Help! A sleep training follow up question....

JBDamonM · February 2014

Sooooo, last week we successfully sleep trained LO

life was blissful around here and then of course Mr. Murphy (of Murphys law) showed up Monday afternoon when daycare called to tell me she had a fever.

I have self diagnosed her with a virus. Really such a non event I did not even call the pedi (although may tomorrow)....her temp never went above 100.5 (although they said she was over 101 at daycare)....fever diminished within 20 min of first dose of Tylenol, and although she had slight temp this AM, like I said barely 100. No tylenol since 8am and no temp either. She does have a runny nose and diarrhea, but all in all no biggy.

My question though is what do I do about her sleeping? Last night I gave her Motrin (as I thought fever would return)....she only woke up once. I rubbed her back a couple minutes, she went back to sleep and did not wake up again until 630.

No meds tonight but she's already been up once. What's the best way to handle this? I obviously don't want to undo my sleep training but also know she's not 100% and may need me. Help!! This I am so confused.

Mnerani · February 2014

This is tricky and you just have to use your intuition. When DS is sick, I generally try to let him get himself back to sleep without me. He's never been seriously ill- just little colds and small fevers. If he can't, then I go in.

The good news is, I've found that once he learned to sleep through the night, whatever got us off track (illness, travel) was easy to recover from. It's like once they learn it, you don't have to completely start over. Maybe it just takes a couple of nights after they've healed or you've returned from a trip, to get back on track. Hopefully that takes some of the stress away from your MOTN decision making!

TJ1979 · February 2014

Like PPs, I give E a solid ten minutes to go back to sleep on her own. She usually does. If she is up crying for more than 10 minutes, I go in. If she's up longer than 10 but not crying, I let her work it out. And she usually goes right back to sleeping fine after she is well again.

JBDamonM · February 2014

Thanks ladies. I'm feeling better about my approach after reading these. The first night I went right in - b/c I wasn't sure if we were dealing with a serious illness - i.e. pain.

Last night I let her go about 15 minutes each time (she woke up twice) but then ended up in there re-djusting her and rubbing her back for about 5 minutes. Knowing that she's on the track to getting better, I will let her go longer tonight if she wakes up. There has been a few times it's taken her 20 plus minutes to go back to sleep on her own.

THanks for the help

pb_bride · February 2014

M was sick for 2 weeks recently, and our nights were h*ll! He woke up at least once every night MOTN, and he would SCREAM his head off. DH & I went through sleep training with him before, but this screaming was so painful to listen to that we could not stand it after a few minutes. Plus M's crying and screaming would keep escalate. DH is usually the one to go comfort M... sometimes it takes 15-30 minutes of singing just to get M calm enough to go back to sleep. There were 2 nights that M kept waking up over and over again, and crying each time DH left the room. I ended up sleeping the rest of the night in his room for one night, and DH did the other night.

I honestly thought it would NEVER end. In the past when M got sick, it would be bad for 3-4 nights but never for 2 weeks nonstop!

I thought M has gotten used to waking up screaming so he could get DH to come down. Finally his cold went away (seriously, it took 2 wks) and he popped his 3rd molar. For the past 3 nights M went back to STTN again, so life is good.

mcgeeva · February 2014

If she is definitely past being sick I would also have her put herself back to sleep. I swear any little change they know if I cry mama will come back to put me to bed and from then on it gets worse. So definitely do what makes you feel best. You would just hate to mess up your hard work!

Dragonfly1226 · February 2014

If DS was sick, we always did whatever we needed to do to help him feel better. We put all our sleep training on hold until he was better. You will find that there are things that will throw sleep off - illness, teething, traveling,... There will be times when you have to do a little retraining, but in my experience retraining is usually quick and easy. Once they learn to self sooth they can fall back to that routine. I hope your DD feels better soon!

boymomstrong · February 2014

TJ1979 said:
Like PPs, I give E a solid ten minutes to go back to sleep on her own. She usually does. If she is up crying for more than 10 minutes, I go in. If she's up longer than 10 but not crying, I let her work it out. And she usually goes right back to sleeping fine after she is well again.

This is exactly what we do too, 10 min is our max for crying...

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