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Sleep troubles :(

sweber368sweber368 member
in Babies: 3 - 6 Months
I need advice from mamas that have been through this.. All of a sudden my baby girl is having trouble going down for the night. She is incredibly happy during the day, she goes down for naps easily, and she stays asleep for the night (despite a feeding or two). The problem is getting her down without constant crying. She even cries when we are trying to calm her and rock her to sleep, therefore, we figured we will try a little bit of the cry it out method. So we do nighttime routine and then set her in her crib, check on her and soothe her in intervals. BUT we have been trying this for almost two weeks and she still cries off and on for 15 minutes to an hour! Any helpful tips or words of wisdom? Please refrain from rude comments, I am doing the best I can. :)
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Re: Sleep troubles :(

  • flclflcl member
    Not sure how old your D is but there is a good chance that she's still too young to have enough self-soothing skills, therefore too young for CIO.  What time are you putting her down?  If you notice that she's getting cranky earlier before you put her down, you may want to move up her bedtime.  
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  • sweber368sweber368 member
    Thanks for the help. My baby is 5 months old. My husband are going to try to get her down earlier, that is a good idea. Currently her bedtime is 8pm but she cries usually until 9pm. I do not want to do CIO but the problem is that she is not soothed when I am holding her or singing to her either.. and the nights that does soothe her and put her to sleep, she wakes and cries again as soon as we set her in her crib. So what is the solution? I want to mention again that the rest of the day and the rest of the night, she is a very happy, easy to soothe baby so not sure why bedtime is so tough.
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  • flclflcl member
    edited August 2014
    That's good that your D is happy during the day and naps so well.  Try moving her bedtime up a half hour first to see if that helps at all.  She may be overtired by the time 8pm rolls around and that's why she's struggling to get to sleep?  Do you have a bedtime/nap time routine?  Our nap time routine is just a condensed version of bedtime routine but we wanted to keep them similar to help signal that this is time for sleep.  GL
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  • TeacherVickyTeacherVicky member
    8pm is a late bedtime for a 5m old. I would aim for 7pm, she's probably overtired which is why she's struggling to go down. 

    What time does she have her last nap of the day? How long is it? 
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  • *sparky**sparky* member
    I agree with the PPs - try moving her bedtime up earlier.  She is likely overtired.  Also make sure you have a consistent bedtime routine so she knows it's bedtime.  My DD can start getting cranky in the evening but as soon as I take her into the bathroom she chills out because she knows she's going to bed soon.

     

