@arhodes6 The first week is so so hard! It does get easier! I promise. I vacuumed and did dishes while she cried. But I definitely had days where I sat outside her room crying and eating lots of chocolate though. And there were times when I gave up and held her. But now she gets 2hr naps and sleeps through the night with no crying or fussing. She actually gets upset when I don't put her in her crib at the right time now. Being unswaddled helped so much because she could suck her thumb. You are doing so great!! Just keep at it! One time sleeping on you won't hurt.
@shaylalr thanks that makes me feel better! I seriously almost cried reading your response. I know this is for the best, but it is breaking my heart! Luckily my husband is home for Thanksgiving starting today so he can help during nap time! I'm going to go on a walk today while DH deals with the crying
@arhodes6 I'm glad to hear you are having good success with sleep training. We are on week 2 and it's been wishy washy. LO WAS sleeping okay at night with 1 to 2 wake ups for feedings and now it's been 3 to 4 wake-ups since we stopped swaddling and no paci. Naps are not great but DH has been putting him down the same time after picking up from daycare. He usually cries the entire time he is put down. I pray it will get easier but I feel like LO CANNOT miss what's going on during the day. It's just simply too much fun and interesting to sleep!
@Jodi1980 my LO has FOMO too lol! He loves being out and about more than he likes being at home. I swear people think I'm lying when I say he does get fussy because in public he is an angle. I think that's one reason we have nap issues too. He doesn't want to miss out!
@arhodes6 Omg YES! Same with L! We take her places...she's amazing. So entertained by her surroundings. Loves being held and walked around. She's even gotten better about letting friends hold her! I swear she'll be smiling right up until we leave. Get in the car...or get home...and she becomes impossible to get down. We don't typically try and put her right to sleep ever. We always run through at least some part of the routine but we laugh to ourselves the nights we're challenged because not an hour prior she was complimented on how great she was, hahaha! Babies. They have a mind of their own sometimes!
I thought the every 2 hours wake ups were torture. The last two nights it has been every 45 minutes. Sometimes he's just fussy and I can't get him back aldeep unless we get up and I rock him. Sometimes it's hunger. I have found myself crawling back into bed with him in my arms, still rocking, and falling back asleep. Then we sleep a few hours. It's no ideal but a momma gotta do what a momma gotta do. However I am finally getting him to nap during the day. Which has allowed me to get housework done (woo!)
I hope this doesn't last much longer. Has anyone else had their sleep regression last a month or more?
I'm happy to say that Lucian is finally grasping Sleep Sense (we are 3 weeks in) for both sleep and naps! Don't get me wrong, we still put him down and he'll cry but it's been proven much success because he's starting to realize how to put himself to sleep without me of DH help! I'm so proud for baby boy! Best advice I can give to skeptics is I was one! As long as you are consistent and put them down the SAME time every day for both naps and sleep and have your nightly routine, it WILL work! Not more paci or being held for comfort! He goes down with his peter rabbit security blanket and will drift off!
@Jodi1980 Yay I'm glad it's working for you! I have given up for now. Q will cry for over 2 hours before passing out from exhaustion. It's terrible. He has lost his voice he cried so much!! So last night, after I had a major melt down and bawled so hard I was hyperventilating, I decided it's not for us right now. I went in there, picked him up and he fell asleep instantly! I snuggled him for like 10 min before putting him down, but he slept through the night after that. Maybe we will try again in a while, but the whole reason I was doing it was because we had to start unswaddling him, but he has figured it out and for now this is what I need to do for my sanity.
@arhodes6 you definitely have to do what is best for you and your LO. What works for some, doesn't work for others. I think we have to listen to what our LOs are saying and what our mothers intuition tells us is best.
@arhodes6 I'm so sorry it didn't work out. I've heard some babies aren't ready until closer to 6 months. Maybe try a no-cry method.
It's been a week now and she barely fights naps anymore I can usually put her down and she'll just talk until she falls asleep. she cries sometimes, but its no more than 5 minutes. I was lucky she never cried longer than 15 minutes. I wouldn't have kept going otherwise. I am too much of a wimp. She took a few on hour long baps which it had been a month since the last time she had done that. She also is just getting up 2x a night instead of every hour. Thank goodness.
