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Working Moms
laujam31
member
LO's sleep. Advice. Vent.
laujam31
member
in Working Moms
LO is 8.5 months old and I have been back to work since he was 8 weeks old. (Less summer vacation- teacher) Up until AUgust he was a great sleeper. Down at 7:30 up at 3 to eat and back down until 6. In August he started solids, we moved and he transitioned to his own room. Sleeping has been a disaster since. At the 4 month appnt, dr said that solids would make him sleep through the night. At the 6 month appnt we were told to start sleep training, but I went back to work and dh started 6pm -2 am shift. We were both too exhausted to do cio. We tried for about 3 days and then he had a sore throat and after he cut 2 teeth and I couldn't let him scream at night knowing he was in pain. Now he is up 4-5 times a night. I'm scared to do anything now bc he stands up in the crib and doesn't really have great balance. I don't want him to fall.
On top of that, he WAS ebf until last week. My mom, sister and dh would not let up on having me try a formula bottle at night swearing it would make him sleep through the night. I finally caved bc dh told me that I wasn't being fair because he was tired too and lo wakes up as he is trying to sleep. Not my supply has totally tanked AND he isn;t sleeping any better.
I don't know what to do. We are both so tired and between work, commuting and trying to get the new house settled and spend time with him, I have NO time to read up on multiple forms of sleep training.
I don't really know what I'm asking for. Maybe similar stories? Your fav sleep training method? Just tell me this too shall pass? Vent? Uhgh What can I do here?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: LO's sleep. Advice. Vent.
ugh i know this feeling! first--i agree that you need to do whats right for your family. for some CIO works, for others it doesnt. we got into a habit of feeding DS every time he woke up which was like once or twice a night and sometimes he was up for an hour. My pedi told us this was a bad habit so i finally wound up throwing 5 pacis in his crib...when he woke up crying (not screaming but whining , etc) i would leave him. 90% of the time he found a paci and put himself back to sleep. This was all around 9 mos and it has worked for a month. This week however DS is really sick with a bad cough and cold and i think a slight touch of a stomach bug so sleep has gone out the window and im doing everything I can to just keep him comfortable. When he wakes up I try to feed him, we have thrown him in a steam shower at 2am to help him breathe, hes laid in bed with us and watched Bubble Guppies. When hes feeling better we will get back to better habits which may include him still waking and looking for us and we need to not give in so easily. Good luck to you--being exhausted and working is so hard....and hearing LO cry is even harder.
If you think its teething related def try baby advil at night that has worked wonders for our DS when hes teething.
For DS, the temporary solution was bedsharing because I could sleep while he nursed. This might work well for you to increase your supply BUT not everyone is cool with it. For DD, sleeping in her crib was essential. We only did sleep training at bedtime (Ferber). We couldn't do it with night wakings because her screaming would wake DS. It helped. So did blackout curtains, a sound machine, and a consistent routine.
I always fed my babies when they woke at night. Both self-weaned from night feedings around a year (DD was 14 months, but she had issues with solids). I realize this is not always the case but I just want to point out that even "bad" habits are usually outgrown or fairly easy to correct with babies and young children.
As pp have mentioned all babies and families are different so what works for one will not for another.
I will say for us the only way we survived teething from around 8months to 10.5months was using children's Advil at bedtime. It bothered me at first to depend so much on medication and to be consistently dosing DD at bedtime, but it was so apparent that she was in pain and when we would forget to give her the medicine we were always in for a bad night. Most of the time even a half dose would let her STTN.
On a side note we never sleep trained DD successfully. We attempted both a modified CIO with interval checks and a straight CIO and failed at both. DD would become hysterical and her cries would just intensify as time went on. Around a year she finally grew out of crying and letting us know about her night waking. I know at 19months she still will wake up 1-2 times a night. I have seen her awake on our video monitor in the middle of the night. However, she will put herself back to sleep within 5-20minutes with no fussing or crying.
Agree, and teach your kid to plop to his bottom from standing. I did this with both mine before they learned to pull up on their own, and never had the "Help, I can't get down!" cries from the crib.
Also, if there are other factors at play (i.e.teething or sickness), there is nothing wrong with giving a dose of baby tylenol before bed to make him more comfortable.
My second baby slept well, but kept getting up once in the middle of the night wanting to eat. I switched from formula to water for those feedings and after a few nights, he started sleeping straight through.
There is no blanket solution and different methods work for different families. However, if you are not happy with the way things are, you should definitely be working toward a solution. Whatever you choose to do, you must be consistent and follow through to see good results.
First of all I think you've gotten some bad advice from your pedi. Starting solids at 4 month to sleep better?? Must sleep train at 6 months??? These are very old-school views and you have to do your own research and decide what's right for your family.
First of all, it sounds like supplementing was not your idea and not something you are happy with. In that case I would STOP formula and pump and nurse as frequently as possible to get the supply back up. It is possible to increase it again!
Second, you don't HAVE to do CIO. These are personal decisions. Some people sleep train some don't. There is no Right or Wrong choice here. My kids were not great sleepers at 8 months. I read the Ferber book to have all the information but decided against this methodology. Instead I followed the suggestions in the No Cry Sleep Solution book - routines, lovey, consistency in night-time approach, can't remember all others. By the time they were 1 both slept very well without ever being "sleep trained". Yes there will be regressions because of illnesses, developmental milestones, etc. But "this too shall pass."
good luck!
Are you comfortable co sleeping? DD has been in our bed since she was born. Around 5 months she got comfortable enough in her crib to spend the first half of the night there and then we would bring her in after her first wakeup.
Cosleeping has been a lifesaver for us. I couldn't imagine getting up 4/5 times per night and DH is no help at night. You really should try it. Plus, the all night cuddles are awesome.
Is your DH willing to help you at night? My DH is not all that happy with cosleeping but we've been doing it since DD was born and he deals with it. He's the first one to complain about having her in our bed but ever since she was a couples months old when she woke up in the middle of the night he is so tired that he doesn't even try to put her back in her crib. Or he just flat out wouldn't get up and I was left with doing all of the night wakings.
My DH wakes up at 4am and has a 2 hour drive but the way I see it is I work full time too and am just as exhausted as he is. Sorry, if you're not going to help me at night then I'm going to do what's easiest for me. Your DH needs rest but so do you. I would ask him to split the night wakings with you. If he won't then I would talk to him again about cosleeping. Sometimes you have to do whatever you can at night to get the most sleep so you can get through the day.
But he could be waking up out of habit now. Does he take a paci? What do you typically do when he wakes up to get him back down?
I 100% agree with the poster who said that whatever you do, you have to be consistent. If you're going to do some variation of CIO, you and your husband need to do it the same way every night. If you think it is teething pain, give a small dose of infant ibuprofen before bed.
Good luck. Sleep is vital in our house for ALL of us to function, I imagine how frustrated and exhausted you are.