Sleep help/sympathy, whatever you've got (long)

kelly321 · October 2013

Ok, I'm breaking down and asking for advice again. The sleep training post really depressed me, as it made me feel like even the babies who sleep poorly on this board are light years better than DD2. I would really appreciate any advice you have. I'm actually considering extinction (with one bottle in the night) because it is out of control. Here's the situation:

Naps: All things considered, pretty good. Starting 2 weeks ago, though, she will only take one nap in the early afternoon ranging from 45min-2hr. Even if she is dead tired around 5 pm, she will.not.sleep. The only exception is if I take her on a walk or a drive. I can't arrange my schedule to do that every day or even most days, so she's usually on one nap.

Nights: Some nights every hour, on good nights every 2 hours with maybe one 2.5 hour stretch. And often between 2-3am she's just unhappy - she'll fuss every 10 min or so (just enough for us to relax in bed and think that maybe, just maybe, she has gone back to sleep), doesn't want the pacifier, doesn't want a bottle, clearly wants to sleep and can't. We have gone to 1oz formula mixed with 3oz water (one Ferber technique for night weaning) between about 11pm-4am, or at least that's my goal. Last night I caved at 2:30 and gave her a "full strength" bottle because I just needed sleep. If we give her a normal bottle it often does help her fall back asleep faster, but it doesn't lengthen the sleep stretches.

With DD1 I thought I would never sleep train but the truly horrible time we had putting her down made me change my mind and do graduated extinction, which worked really well. I thought I would never even consider true extinction, but I have no idea what else to do with DD2. This has to stop. I cannot continue to get up every 1-2 hours at night indefinitely.

Any suggestions? Is anyone else dealing with wakings this frequently?

BarefootContess · October 2013

My third son woke three-four times a night until he was a year old. After him, I worked on getting my babies used to eating during the day by feeding them every two hours. What is her feeding schedule like? From what you wrote it sounds like she is hungry at night.

singingsea · October 2013

The last month has been pretty bad. Not hourly but on a bad night every 2-3 hours.

Even on a good night he still wakes up once between 2-4am. I'm not sure what the deal is. No advice but I feel your pain.

kelly321 · October 2013

BarefootContess said:

My third son woke three-four times a night until he was a year old. After him, I worked on getting my babies used to eating during the day by feeding them every two hours. What is her feeding schedule like? From what you wrote it sounds like she is hungry at night.

Feeding schedule? Ha! I have tried, but during the day everything is just way more interesting than eating. She eats purees (maybe 5 Tbsp? for lunch and dinner), loves to experiment with finger food but probably doesn't eat all too much of it, and drinks formula "snacks" throughout the day. I'd say she drinks about 18oz during the day and another 8 before we go to bed (so between 7-10pm).
I'd love for her to get more calories during the day, but offering more just doesn't work. She's not interested and turns her head, pushes the bottle away, presses her lips together, etc. I can't make her eat and wouldn't want to. I was hoping that decreasing the calories at night (by watering down the bottles as Ferber suggests) would encourage her to drink more during the day, but no such luck so far.

wifeofadam · October 2013

DD2 is currently waking every 1-2 hours through the night and the only way she'll nap is in my arms or the carrier. This has been the case at this stage with my last three babies, which tells me I am doing something wrong.

I don't have any advice, just wanted to commiserate. I don't know how a FF mom would handle these frequent wakings, because the only reason I'm functioning is because we bedshare and I shut my eyes while nursing. I can't imagine having to deal with bottles so frequently. If I were you I would be exhausted!!

kelly321 · October 2013

+adamwife+ said:

DD2 is currently waking every 1-2 hours through the night and the only way she'll nap is in my arms or the carrier. This has been the case at this stage with my last three babies, which tells me I am doing something wrong.

I don't have any advice, just wanted to commiserate. I don't know how a FF mom would handle these frequent wakings, because the only reasoning I'm functioning is because we bedshare and I shut my eyes while nursing. I can't imagine having to deal with bottles so frequently. If I were you I would be exhausted!!

