Sleep patterns

I know I posted about a month or so ago that my son wasn't sleeping, kept waking up, etc... Well now things are worse.

For about a week, I was sleeping in his room, and I got him to the point where he would stay in his bed - he would pop his head up but so long as he saw me, down it'd go. And he'd stay there even if he was awake, until I let him get up.

This was great progress! But then I just needed ONE NIGHT to sleep in my own bed, as this whole time I had been sleeping in the recliner in his room, needless to say I was one grumpy mommy. At this point he WAS actually sleeping all night, maybe popping his head up once, so I thought he'd be OK if I didn't stay in there...

So the one night I decided I needed to sleep in my bed.... DH goes in to get Ben, and fell asleep with him in the recliner, completely undoing my entire week's worth of work! (BTW, DH is the reason we're in this predicament, he keeps letting Ben sleep with him in the recliner)


Now, what he does, he'll sleep from about 7:30 till 9:30-10 p.m. then he'll be up and down every 20 minutes. No lie, Friday night I stayed up with him, and no sooner would I get him down,start working on my papers, he'd start fussing again. Glance at the clock, and it was every 15-20 minutes for a good 3 hours! I tried giving him another bottle, I gave him some tylenol (he's got most of his teeth, just missing like 2 molars)just in case... I finally got an hour of sleep out of him aftr I sang him some lullabies... Then, after that hour, we were back to every 20 minutes. Abou 2 a.m. DH got up and sat up with him the rest of the night. The only reason I didn't hear another peep out of him was because, you guessed it, DH was sleeping with him in the recliner...


*sigh* He's 19 months old. he should NOT be waking up every 20 minutes!!! He's in a toddler bed, so it's not like we can just leave him in his crib either, he gets up and wanders into the hallway. Yes, we shut his door, he'll bang on it until we come get him (it's hollow, so it's LOUD, and his sisters are right next door) I tried letting hime CIO for a couple of nights, he cried ALL NIGHT LONG and threw up quite a few times. I'd be allright with it if after the first day the crying was less (instead of 4 hours, 2hours, etc.) but nope. Even on day 3 he still went ALL NIGHT LONG (I'm talking a full 8 hours, not just a couple) I couldn't handle it anymore (me, the one that made my DD CIO for 2.5 hours, but she at least wound down, and the next night it was 45 min. then 15, etc)

I've ordered the Good nite Lite and PRAY that once it arrives, it will be the answer to our problems. What's crazy is he'll answer yes or no questions. So every night, we'll ask him, "Are you going to sleep all night tonite?" And he'll nod his head yes!! I've tried giving him a 'pep talk' like a big boy, for like a week straight (same time I was sleeping in his room) that didn't work either....

We need help. Anyone out there have good baby whispering skills that can tell us WHY he won't sleep all night??? (Okay, I'm only HALF joking there... )

It got so bad one night, DH said he was gassy and we didn't have any gas drops, I was at Walgreens at 1:30 in the morning, and let me tell you I walked out of there with every children's medication under the sun, except Benedryl (maybe THAT'S what we need to give him) I'm not one that likes to medicate unless it's NECESSARY, but this is getting downright ridiculous, and we ALL need sleep!

 

:hug:
I am so sorry that you are going through this and not getting a lot of sleep. Is there going to be a few days where you and DH will be off from work, so that you can retrain him to sleep on his own. I think the first thing is to get DH on the same page as you for sleep training. My DH insisted on rocking our DD to sleep and as a result, she did not know how to self soothe at bedtime and we had to do a different nighttime routine with her and teach her how to self soothe. We give her 30 minutes of quiet time before bed, I read to her and her brother before they go up to bed and DH does bedtime, so he will also read another book to her before she goes to sleep. Does he have any lovey that he sleeps with?
Parents Magazine (March issue) has a story from a Mom who had to sleep train her toddler (I think he was 18 months) and she talked about sitting next to him in his room and patting his back until he feel asleep, she did that for three nights, the next three moved further away from the bed and told him she was there, 3 nights later she moved further away and did this every three nights until she was out of his room. I cannot find the story online but it is in the magazine.

