Let me SLEEP!

[lls_mutant]

Hey Moms....



Here's the situation. Toby is 5 months old (just about). Until Easter, he was an excellent sleeper at night. He would go to sleep about 9:30 (I'd feed him, and he'd fall asleep after eating in my arms extremely quickly), and he'd either sleep straight through the night or wake up once for a feeding, then immediately go back to sleep.

Well, over Easter, we started solids. We gave him way too much, and that led to some very painful night wakings. We had several nights where he was up for 3-4 hours. He'd fall asleep just fine, but at about 1 or 2... ugh. At the beginning, we assumed it was because he had too much cereal.

Now we've cut his cereal way back, and I'm hoping it's out of his system. (It may not be.) But last night we had a late night waking, and it was very, very clear that Toby just wanted to be cuddled. Which was fine, except he'd doze off in your arms, you'd put him in the crib, and he'd wake up and start crying. Argh.

I think we're going to have to learn to soothe ourselves to sleep here, because this isn't working for me or Howard. What I'm thinking of doing is trying the Ferber method once Toby hits six months. I'm planning on waiting until Howard is out of town, because I have a lot more tolerance for Toby crying for long periods of time than Howard does. (For those not in the know, the Ferber method involves letting them cry, but going in to pat and vocally soothe the baby to reassure them that you're there. It's supposed to work in 3-7 nights.)

Has anyone tried the Ferber method? How long was your baby capable of crying? Do you do it right when you put them down, even if they normally go to sleep well? I'm kind of thinking what I'm supposed to do is move his feeding up a little so he doesn't fall asleep immediately, and then put him in his crib awake? Or do I start the Ferber method when he's awake in the middle of the night? I know I should wait until he's six months to start it, but I kind of want to start bracing myself for it now. Like I said, I'm going to have to do it when Howard is out of town, for two reasons. 1.) he has a definite time when he must get up, and it sounds like he won't get much sleep until we get this to work. I can sleep as long as Toby sleeps, so it makes sense. and 2.) Howard is a big softie that is convinced that if Toby is crying for a half-hour, something is wrong, when the truth is our child has amazing willpower in keeping himself awake by crying. (Or normal, but neither of us are sure what is normal.)

He's very happy and active during the day usually (until he gets tired and cranky), and he's not much of a napper, so I don't think that he's getting too much sleep during the day. We have a pretty good bedtime routine, and he usually gets plenty of food during the day. We try to skip diaper changes unless we know the diaper is pretty bad, and we don't play with him or talk much to him when he wakes up, which was working great.

I'm kind of hoping the problem will just right itself in a few days as Toby's system readjusts from the solid attack, and I won't even have to worry about this. But I'd rather prepare now, and plus, just hearing sleeping-through-the-night stories will help my current sanity.

Thanks!

Comments

[misscake]

Oh, my sympathies! I remember this all too well. Yes, he needs to learn how to settle himself down to sleep. I accidentally Ferber-ized my son when he was about 3 months old and I was just so exhausted I put him in the crib and laid down and fell asleep. I woke up about two hours later, panicked because he wasn't screamimg. We had more trouble when he was older and switching from crib to toddler bed. But that's another story.

Definitely put him down while he's awake. He's used to falling asleep in your arms and that's what he wants when he wakes up so you have to break him of that. You could also try adding some soft soothing music, we used a crib toy that lit up and played music. They have some that come with remotes now too, so they don't see you re-start it.

Also, it might not be the solids that have caused the change. Usually solid food helps them sleep more as it takes longer for them to digest it, so they don't wake from hunger as often. Instead, it could be a new skill that he's learned. My son did this when he learned to sit up. It's like they think, Oh, I can do this now, let me show you! Except it's the middle of the night and you just want to sleep.

Good luck!

[aome.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to have to learn to soothe ourselves to sleep here

Definitely. It worked MUCH better for both our girls than trying to get them to sleep in our arms and then putting them down. Granted, they were 11-12 mos old at the time, but still. I'm assuming we did the Ferber thing, based on your description. The first go-in-and-soothe is at 5 mins, then you wait another 10, then 15, until they fall asleep. For both girls, it only took a couple of days before they got the picture, even though, for Two, she wasn't remotely soothed by our presence initially. (As a side note, nowadays, if Two has a nightmare or otherwise wakes up crying, we actually DO pick her up and hold her for a moment, because this seems to soothe her better. I know that's not technically what you're supposed to do, but we don't hold her until she sleeps, only until she calms, then we stick her back in bed. But when we were getting them with The Program, we didn't pick them up. Only verbally reassured them or perhaps patted them over the crib rails.)

