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September 2015 Moms
Bellarose212
member
Sleep training success stories
Bellarose212
member
I need your help ladies! My little guy is 5 months old (23 weeks) and will only sleep in his swing or my arms. He is waking up anywhere from 2-15 times a night and needs to be rocked back to sleep. I'm exhausted. My husband is working, so I am the one getting up every 30 minutes to an hour. He is napping in his swing and is basically only able to be awake for a max of 2 hours. His naps are generally 30 min-1 hour. Our bedtime routine is bath, book, bottle, singing and rocking to sleep. Then I put him in the swing once he's sound asleep. He used to sleep from 12-7 before the sleep regression happened. Since then I have been gradually moving up his bedtime by half hour segments. Now he is asleep by 10, but also gets up earlier and earlier. He wakes all night long and then wakes for a bottle at about 5, back to sleep until 7 or 8. We moved in mid January and are staying in a temporary apartment until we can finally move into our new home on 3/1. So we are in limbo and don't have a crib set up right now. We have a pack n play, but he refuses to sleep in it. I know we can't keep going on like this and need to do some sleep training. I briefly tried the CIO method, but I gave in after one minute. I'm not sure I can handle the CIO method. Does anyone have any sleep training techniques they have tried that have worked? I apologize if this topic has already been posted- I'm not always on here lately. I'd love to hear about your experiences and any advice to help me get this baby sleeping!
Re: Sleep training success stories
Idk I'd you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding but I got the no cry sleep solution by Elizabeth pantley and it's helped me. We have hit a snag due to teething but he's much better at falling asleep on his own instead of relying on being Nursed to sleep.
With the swing I would try slowly lowering the rocking level over a few weeks until he can sleep in it without motion...might help and then maybe angle the pack n play or crib with a wedge to create the swing angle. Introducing a lovey really helped my son toomey he loves it.
Good luck. I feel your pain.
oldest and just now with DD. With DD it took 2-3 nights before I saw improvement and the most she ever cried before I went in was 10 minutes. And even then she was easily soothed back to sleep by rubbing her cheek and giving her her pacifier back. I'll be honest, it was torture and I wanted to throw up all that first now but she's back to sleeping through the night, is napping so much better and is back to a sweet and happy girl.
Heres a article I found helpful. https://www.babycenter.com/0_the-ferber-method-demystified_7755.bc
There are lots of different methods- do your research and once you find what works for you stick with it and be 100% committed.
Baby Whisperer is not a fan of the swing. She would say stop using it as soon as possible. We never used one w/ DS. She also talks a lot about watching for signs of drowsiness: rubbing eyes, yawning, blank stare. As soon as we see DS yawn or get his blank stare we start bedtime routine no matter what time it is. Then attempted to put little one down while still awake. Rocking to sleep means that you'll need to rock to sleep every time LO wakes. BW also says that babies get startled when they wake up in a different place than where they fell asleep. Which leads to crying.
Our routine is bath (every other night), bottle, swaddle, walk with daddy for a few minutes in the swaddle (5-10 minutes), and lay down awake. Humidifier is usually on which provides some white noise. We've been swaddling with one arm out to try and prepare for sleeping without the swaddle once he starts rolling.
If DS wakes in the night we give him his paci, but don't take him out of his bed. If he spits paci out and starts crying more than twice we feed him.
Best of luck! This is a phase and won't last forever!
https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/monumental-guide-to-short-naps/
https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-2/
After identifying the main issue and coming up with a plan to tackle it, baby and both of us are already sleeping much, much better! He's also taking longer, more solid naps during the day. It's wonderful. I can't believe how quickly things have improved.
You can stop right there, if you like (I know I'm long-winded), but if you want details, I'll lay them out here.
The main issue for us was object permanence. Our little man had become accustomed to being nursed and bounced back to sleep after every single nightly wake. He would fall asleep in my arms, then wake up an hour later in his crib or in our bed and need to be nursed, changed, and soothed back to sleep again. First I thought that I wasn't producing enough milk. Then I thought he was teething. Nope. He was waking up in a different place, without a binky in his mouth, without his bedtime music playing, and sometimes (when in his crib) without me. That's a lot of changes and now I understand why it was such a shock to him and why he would fight falling asleep. The second of those artices goes into it in more detail.
I've never ever been a fan of the cry-it-out method, but for him to learn how to fall asleep independently and how to soothe himself back to sleep, I realized that I had to remove myself from the equation. Uuuuugh, the pain! It really isn't easy, but it went a lot better than expected, and after just two nights of a little crying (honestly, just a little!), he fell asleep on his own tonight with no tears at all. We'll see if it was a fluke or if the improvements are lasting...