Oh we and successfully transitioned her to the crib!
We started sleep training on Sunday, she slept perfectly through the night when swaddled and recently when we transitioned to the one arm swaddle, but as soon as we took the swaddle away all hell has broke loose. Last night she cried for 3 hours before she fell asleep. I feel so conflicted, should I continue the one arm swaddle or continue sleep training. I need sleep, but I don't want to continue to swaddle especially when she just started rolling over. I really hope it improves because I feel so awful doing CIO, but I am committed since my husband and I have made it through 2 nights.
Hopefully it gets better tonight, because I just feel like crying, it hurts so much to hear and see her cry.
I'm torn on the real value of CIO....it did help, in the sense she can/will be put down in her crib drowsy and with hardly any fuss fall asleep on her own.....but it has NOT got us sleeping through the night!!! I don't know what more to do. She still gets up every 4 hours on a good night....2-3 on the bad ones. I don't get it!!!! Yesterday she had 4oz bottles at 7:45am, 1:20pm and 4:20pm.....a "final" 7:20pm feeding and went to sleep around 8:30 after bath, etc. Up at 12am....3am and again at 5:30am!! At 5:30am, I told my husband lets see where this really goes....she cannot be hungry!! She didn't full on CRY but played/fussed until 6:15 when I finally grabbed her and fed her again. We then returned her to her crib and she was asleep when I left at 7am for work, but doesn't sound like it lasted long. She's now doing her daytime routine with my mom while I work. My mom documents everything so hopefully we can look for patterns and tweak things if necessary. Are there babies that just refuse to sleep through the night?!? LOL
The CIO is by far probably the hardest thing you do for LO! I kept telling myself (what she says in the book) every time he cried, that's how LO is communicating....he cannot talk, he's not in pain and he just drank 5 oz. of formula! I read that book about 4-5 times just to make sure I did everything okay and didn't miss a beat for fear I would tarnish him for life....LOL To @arhodes6 and all other mamas: you will get your groove with your LO! Just gotta find their nitch! I swear what a stinker he is in the three weeks into this....he'll cry somedays for a while and then after he falls to sleep. I then check him after he wakes up and he's got the biggest smile on his face. It just reassures me that he's going to be okay!
edited: I wanted to add that we swaddled too for bed every night after a nice warm bottle and he would drift off so much easier than not being swaddled so when I read to stop swaddling, I was extremely reluctant. He had to learn how to self sooth without the security and warmth of a swaddle and that was tough but he did it! Aside from that, we have had a tough time with his hands because as he moves during the night, he likes to scratch his scalp until it bleeds and the sides of his head are pretty bad. We tried baby mitts but they just come off in the middle of the night. So now we have a well rested child with self inflicted scratches to his noggin. We may have to resort to ace bandages.
@Jodi1980 OMG we had the same problem with the scratching!! I finally found something that works!!! I hope this works for you too we have had no scratching since using this. Look up "scratch sleeves" on Amazon
I totally get what you mean about not being sure about CIO and it's value. M is 19 weeks, and although we haven't started sleep training, she still wakes up to eat in the middle of the night. Sometimes once, sometimes 2-3x. It's honestly what's detoured me from even trying. She's not eating to eat, she's truly ravenous and hungry. She still cluster feeds most nights before she falls asleep for her longest stretch too.
@TiffRox81 I understand about CIO. Question: are you feeding Formula or BM? 4 hours for a BF/BM baby is normal. The APA says 6 hours is "through the night" for FF. 2-3 is rough though.
@LDSJM123 Glad I'm not alone!!! I will say by the super early morning wakes, I'll get her out to nurse her and most times she is asleep within 2 minutes. I can't imagine she's gotten much of anything from that time, lol. But sometimes she eats for a while each time!! Of course I'm not sure if she spits any of it back up. If I weren't flat exhausted I'd watch her for an hour or so after out of curiosity!!
