sleep problems

cocobean2011 · November 2013

my DD will be 6 months old next week and until recently she's been a great sleeper. she would normally wake up once a night, sometimes twice (not often). slept through the night sometimes even 4-5 nights in a row. at night she sleeps anywhere from 10-12 hours. good napper (3 naps a day, minimum 45 min). easy to go down at night, and i saw her self soothe many times, although not consistently.

things changed dramatically the last 3-4 nights. she refuses to go down, i can't even nurse her to sleep. she'll fall asleep in our arms, and wake up screaming as soon as i put her in her crib. when she finally falls asleep (it takes us 1-2 hours to get her asleep) she wakes up every few hours. doesn't even want to nurse, mostly screams at the breast, and even while we are holding her. she's up at least 30 min, sometimes an hour at a time during the 4-5 times she wakes up in the middle of the night. i'm giving her highland teething tablets at night before she goes down and gripe water because she definitely has had nights where i could tell she had painful gas. she's not drooling too much and her gums are not inflamed, so i'm not sure she's teething. she chews on everything, but she's been doing that since she discovered her hands 3-4 months ago. she seems ok during the day and continues to go down for naps pretty easy.

is this normal?? my husband and i are exhausted and desperately need a solution. i know we've been lucky she's been such a good sleeper, and a few nights is really not bad for a sleepless baby, but it's even harder because we are not used to this. i'm considering sleep training, but i'm not really on board with CIO (my husband wants to try, but i'm not so sure). i'm currently reading the no-cry sleep solution and the ferber book and hopefully they'll give me some ideas.

if anyone has any advice or similar experiences, i'd love to hear them.

tia

JilllyBean · November 2013

Could be a growth spurt

jayro10 · November 2013

No advice. Just wanted to say that I could've written your post myself! My LO will be 6 months in two weeks and for over a week now, has been sleeping terribly. We basically have to hold her for most of the night, or she won't sleep at all. I'm thinking it's just a phase that will pass (soon, I hope!)

I'm also reading NCSS because we aren't into doing any CIO method. Have you heard of the Wonder Weeks? Right now, my LO is in the stormy 5th leap and all of the things she's doing are signs of this leap.

steelerbaby29 · November 2013

Could be starting to teeth. Signs of teething can happen up to a couple months before they actually cut a tooth for some babies. I have read that when babies are getting ready to do something big (crawl, sit un-supported, walking, etc) they can have sleeping issues. You said she has had some painful gas some nights, I would look into that more, that could also be an issue. It's probably really tough but hopefully it's just a phase and will soon pass.

taraleanne · November 2013

We had a couple of weird nights like that too and my DS was usually a good sleeper too, just like yours. I think it could be a couple of things - teething or growth spurt/wonder weeks like the previous posters suggested. Or about to do something new and exciting!! Hopefully it just passes for you as quickly as it came.

re: sleep training, I'm not opposed to using gentle methods to help a baby learn to fall asleep by him or herself, I'm not a fan of CIO, I think there are better solutions but everyone has their own reasons. If your baby is over 6months, then why not help her learn to fall asleep and self soothe? My son stopped nursing to sleep when he was about 2.5 months old. He wouldn't do it to SAVE MY LIFE. You'd think he was asleep, bat an eye lash or clear your throat and he woke. Or, he'd be nursing quietly, pull off the breast and look at me as if to say "i'm done, but I'm not asleep, ha!!" For a looooong time we did what any parent would do, rock him to sleep. I used to do squats some nights, lol. One particularly terrible evening when my husband was on night shift, I was rocking him for nearly an hour- his eyes would spring open then close, open, close...repeat. Eventually I had to put him down so I could go pee!! I gave him a soother, the room was dimly lit and I had the sound machine on. When I returned, he was not crying and he was very still, just starring into space. I watched him fall asleep on his own. I was stunned. Since then that's pretty much what we do, put him down. He is often way too distracted by my face to fall asleep in my arms. He will sometimes let us rock him but mostly that is for naps, at bedtime he sometimes squirms in my arms until I put him down!! It's crazy. I say that HE sleep trained ME!! lol Does he go down without tears every night? No, but most of the time he does. Lately he's actually nursed to sleep at bedtime so I go with it. But if he wakes and cries then I hold him or pick him up and put him down or just stay by his side and rub his head or cuddle him till he falls asleep or whatever. Mostly however, he is put down awake and I kiss his head and walk away, within minutes he's asleep. Never EVER CIO. So, yeah, there is a way to sleep "train" without tears.

good luck!!!

MagickalNarwhal · November 2013

I would probably not worry about sleep training a baby who's a good sleeper but having a rough week. Something is probably going on, as a pp suggested. A week of disrupted sleep is not really a problem in the big picture even though it sucks when you're in it.

If you want to experiment with some gentle options that could be great. I would really hesitate to do CIO at this point though.

We ultimately did do CIO with our older kid at 7 months after trying every gentle method we could find with no success. We even hired a sleep coach! What you described happening the last few days was fairly typical for my son from 4 months on; he was chronically sleep deprived, getting no more than 10 hrs sleep in a 24 hr period, sometimes as little as 8.5 or 9. He was usually unhappy. After 3 months of this something needed to change so we did do CIO.

So, I'm not opposed to sleep training. But I think jumping to CIO after your baby has a few days of uncharacteristically poor sleep (after what sounds like uncharacteristically GOOD sleep for the better part of 6 months) is a bit premature.

MagickalNarwhal · November 2013

taraleanne said:

...Mostly however, he is put down awake and I kiss his head and walk away, within minutes he's asleep. Never EVER CIO. So, yeah, there is a way to sleep "train" without tears.

I agree that CIO is not the best option for this scenario, That said, I wanted to point out that your comment may hold true for your baby, but it's not universal. Just like CIO doesn't work for all kids, no-tears methods don't work for all kids.

taraleanne · November 2013

MagickalNarwhal said:

taraleanne said:

...Mostly however, he is put down awake and I kiss his head and walk away, within minutes he's asleep. Never EVER CIO. So, yeah, there is a way to sleep "train" without tears.

I agree that CIO is not the best option for this scenario, That said, I wanted to point out that your comment may hold true for your baby, but it's not universal. Just like CIO doesn't work for all kids, no-tears methods don't work for all kids.

You are probably right, I wouldn't know any different because I'm a FTM. Every baby is different right! 2months is early to stop nursing to sleep on his own, my doctor said so this is probably why it didn't take him too long to learn to fall asleep on his own but mostly you hear about how you shouldn't sleep "train" before 6months. I use the word "train" loosely because I don't like to think of it as training, I like to think of it as gently giving your baby the opportunity to fall asleep independently when they seem ready for it. Again, this is just my experience. I don't know what it's like otherwise, I always just followed his cues. And it hasn't always been easy. Even as we speak my DH is rocking him for a nap because once again, we missed that damn window of opportunity to fall asleep on his own! Oh well

In any case hopefully the OP will have some luck in a no-cry solution. No matter what, it takes patience from mama

That's the hardest part.

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