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  • megsue114megsue114 member
    Im in THE SAME BOAT. My 5mo old does go to be around 7-730 based on watching her cues. She screams MURDEROUSLY (doing it right now actually) and I just don't know what to do. I feel the same way about CIO - don't want to do it, but at what point does she learn to "self soothe" if I rock/nurse her to sleep EVERY TIME (naps too).  I can't hold her every second! She has only fallen asleep for bedtime on her own once and the other times she wakes up within 10 min of putting her down. I cant hold her all night... that will do her a disservice later. What other options do I have other than letting her cry for 15min, going to check on her and settling down, and leaving. Eventually I just give up and hold her til I go to bed. (Last night took 7 attempts, we're on #5 tonight... It 830, I still haven't eaten.) I don't know what else to do. I can't hold her ALL. THE. TIME. Putting her down drowsy has not worked at all - she sees me leave and the meltdown begins. At least if I put her down asleep I can usually get in a pee before she wakes up pissed. FEELING SO GUILTY because I read someone else's post recently saying babies can't self-soothe, they just give up hope that you'll go to them. SUPER mom guilt trip!
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  • MommyAttyMommyAtty member
    You don't need to CIO but you do need to get your LOs used to going to bed drowsy. For my first one, we used Baby Whisperer. It worked great. With the second, that didn't work so we went with Happiest Baby on the Block. The absolutely biggest thing is to not associate bed with eating. If feeding time is falling near bedtime, we do bottle downstairs, then go upstairs for bath, pjs, cuddle, song, and into the crib. For a while he needed shushing and pats, but we are beyond that now. The moment we lay him down with his white noise machine on he starts doing slow blinks and he's out within about 5 minutes. He sleeps 7:30 to 5:30 or 6:00. You may need to try a couple of different things, and remember some babies need to fuss a little before going to sleep, which is different from crying, as it's their only way of getting out their emotions. My 2yo goes thru phases where she will fuss for about 5 minutes before going to sleep, which now includes phrases like "I still have time!" And "I not going to bed. I not I not I not." Then her protests get progressively quieter before she's snoozing with her little butt up in the air.
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    edited August 2014
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  • jenn43jenn43 member
    I personally don't think CIO is a bad thing, as long as your child is mature enough to self-soothe.  General recommendations are to wait until 6 months, but there are a few places where I've read 4 months is okay as well  (Yes, I realize that many people on this board think that is wrong- I'm just sharing another point of view).  Dr. Weissbluth's book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, is one of these sources.  He is a pediatrician and a sleep expert.  I think it's great to do no-cry methods, if that's what works for your family.  But for my family that resulted in me having to hold my baby all night long (co-sleeping is not an option for us for a variety of reasons).  The check and console methods are an option, but there is some data to suggest that they result in more overall crying than just the extinction method (where you leave the baby and don't go back in as long as the baby isn't giving a distress cry).  My baby never would be consoled in his crib- either I held him or he cried.  So we did do CIO at 4 months.  Again, I realize this makes me a horrible mother in some eyes.  But this is what worked for us.  And there is a big difference between a baby's distress cry (consistently loud wailing) and an "I'm unhappy" cry (tapers off, then revs up again).  As long as I didn't hear a distress cry, I didn't go in.  We had two nights where he cried a half hour.  We had a couple nights where he cried 15 minutes. It's been a week and a half, and now he cries for about 10 seconds.  So this worked for us.  And I think one advantage of doing CIO earlier rather than later- say at 10 or 12 months- is that the routine of being held is a lot less ingrained, and thus easier to break, meaning less crying.  

    From what you say, your little girl is crying an hour or so with check and console- she might do better if you just leave her, as it's possible going in there just gets her wound up.  But do what works for you- you are a good mama, you love your baby, and you know her best.  You are not going to hurt her if you leave her to cry for a little while.  And a well rested baby (and mama!) is a happy baby!
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  • sweber368sweber368 member
    Thank you fellow mamas for all your great advice! We have implemented an earlier bedtime(6:30-7), about 2 hours after her last nap. We decided to hold off on the CIO for now but I do own the Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child and if we are still having trouble at 6 months, we plan to try that again. So if you are willing to give me more advice, this is where we are at now...
    So she is now 5 months and we have been working on sleep training for almost a month. She takes two good quality naps during the day and then we start our consistent, yet brief nighttime routine about 630 or 7. We rock her until she is drowsy enough or asleep and lay her in her crib. Sometimes(rarely) she goes to sleep and we are good for the rest of the night but more commonly she cries(distressed cry). We then pick her up and try to soothe her or just rub her back, etc. but it doesn't work. Even when we hold her, she still cries usually. This goes on for two hours most nights. We are just not sure what else to try.. any ideas?
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  • jenn43jenn43 member
    Does she only cry if you lay her in her crib?  That is, if you hold her will she fall asleep in your arms without crying?  If she will, you could just try holding her for that first hour or hour and a half until she is deep into a sleep cycle, then put her down in her crib.  This worked with my LO for several weeks, and he would sleep the rest of the night in his crib.  It's a little inconvenient to have to hold her that long, but I really enjoyed the snuggles (as long as I hit the bathroom first, and brought a book and a glass of water!)
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  • sweber368sweber368 member
    No, that is the problem. Many times she is not soothed when I pick her up. She might cry less but she is still upset.

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