@FTM53 She's about 97% BM. So basically I shouldn't consider getting the longer stretches until she starts solids next month? lol
Last night was a good night!! Went to bed at 7:30....up at 1am and then 5am. At 5am I put her back in her crib and she was still asleep when I was leaving at 7am! I'm guessing she woke up soon after though. But, for the heck of it....because so many people told me it was their miracle ingredient to getting them longer sleep stretches I did throw some rice cereal in the two daytime bottles she had with my mom. Not sure if that was what worked or not.
@TiffRox81 my pediatrician actually said until the first year when they transaction to full solids. So yea...a bit of cereal in her nighttime bottle (if you give one) should help. Think of BM like a grilled chicken salad - yummy, but you'll probably be hungry a few hours later-vs steak and potatoes - will last you all night. BM just gets used up and processed by their bodies so much more efficiently.
@TiffRox81 E goes down by herself and hasn't slept through the night ever besides a couple random days when she was younger. She still gets up once or twice a night to eat.
Ahh!! I'm thankful there are some of you with babies not sleeping through the night. I felt like everything I read was everyone being so content with their little miracle sleepers, haha!!
Lots of my friends have babies and yet I know no one in real life that has babies sleeping through the night right now! DD2 is waking up 2-4 times per night.
Q used to sleep through the night and I thought we got lucky with a good sleeper. Ha! Wow has that changed! That's one of the reasons we wanted to do sleep training (that and he needs to be unswaddled)! Unfortunately sleep training wasn't for us right now so I'm at a loss of what to do to get back to sleeping through the night. He doesn't wake up to eat often, maybe twice a week, but he wakes up multiple times a night and the second I pick him up he falls asleep. I know it's normal at this age to go through a regression because their sleep cycles change To be more like adults, so I'm just bidding my time until things get better! Hopefully sooner rather than later
Yeah definitely not sleeping thru the night. I consider it a success if we get a 3 hour stretch before periods of wake. Sometimes it's due to hunger, others he just wakes up upset. Just when I think we have a routine, he changes it up!
@arhodes6 That is exactly how J was until last week. I've been better about not rushing right over and she falls back asleep 50% of the time. Hoping she outgrows it soon because while she falls right back to sleep, mama takes a bit to get back to sleep.
Last night W was up 10 times between 7 and midnight. I'd settle him, put him back down and in 15 mins he was up again. At midnight MH got home and W slept on his chest until 3am, then freaked out when he put him down. So from 3-7am he slept on my lap attached to my poor raw boobs. Tell me there's an end to this.
I'm hoping we're all approaching some sleep relief @jennyleigh16!! That's super rough. Are you back at work? My coffee intake has already tripled now that I've had to come back to work. Our pedi gave us hope that around 6 months things change - solids and as they can sit independently more play that genuinely wears them out. We're all almost there!!
joining the sleep regression grp here! extra coffee is getting me thr the days this week. pediatrician said may b time to sleep train. Declan was sleeping thr the night for a good few weeks without me doing anything but not now!
So I've started putting LO down on his side. He's able to roll from side-back without issue and he just sleeps so much more soundly on his side. He usually rolls to his anyway and often find that he's rolled the other way sometime during the night.
Yesterday the doctor called 6 hours "sleeping through the night" so I guess in that sense...sure she is, except this last week and a half or so. I dunno how I went through college on so little sleep lol
My mom has Layla M-T. Never got anything less than an hour nap out of her. Typically she'd take a 2 hour and a 1 hour. I'm now off on Fridays so we've been home together today. I've gotten 30 minutes. ONE 30 minute nap. Wtf.
@TiffRox81 I'm lucky enough to have the year off in Canada so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I cut out caffeine when he started sleeping so poorly thinking that might help. (It didnt make a difference) My decaf coffee in the morning doesn't quite fill the void.
Jaxon was sleeping up to 8 hours at just 6-7 weeks old, then it was 6 hours and more recently every 2-3. He's 18 weeks old now and I miss the very sleepy newborn I had. He fights me to take a 30 min nap during the day. He also lost some weight from sleeping! Kinda thankful he's waking now.