I guess I'm now doing something like a modified CIO, which I swore I would never do, but there you go. We ditched the binky; he was refusing it anyway. We adjusted the bedtime routine so that feeding is not the last item on the list - bath, breast, food, pjs, books, bed. In bed, I play one of his musical soothers until he settles down, then turn it off while he's still awake. I pat him on the chest until his eyelids grow heavy, tell him that we love him, that we're right in the next room, that we'll come in if he really needs us, wish him sweet dreams, and kiss him goodnight. I make sure that he's still a little bit awake when I leave the room. (I used to put him down in a deep sleep and sneak out. Now I make it known that I'm leaving.) This way, he will fall asleep in exactly the same environment as the one he wakes up in, making it easier for him to soothe himself back to sleep. No surprises.
The first two nights at bedtime (7:00 pm), he would complain, call out, whine, and whimper. If he started to cry, I would go into the room, stand next to his crib, and pat him on the chest/shoulder, telling him that I love him and that everything is okay, that he just needs to learn to fall asleep on his own. When he relaxed and looked like he would fall back to sleep, I would leave again. I had to do this several times before he really fell asleep. Both of those nights, he slept for much longer stretches, waking every 3 hours to nurse instead of every hour. The change happened that quickly. Once he woke up just because of a wet diaper and fell back to sleep while I was changing him. Seriously miraculous.
There was one time each night that he was ready to party after nursing. I let him talk, play, whine, and work it out for himself in his crib. But as soon as there were real tears, I was right there. (Very easy since his crib is in our room.) Pat, comfort, leave to fall asleep. Probably repeat.
You have my deepest sympathy because I know how exhausted you are. And I'm sorry this is so long, but I hope there is at least something in here that will help you. Best of luck, mama!
Good luck!
The last few nights I was getting about 3-4 hours of sleep (broken of course) and trying to take care of a 2 year old and a 6 month old all day. DH and I had a talk and decided to make a change. I'm still not comfortable with CIO but I agreed to let LO fuss it out. We stay in his room at bedtime and nap time and let him whine and fuss, if it escalates to a cry I will step in and soothe but apart from that he puts himself to sleep at night (I stop soothing him as soon as he is calm). The first night was rough. I was in his room 45 min to an hour each time he woke alternatively soothing him and just kind of hanging out. However, things have improved drastically. He now is going down for naps, bedtime and MOTN awake, sometimes he talks or plays but his wakings have lessened as well. The past two nights he has only woken at 2 am and 6 am which is great for us, he is also napping wonderfully as well! Who knows how the next few days or weeks will go but I'm feeling a bit encouraged. I wanted to share my story in case any other moms are struggling with this issue or are anticipating it. I think our previous work with No Cry was helpful in the transition as he already had some self soothing skills and adjusted very quickly and painlessly. I also feel like I contributed a bit since I rarely have even let LO try to soothe himself or fuss.
ETA: We also decided to use a small lovey for naps since I can check on him frequently. He seems to find a lot of comfort in that.
The last few days I've been telling Isaac to lay down and go to sleep before naps and he actually does! I'm hoping we keep moving in a positive direction but I think putting him down awake at bedtime and naps has made a big difference in his ability to settle himself throughout the night.
Last night he slept from 12-7 am, I can't remember the last time he slept that well. I know we will have setbacks, I'm not expecting consistency or constant improvement, I just wanted him to learn how to get comfortable in his crib.
I start the long journey monday!
Thanks for all your advice I'll let u know how Monday goes!
So I became desperate for help and sleep and came on here. The stories from you all and the articles that were posted have saved us!! Last night was the first night of using a modified Ferber method. I thought a lot about our night time routine and realized I was doing it all wrong. I also talked to our daycare and she said he was putting himself to sleep for naps so I came to the conclusion that he could do it at home too. The object permanence and negative sleep associations thoughts and ideas really resonated with me. I decided to commit to some sort of sleep training for his benefit as well as mine.
I got my little man to sleep in his crib after 35 minutes of crying last night. He woke up for his first middle of the night feeding at 10pm and went back to sleep within 20 minutes. The second middle of the night feeding at 3:45am he went to sleep after 13 minutes of fussing. He's already taken two naps today. The first one was 8 minutes of crying and the second one was 5 minutes of crying. I know we still have some work to do and need to get him back to sleeping through the night. I think with how bad the last two weeks were and nursing him every time he woke up at night he might have come to rely on those night time calories again even though he didn't need them four weeks ago.
So so thank you all again for this thread. I can't believe I have already seen this kind of improvement in just a day.