- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Babies: 6 - 9 Months
LisaLisa1980
member
Night issues
LisaLisa1980
member
Ok I've got a whole slew of things going on that need to be worked on. Keep in mind he's 5.5 months.
1) ditching the swaddle. He still sleeps in a woombie. He CAN sometimes sleep without it but its rare. If he's really fussing, it helps keep his arms from flailing everywhere. He's a solid 22 lbs and my back hurts if he struggles too much
2) getting him to sleep in his room. He still sleeps in a Moses basket in our room. He has no issues sleeping in the crib, but I'm not comfortable putting him in his crib while still swaddled incase he rolls over. He likes to sleep on his side. He has woken up during naps and gone on his tummy. The woombie is stretchy enough that he can pull himself up on his arms
3) the past month or so he's been waking up every 2 hours. I usually just pop him on the boob out of habit because I'm too tired to figure out what else to do and quite frankly, it gets us back to sleep in 10 mins. The thing is, he just holds the nipple in his mouth and pacifies himself. But he won't take an actual soother.
4) sometimes when I put him back down his eyes will stay closed but he'll cry and thrash his body around. This usually results in either me or my H holding him for a bit until he's totally asleep
5) bedtimes can be rough. Some nights he won't go down til 9-10. His normal bedtime is 7-8. He naps for a total of 4 hrs/day. Please don't tell me to bathe/story/feed/bed because it just doesn't work for us.
I feel like I've got him into this habit and I don't know what to do to fix it. The end goal is to have him sleep unswaddled in his crib with at LEAST a 4 hr stretch instead of waking every 2 hrs. I'm EXHAUSTED!!!
1) ditching the swaddle. He still sleeps in a woombie. He CAN sometimes sleep without it but its rare. If he's really fussing, it helps keep his arms from flailing everywhere. He's a solid 22 lbs and my back hurts if he struggles too much
2) getting him to sleep in his room. He still sleeps in a Moses basket in our room. He has no issues sleeping in the crib, but I'm not comfortable putting him in his crib while still swaddled incase he rolls over. He likes to sleep on his side. He has woken up during naps and gone on his tummy. The woombie is stretchy enough that he can pull himself up on his arms
3) the past month or so he's been waking up every 2 hours. I usually just pop him on the boob out of habit because I'm too tired to figure out what else to do and quite frankly, it gets us back to sleep in 10 mins. The thing is, he just holds the nipple in his mouth and pacifies himself. But he won't take an actual soother.
4) sometimes when I put him back down his eyes will stay closed but he'll cry and thrash his body around. This usually results in either me or my H holding him for a bit until he's totally asleep
5) bedtimes can be rough. Some nights he won't go down til 9-10. His normal bedtime is 7-8. He naps for a total of 4 hrs/day. Please don't tell me to bathe/story/feed/bed because it just doesn't work for us.
I feel like I've got him into this habit and I don't know what to do to fix it. The end goal is to have him sleep unswaddled in his crib with at LEAST a 4 hr stretch instead of waking every 2 hrs. I'm EXHAUSTED!!!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Night issues
He won't take a soother so I dunno how to help him go back to sleep without the boob.
I think it's worth a try to put him in his crib unswaddled. Try for 3 nights at least. He may just need to get used to having his arms free and maybe will start to use them for self soothing. Give him a small lovey. We did this with DD around 4.5 months and it went better than we thought.
Also napping 4 hrs a day at that age is a lot. What time does he wake in the morning? You maybe will solve bedtime troubles with shifting an hour or so to his night time sleep. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child suggests waking a baby ONLY to preserve the next nap or bedtime and Ferber mentions shifting nighttime sleep to daytime or vice versa if needed.
That's all I've got.
DD #1: March 20, 2013
DD # 2: May 2, 2015
EDD #3: March 4, 2018
If he doesn't nap during the day, he gets extremely fussy. I put him down every 2 hrs and he takes 3 naps. Everything I've read said babies this age should be napping a total of 4 hrs/day. His first 2 naps are about 45 mins & 3rd is 3 hrs. I don't think the naps are contributing to his every 2 hr wake up at night. I think he's just doing it out if habit now
New Mommy!!!
so this is what I've been doing lately... putting him in his crib in his own room and then undoing the swaddle after he's been sleeping. The first night he did 40 mins no swaddle, but then woke up and could not get back to sleep so I had to reswaddle and bring him back to our room in his moses basket. Second night (last night) he slept for 3 hours on his tummy (I watch him on the monitor and I went in there to make sure he wasn't face down and could breathe). I undid the swaddle, but ended up waking him in process from the movement and then he couldn't settle so I swaddled him and brought him back to our room in his basket again. Night 3 is tonight.. we'll see how it goes.. it'll be a process...