 

:hug: I agree that you have to get your dh on the same page. It doesn't do any of you any good if you can't be consistent with whatever you choose to do.

I think if I was you I would do the supernanny approach. Do a bedtime routine, bath (if you do those at night), brush teeth, read and then put him to bed, and say good night. The first time he gets up say goodnight again and just lay him down, don't rock him don't sing to him just lay him down. Every time he gets up after that I would just pick him up and lay him down. Don't say a word, don't give him any emotion what so ever.
Everything he is doing is because he's getting attention from it. It's a game and he's winning.
I can only imagine how tired you are! We tried toddler beds for a week and they did NOT work for us so we went back to cribs with crib tents. GL

 

This is essentially what I would do. I had to start with sitting on his bed patting him. By the end of the week is when he was sleeping fine in his bed and would pop up maybe once or twice to make sure I was still there. I was never able to move farther away then the recliner though, and if I spoke, all He** would break loose. I had to remain completely quite, and be close enough that, if he DID pop up, he could see me w/o getting out of his bed. The first night I tried to sit at the end of his bed, closer to the door, he threw a fit and I ended up sitting on his bed for 30 minutes patting him back to sleep....

He does not have a lovey. He does, but he won't sleep with it. I've tried SEVERAL times (since he was about 3 months old or so) to get him to sleep with one. Same thing with a paci - we actually TRIED to get him hooked on a pacifier, figuring (KNOWING) that it would be easier to break him of the paci habit then the restless sleep was... We did that with one of our daughters, so we knew what we were up against if we got him hooked - couldn't even do that... Just as recently as last night, he went to sleep with a Curious George doll, but that STILL didn't help him sleep longer....

 

it sounds like you've tried everything i would suggest so i'll pull out the big guns: www.cheekychops.ca. we hired this gal when our girls were 3.5 months old & she was amazing! i still (16 months later) email her sometimes with sleep questions & she's more than happy to answer.

i do agree with everyone else though - you and DH need to get on the same page. he might be "solving" the situation in that, yes, your son is sleeping when your DH goes in the room - but in the long run, it's clearly not working well for anybody & he's just making more work for you. whatever sleep training approach you decide to try now, i think you should expect that you will get LESS sleep for the first while before you all start getting good sleep. :hug: i'm sorry you're going through this - sleep issues bite the big one. :hug:

 

Is there any way you could move him back to a crib? I know there are people like Brigette who try toddler beds out and have to move back because the children are not ready.

If not, then I would really suggest a sleep counselor like Rachel said. I can't imagine how tired you must be, and it doesn't sound like your DS is getting good sleep either. I hope you can figure this out soon! :hug:

 

That sounds awful. I thought my kids were bad sleepers, but I can't even imagine that.

I like the idea of putting him in a crib, assuming he can't get out--you could put up a crib tent if he knows how to get out to prevent that.

I've heard of the moving further and further away technique. Maybe it needs to be your DH doing it instead of you--after all he's the one sleeping int he chair with him. He seems to be the one who can get him to sleep--granted with him in a chair, but he has more of a calming effect. We have this problem in our house. I pretty much have to do night wakings because even the sight of DH hypes those boys up.

Other than that, I'm at a total loss. I do remember reading in HSHHC that once a child's sleep gets that disturbed that it's really tough to reorient his sleep cycle. In the example, from that book the child became very neurotic at all points of the day. At this point, there is absolutely no way he's getting enough sleep. How are his day time sleeping habits? Maybe the answer is partly in finding a way to adjust his nap time and or bed time. Who knows? I'm just throwing some ideas out there.

 

I would suggest CIO but yeah in a toddler bed I can't really see how that would work... I'd also try the super nanny approach, and get closer and closer to the door.