DH, bless that man, got her to start holding her own* bottles this weekend, so now "all" we have to do is get up, make the bottle, take it in to her, hand it to her, go back to bed, and hope and pray that she falls back asleep. Having her fall asleep with the bottle is a bad sleep association, but at this point, in the middle of the night I just don't care.
It is a bit of a relief not to have to stand there next to her crib holding the bottle for 5ish minutes, but not much. Plus it makes it worse if the bottle doesn't put her back to sleep because by then, I've usually fallen back asleep again. At least when I was holding the bottle I knew whether it had "worked" or not.

*edited to correct: own, not "old" like I first wrote

ally2011 · October 2013

Kelly, I am so sorry. That is absolutely awful. I still do nurse my daughter 1-2 times a night, but that is much different than waking every hour or two, I could not survive that way and am amazed you have made it this long!

Have you checked with your pediatrician to confirm there is nothing medically wrong? Ear infections, etc....I have no idea, I am just thinking of random things that probably aren't helpful.

If ever there were a situation that sleep training was appropriate for, it sounds like yours is it. I have heard good things about the Healthy Sleep Habits book.

Good luck, it will get better eventually....we are here for you!

tamarar5 · October 2013

Don't feel bad! My dd didn't sleep like ever. And though e used to sleep, he doesn't anymore.

*edited dad to dd

ally2011 · October 2013

One other thought, my dd is also hugely distracted nursing or eating. I have to nurse her in her room with the lights low, sometimes side lying for the most part to get her to eat enough. Before I started doing this she would eat a lot more at night.

I also do have to trick her some to get food in....she like straws with water in them (like from my cup) so sometimes I hold one up like there is water in it and when she opens she gets a spoonful of food instead. That gets more in than just waiting for her to focus ever will.

My sister had some luck with mixing in oatmeal cereal to the purees to get a little more bulk as well.

None of this may be helpful, but just thought I would mention in case any of it was.

kleigh926 · October 2013

I'm certainly not a doctor/sleep expert, but I say that at this point you should do whatever you have to in order to get more sleep. Extinction CIO might seem extreme, but in the long run whatever works to get your DD and you a proper amount of sleep is going to be for the better.

I am so sorry you're dealing with this. I truly don't know how you do it. I am such a miserable person and have a hard time functioning at all if I don't get decent sleep, so I'm sure I would be an absolute mess in your situation.

carriesu2003 · October 2013

We went through this and it sounds to me like your LO is hungry. We started offering oatmeal at 5:30 then I make am 8 oz bottle at 6:00 she usually drinks 2-3 ounces. Then I give her a bath and the rest of the bottle before bed. She doesn't always drink the full 8oz but the first night we tried it she slept through the night. She still wakes at least once a night and lately 2 early wake ups from gas but it is much better then before.

Rosebean · October 2013

There are so many questions I want to ask: do you have a bedtime routine? Is it practiced around the same time each night? Are you dimming the lights, turning off all distractions, doing minimal interactions? I think if you are using Ferber, have you actually implemented the time checks and stuck to them? Are you following Ferber as it is written in his book? Or are you kind of giving into her demands? I don't think your LO is hungry at all. I think she associates sucking on a bottle with milk in it as the only way to fall and stay asleep. It explains why she is waking up after every sleep cycle. When she wakes up, her bottle is empty and cold. So she wants another nice warm full bottle to put her back to sleep. Definitely need to change this pattern/ and teach her new sleep associations. I can't imagine how you are feeling mama. And trying to work out a stressful solution during a stressful situation can be awful. But IMO, sleep is so important. As you mentioned, she is obviously exhausted and WANTS to sleep. And if this is what it takes to get her what she needs, I think it's something you need to consider if you already haven't. But as another pp suggested, definitely make a visit to your Ped first to clear her of any medical reasons. I am sorry that I am giving this advice when I am not in your shoes. I feel bad that you are going through this. I remember DS being very sensitive with sleep when he was younger and it has left me as a complete sleep nazi since.

ally2011 · October 2013

Rosebean said:

There are so many questions I want to ask: do you have a bedtime routine? Is it practiced around the same time each night? Are you dimming the lights, turning off all distractions, doing minimal interactions? I think if you are using Ferber, have you actually implemented the time checks and stuck to them? Are you following Ferber as it is written in his book? Or are you kind of giving into her demands? I don't think your LO is hungry at all. I think she associates sucking on a bottle with milk in it as the only way to fall and stay asleep. It explains why she is waking up after every sleep cycle. When she wakes up, her bottle is empty and cold. So she wants another nice warm full bottle to put her back to sleep. Definitely need to change this pattern/ and teach her new sleep associations. I can't imagine how you are feeling mama. And trying to work out a stressful solution during a stressful situation can be awful. But IMO, sleep is so important. As you mentioned, she is obviously exhausted and WANTS to sleep. And if this is what it takes to get her what she needs, I think it's something you need to consider if you already haven't. But as another pp suggested, definitely make a visit to your Ped first to clear her of any medical reasons. I am sorry that I am giving this advice when I am not in your shoes. I feel bad that you are going through this. I remember DS being very sensitive with sleep when he was younger and it has left me as a complete sleep nazi since.

From what Kelly shared about her daytime eating she could be making up the extra calories at night. Maybe not, but it is at least possible that her dd is legitimately hungry.

kelly321 · October 2013

NickysNutmeg said:

From my research there is a sleep regression that occurs somewhere between 8-10 months. Sorry I'm mobile and can't make it clicky but https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-sleep-patterns/8-9-10-month-old-baby-sleep-regression/ We've been dealing with extra crappy sleep for over 2 weeks now. The worst is DD will wake about 1 and it takes 2 hours to get her back down. It's rough but I figure this too shall pass.

Except this has been going on since her 4 month wakeful. So for 5 months straight.

kelly321 · October 2013

carriesu2003 said:

We went through this and it sounds to me like your LO is hungry. We started offering oatmeal at 5:30 then I make am 8 oz bottle at 6:00 she usually drinks 2-3 ounces. Then I give her a bath and the rest of the bottle before bed. She doesn't always drink the full 8oz but the first night we tried it she slept through the night. She still wakes at least once a night and lately 2 early wake ups from gas but it is much better then before.

The other night she drank 4oz at 6pm, ate about 2 oz of oatmeal at 6:30pm, and drank another 4oz at 7pm. I thought to myself - yes! This will surely do it!

And then she woke up crying at 8:30pm.

It has also happened in the past that she ate a bunch before bed and it made absolutely no difference in her sleep. Don't get me wrong. If she's hungry then I want to feed her!! But because the amount she eats seems to have no effect on her sleep length, I feel like that's not the reason. Or at least not always. I'm sure she's hungry sometimes in the night.

kelly321 · October 2013

Rosebean said:

There are so many questions I want to ask: do you have a bedtime routine? Short, but yes. Jammies, bottle, song, bed.
Is it practiced around the same time each night? Yes.
Are you dimming the lights, turning off all distractions, doing minimal interactions? During the night? There is nothing going on. At all. I walk in to her room in the dark, hand her the bottle without saying a word, and she drinks. All in silence (on my part).
I think if you are using Ferber, have you actually implemented the time checks and stuck to them? Ferber only uses time checks for sleep associations, not for this kind of night weaning. You can also do night weaning by pushing back each feeding (minimum of 2hrs between them, then the next night 2:30, etc). I forget whether there are time checks involved there. We strictly did the time checks for sleep associations with DD1 and it was magic. With this night weaning, though, there aren't time checks.
Are you following Ferber as it is written in his book? Or are you kind of giving into her demands? After I have tried to give her the watered-down bottle 4 times in 1 hour at 2 or 3 in the morning, I have a tendency to give in to her demands when I have to work the next morning or know that I will be dealing with both kids on my own all day.
I don't think your LO is hungry at all. I think she associates sucking on a bottle with milk in it as the only way to fall and stay asleep. It explains why she is waking up after every sleep cycle. When she wakes up, her bottle is empty and cold. So she wants another nice warm full bottle to put her back to sleep. Definitely need to change this pattern/ and teach her new sleep associations. I agree that we're starting or perpetuating a sleep association, which is why I'm considering extinction. If we're going to get rid of the bottle sleep association in the middle of the night, I would rather just let her cry then get up to check on her every 3 min, 5 min, 7 min, etc. We'll have to see, but I have a feeling that she will do better and fall asleep again faster if we just leave her alone.
The problem is differentiating between a sleep association and night weaning in this case. I've been treating it as night weaning (she really is hungry and I'm trying to get her out of the habit of getting her calories at night) as opposed to a sleep association (she just wants the bottle to go back to sleep), mostly because she really does drink a full bottle. If she just needed it to go to sleep, I feel like she would drink an oz or so and then fall back asleep. Drinking 4oz signals to me that she is hungry (at least some of the time) and so I'm treating it as night weaning.
I can't imagine how you are feeling mama. And trying to work out a stressful solution during a stressful situation can be awful. But IMO, sleep is so important. As you mentioned, she is obviously exhausted and WANTS to sleep. And if this is what it takes to get her what she needs, I think it's something you need to consider if you already haven't. But as another pp suggested, definitely make a visit to your Ped first to clear her of any medical reasons. My pedi will look at me like I'm an idiot and say to stop giving her bottles in the MOTN. I'm not a fan of her. She is a fan of extinction. I'm starting to think that at least for this child at this time, she may be right. It never would have been right for DD1, btw.
I am sorry that I am giving this advice when I am not in your shoes. I feel bad that you are going through this. I remember DS being very sensitive with sleep when he was younger and it has left me as a complete sleep nazi since.

kelly321 · October 2013

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. I also realized I was a bit inconsistent in my answers - if she were hungry, then you would think it would affect her sleep cycles (positively) if she got more to eat, but that's not the case. On the other hand, since she actually does down the whole bottle at night, I feel like she maybe is hungry, so I'm doing sleep training for night weaning. Maybe I should try sleep training for sleep associations and see if that does the trick.

holly321 · October 2013

Just a suggestion of something I did to get DS to eat more during the day, which ideally leads to less at night..... He decided he was too busy playing to take bottles, and was making up for lost time at night. During the day, I was lucky if he took two oz without too much of a fight. I started putting him in his bouncer, turning on s sound machine, turning out the light and giving him his bottle. He would chug it. Now he is back to sleeping a lot better at night.

Drea926 · October 2013

First off, hugs, big, big hugs.

This is a stupid question, but when she cries, do you wait a couple minutes before going in? Sometimes DS will wake himself up, cry for a few minutes and then put himself back to sleep. When he was younger I would go in the second he made a peep, and then I found I was waking him up more and agitating him - making the situation worse than if I had just let him figure it out.

And as an aside, I wouldn't judge you for a second if you tried full extinction. I would be at my wit's end. If you try it for one night and it helps, awesome. If you find that it wasn't worth it, don't do it again. I would be willing to try anything!

almostjennifer · October 2013

You poor thing. I can't imagine. I'm on kid #3 and by the time they are this old, this mamma only gets up once, maybe twice a night, then the monitor gets shut off. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture! So if the baby isn't sick, I will get up the first time and do a feeding and I will get up a second time and do some walking around, but after that -- sweet baby is on her own.

KayLorraine · October 2013

So sorry you are going through this. You have been given some great advice. I think your LO is "trained" to be hungry at night. If you were given a full meal every night at 3am, you would start getting hungry at that time every night even though you really don't need it. I think it's the same for your LO. For my LO we tried doing a gradual stop with feeding in the MOTN. Just nursed her less each night, but it never worked. We just had to stop cold turkey. Went through a few bad nights and it got better. It still is up and down when she hits a WW, but that is how we stopped the feedings at night. If you sense that extinction is the best method, go for it--but make sure you are consistent! I think that's truly the key to sleep training. Good luck!! Keep us updated