1.) he has a definite time when he must get up, and it sounds like he won't get much sleep until we get this to work.

Er - I can't think he's getting a lot of sleep if you're up with him for several hours a night, either. What's the difference?

I don't know if I'd wait until Howard is out of town. He is going to HAVE to get used to Toby crying himself out. This is something he needs to learn as a dad, just as much as Toby needs to learn to soothe himself to sleep. But that's just my view.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

Have you read last week's newsweek? Teaching him how to sleep through the night is just as important for your long-term health and well-being as it is for him.

Ferber sounds like a good method; kind of like how you crate-train a puppy. Not that I'm comparing your child to a pet, it's just the only basis for comparison I have. And crate training is great. They learn to go in and put themselves to sleep. It's their special place, their little den where no one can bother them.

[merlinssister12.livejournal.com]

Actually I have both a dog and two kids, and it really is almost identical. Although in our case the dog figured out crate training in less time than the kids learned to soothe themselves. It took the dog two days and the kids three and four days respectively.

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathies--it's awful when I child who was sleeping well starts playing up at night, and it's common for this sort of thing to happen a few times in a child's life. (Ha, that makes you feel loads better, doesn't it?)

I used controlled crying with Ella, which sounds similar to Ferber (never heard that name). It involved leaving her for progressively longer stretches between checks and (mostly) not getting her out of her cot when I went in.

It worked. Here's the thing--they all work. Every method anyone can name of getting a child to sleep at night works, it's just that sometimes the price of sticking with it until it works is sometimes too much for some families. Other parents told me that controlled crying didn't work with their children because they cried until they were sick. Well, Ella cried until she was sick--I'd change her, settle her and leave her again. I had to do it--I was working full-time and if she didn't sleep, I didn't sleep and if I didn't sleep, I was going to have a nervous breakdown. For other parents, it wasn't worth it, so they gave up, left it a while or tried something else. Which is fine--horses for courses and all that.

So, yeah, Ferber can work, but it can also be hard. Whether you want to follow it through is up to you--and you won't know until you try it, because you can't predict in advance how hard it's going to be. All you can do is try it and cross your fingers.

If Toby's used to going to sleep in your arms, I'd recommend taking it in stages, because going from mummy rocking you to sleep to mummy putting you in your crib and leaving you until you scream is a bit gap. Stay with him until he goes to sleep, just at first. Cuddle him in his cot or lie down with him. (Of course, I used to let Ella sleep next to me on the sofa or bed for naps, but I believe that's considered practically child abuse these days! ;D) Wrap him up in his crib blanket for his evening bottle, then put him down still snuggled up in it--he'll be able to smell you on it, which is comforting, and it'll be nice and warm.

Babies can and sometimes do cry for hours. Literally. It's not abnormal, but it is torture for parents. Some babies will only manage twenty minutes, some will manage four hours--luck of the draw. Oh, and I wouldn't set too much store by how many days a things are meant to work in--a week is long enough for most sleep training programmes for most children, but two weeks isn't terribly unusual or even a month.

Wow, this is a really long comment. :) Huh, the best advice I can give briefly is to steel your nerves and go for it: one way or another you'll get there in the end and I promise you that no matter how much Toby cries, you won't do him any real harm.

[minnow-53.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear, you have all my sympathy. *hugs* The trouble with babies is that they're unpredictable, and even a small change in their routine can unsettle them. shaggydogstail is absolutely right: any reasonable method will work eventually, but you just have to bear the crying until it does. The Ferber method sounds pretty reasonable to me.

^_^xx

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

I think he may be teething. There's a hyland homeopathic treatment to try and a different one from Orajel which work well in tandem. When cate is cutting new teeth she's in a lot of pain and needs the extra cuddling.

I am personally not a fan of ferber and he's stepped away from that method himself. You might want to look over the Sears book on forming good sleep habits, and there's another good one via amazon which I'll find for you if you need it.

[sasha-davidovna.livejournal.com]

I used Ferber with Emily when she was about 18 months and due to her parents' insane schedules had to spend the night sometimes at my house. It worked in about four (non-consecutive) nights, but the first night was terrible. She screamed bloody murder for an hour before subsiding to whimpers and eventually falling asleep. I felt like the meanest person in the world, but it was worth it in the end, as everybody got more rest and was in a better mood the next day.

I agree that it's probably a good idea to start putting him in his crib still awake so he can teach himself to fall asleep. A lot of Emily's problem was that her mom always lay down with her and rubbed her back until she fell asleep (or fell asleep again) and she'd become dependent on it. She'd never learned how to put herself to sleep.