep was to stand, rock, swaddle, BF to sleep for months. Now she BF to sleep. We have a bedtime routine & shortened nap routine. She yAwns instantly and rubs eyes. But I hate having to BF her to sleep now. My DH doesn't help at all with her sleep problems. She screams a lot & he just can't handle it. She instantly quiets in my arms. So Once BF to sleep I will wait & lay her in crib. She wakes at the 30 minute mark everytime. So I will try to BF to sleep again for another 30 minutes. This also happens all night long, except its about every 1-2 hours. Every single night this whole time. She is almost walking by herself, has 4 teeth & another one just cuttin through now. She has always been 95% height & weight. She eats 3 meals of baby & finger food. Snacks of Cheerios or puffs & BF in between.
Awake between 6/7am. Nap 10am, 3pm. Bed 8/8:30pm.
So 1) how do I approach stopping BF to sleep? And all night when she wakes/stands/screams? She falls right back asleep on the boob.
2) I want to wean. I've tried pumped milk or formula in a bottle & sippy - wont take it. She drinks water out of the sippy fine.
3) I've tried controlled CIO. She hyperventilates & is hysterical. Just keeps standing when I lay her down continually. After 20 minutes of checks I'll pick her up & BF or rock her & she'll fall asleep. But then wakes up again continually.
I'm so tired!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: 9 month old terrible sleeper
It sounds like she might be using nursing as her comfort/soothing method. She wakes up and wants to be soothed back to sleep and her preferred method is the boob. As my husband says, "why wouldn't baby want boob? It is soft, warm, and familiar. Id snuggle on your boob all the time if I could".
I know some moms on here have had a lot of luck with the Ferber method. Most of them suggest reading the book first so you get all the detailed information on how to do it and trouble shooting any feeding/weaning issues.
Some of my mom friends loved the pick up/put down method for sleep training. I've also been working on the pantley pull off method for my son to try and shorten his comfort nursing during night wakings. It is a slow process but I am noticing a gradual improvement.
Good Luck!
sounds like you are ready to sleep train to teach baby how to fall asleep on her own without the BFing association. I would definitely read a sleep book to help learn all the information before giving it a try. I'd also get DH on board-- he's a parent, too, and it is going to be easier for everyone if you are all invested in the process together. I also found these websites helpful. GOod luck. We were SOOOOO happy once we sleep trained. It was like we gained hours in our day!
https://community.babycenter.com/post/a5417415/how_to_successfully_teach_a_baby_to_sleep_-_3rd_ed.
https://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
https://noobmommy.com/2008/11/to-ferberize-or-not-to-ferberize.html
In almost all cases where we have had trouble with her staying down and it wasn't a wonder week, she was in some sort of pain. If she is waking up every 30 minutes and you have no explanation, it might be worth getting her ears checked while you consider training options.
We haven't sleep trained, so I'm not an authority there. As for nursing, I do nurse her to sleep for naps and sometimes to bed. Nursing is starting falter a bit. It's not exactly baby led, my schedule is just a little crazy and I'm not nursing that much when I'm at home. The upshot is, I can't nurse all that much at night and she seems to be slowly adapting to that. She still nurses in the middle of the night, but now she is getting up once. A month ago she was getting 5 times a night....but she might have already been sick.
When she gets up in the middle of the night, she wants to be picked up or, when sick, nursed. Back when she was about 6 months old these pick up sessions would go on forever. It was a minimum 20 minute and sometimes 2 hour investment to get her back down. Over the months she has chilled a bit. She will cry to be picked up while sort of sleep cruising. I'll pick her up and she'll fall asleep as I'm straightening up over the crib. I'll put her on our bed for a few minutes and move her back ( we are all in the same room) and that seems to do the trick. I guess it is a version of the pick up, put down method.
I should emphasize that for most of the last 9 months, I've been utterly sleepless - and there are some really hopeless posts from me on this board attesting to that. At the moment, she is sleeping so I thought I'd let you know how we are handling it. Her sleeping could be completely independent of us, I suppose.
In anycase, best of luck. I totally sympathize with your sleeplessness.