LyssRob · October 2013

I can't offer advice, Kelly, but you have my sympathies. My guy isn't sleeping either. A "good" night means two feedings where he goes right back down...last night was ok but after one feeding he was UP and it took awhile to settle him before I gave up and brought him into bed. Bad nights we can be up 5 or 6 times. I feel your pain, and I only have one to deal with!

kelly321 · October 2013

Sagen said:

I am sorry! My baby is up every 2-3 hours, but nursing and co-sleeping makes it bearable. Is the baby in the room with you? If you aren't up to CIO you could always have her sleep in a crib by you. Set up bottles in your room, and have cups of measured formula. Then you can roll over mix it all in bed, then hand it to her if she can hold it herself. If you do CIO I wouldn't feel bad if you go that route, whatever is best for you family. That is my only advice, I am sorry though rough stuff!

We co-slept for a while, and it was great while she was sleeping well, but then when she hit the 4-month wakeful and her sleep went to pot, she kept waking DD1 up (her room shares a wall with ours). So we moved her out of our room and into our home office so that at least DD1 wasn't waking up all night. We have four rooms in our apartment - 2 bdrms, the home office, and the living room, and currently one person is sleeping in each room.

Whoever has DD2 duty sleeps on a mattress in the living room. The good news is that the person not on DD2 duty actually gets some sleep. I think that's the only thing that's kept us going this long without any hard-core sleep training.

@holly321, I may try putting DD2 in a darkened room during the day to see if that gets her to drink more. I don't know that that will solve the sleep issues, but I would feel better about cutting out her night bottles if I knew she were getting enough during the day.

Again, thank you everyone for the suggestions. I don't know whether I'll really be able to follow through on full-on extinction, but like @DC2London said, at this point it really might be the best thing for DD2 because it will (hopefully) get things over with the fastest instead of drawing it out.

And just to be clear, I have no problems with getting up a couple of times in the night. DD1 didn't STTN consistently until she was over 2 and we didn't do anything other than mild sleep training to try to cut down the number of feedings if she went over 2/night after she was about 1.5. (We did Ferber sleep association training when she was 6 months, but that worked out so fantastically that I hardly consider it sleep training.) It's the sheer number of wakings that's killing me. So maybe I'll do extinction but leave one MOTN feeding in?? I have no clue.

To make things more complicated, we're moving to our new house on Saturday, so that is sure to mess up sleep for a bit, too. And I'm sure not going to do extinction sleep training just as we move into a new house! Poor kid

I'm going to wait until I feel like she feels secure and at home before trying anything. So there's time to decide. Or for her to miraculously start STTN on her own... ha.

kelly321 · October 2013

DC2London said:

I guess that is where cosleeping comes in handy for us. I'm right there and soothing him at the first whimper so he doesn't wake up enough to start any middle of the night shenanigans. However, that's a double edged sword because, as I said, I'm right there soothing him at the first whimper. It's a survival technique for me, bc if I have to wake up long enough to walk across the house, feed him, put him back to bed, and put myself back to bed, I will NEVER get back to sleep.

So did I while we co-slept, but that meant I was still getting up like a shot to get a bottle and come back at the first whimper about 10x / night. On his "on duty" nights, DH did not. And then DD2 would really start crying and also woke up DD1 and I was mad at DH because he wasn't taking care of DD1 soon enough (he would try to see if she would fall back asleep). It was causing serious tension between DH and I, so, yeah, co-sleeping wasn't working for us after 4 months. We co-slept with DD1 until she was 9 months. I was planning on the same with DD2.

ally2011 · October 2013

You may have already said, but will she take a paci?

kelly321 · October 2013

ally2011 said:

You may have already said, but will she take a paci?

In general, yes, although we usually only give one to her in bed. Sometimes at night if we give her a paci instead of a bottle then it will keep her quiet for 30min or so (occasionally longer), but it's then a toss-up of whether I want to get up once and give her a bottle (repeated 6+ times / night) or whether I want to try a paci only to have to get up again in a few minutes to either give her a bottle or try the paci again. Rinse and repeat.

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