The boy has figured out how to bounce himself so hard in his little seat he can now move around the living room. Help. Me. It's almost 11 here and he's finally down for the night. Bedtime was supposed to be at 9:30. He's a fighter!
Mine was STN at like 6 weeks and we thought we had the best baby ever. For the past month it's been up every 3 hours and last night (exactly 4 months) was every 45 mins... welcome to the sleep regression for us.
Also, is there some rule that if the baby goes down easily, you can't fall asleep to save your life? She's been down since 9 and I'm just tossing and turning
My twins sleep pretty good at night (they wake up twice between 6:30 pm and 7:30 am) but holy eff are they terrible nappers. I spend all day fighting them to sleep and by the time DH gets home from work I'm like they're all yours dude. It's exhausting! What is everyone else doing to get their LOs to nap?
Camille usually takes a 1-3 hour nap in the mornings after eating. The evenings are harder bc she fights it so bad. She's waking once at night usually to eat and back out. Unfortunately she's still in the rock n play and thinking about transitioning stresses me out. One night in the pack n play sounded like a WWE wrestling match.
Re: Sleep Regressions/Sleep Help
@Jodi1980 my LO has FOMO too lol! He loves being out and about more than he likes being at home. I swear people think I'm lying when I say he does get fussy because in public he is an angle. I think that's one reason we have nap issues too. He doesn't want to miss out!
I hope this doesn't last much longer. Has anyone else had their sleep regression last a month or more?
It's been a week now and she barely fights naps anymore I can usually put her down and she'll just talk until she falls asleep. she cries sometimes, but its no more than 5 minutes. I was lucky she never cried longer than 15 minutes. I wouldn't have kept going otherwise. I am too much of a wimp. She took a few on hour long baps which it had been a month since the last time she had done that. She also is just getting up 2x a night instead of every hour. Thank goodness.
Oh we and successfully transitioned her to the crib!
Hopefully it gets better tonight, because I just feel like crying, it hurts so much to hear and see her cry.
To @arhodes6 and all other mamas: you will get your groove with your LO! Just gotta find their nitch! I swear what a stinker he is in the three weeks into this....he'll cry somedays for a while and then after he falls to sleep. I then check him after he wakes up and he's got the biggest smile on his face. It just reassures me that he's going to be okay!
edited: I wanted to add that we swaddled too for bed every night after a nice warm bottle and he would drift off so much easier than not being swaddled so when I read to stop swaddling, I was extremely reluctant. He had to learn how to self sooth without the security and warmth of a swaddle and that was tough but he did it! Aside from that, we have had a tough time with his hands because as he moves during the night, he likes to scratch his scalp until it bleeds and the sides of his head are pretty bad. We tried baby mitts but they just come off in the middle of the night. So now we have a well rested child with self inflicted scratches to his noggin. We may have to resort to ace bandages.
I totally get what you mean about not being sure about CIO and it's value. M is 19 weeks, and although we haven't started sleep training, she still wakes up to eat in the middle of the night. Sometimes once, sometimes 2-3x. It's honestly what's detoured me from even trying. She's not eating to eat, she's truly ravenous and hungry. She still cluster feeds most nights before she falls asleep for her longest stretch too.
@FTM53 She's about 97% BM. So basically I shouldn't consider getting the longer stretches until she starts solids next month? lol
Last night was a good night!! Went to bed at 7:30....up at 1am and then 5am. At 5am I put her back in her crib and she was still asleep when I was leaving at 7am! I'm guessing she woke up soon after though. But, for the heck of it....because so many people told me it was their miracle ingredient to getting them longer sleep stretches I did throw some rice cereal in the two daytime bottles she had with my mom. Not sure if that was what worked or not.
Im in the same boat, so yay!!
The boy has figured out how to bounce himself so hard in his little seat he can now move around the living room. Help. Me. It's almost 11 here and he's finally down for the night. Bedtime was supposed to be at 9:30. He's a fighter!
Also, is there some rule that if the baby goes down easily, you can't fall asleep to save your life? She's been down since 9 and I'm just tossing and turning