Sleep setback

Hi Everyone! I am mom to 12 month old mono/di boys (9 months adjusted), so I'm not sure if I belong in this forum or still in FY. I figure this one since they are actually into their SY. Anyway, I'm not a huge poster, but a big reader. I am hoping; however, you can help me with what seems to be a sleep setback.
Here goes. I suppose our boys technically STTN, but we've always had fairly regular wakings between 7p-7a that are pretty easily pacified (pun intended). Lately, though, things are not good. Four out of the past seven nights have been brutal. One or both boys has woken up crying several times a night causing DH and I to be up for hours. Let me say that we do rock the boys to sleep with their bedtime bottles. It's just always worked for us. We rock them to sleep for most naps, too. I know this is probably becoming problematic. It's kind of sad because I don't want to stop and neither does DH. I just wish they could understand that we'll rock them to sleep once, but not all night long (I know, silly). Is my only option to stop rocking them and let them learn to self-soothe to sleep (they do put themselves to sleep some of the time)? I am conflicted about CIO. I do not want to do it (who does?), but, last night, for example, by 3:30a I had rocked DS2 4 times, I believe, changed his diaper, brought him in to bed with me for a short time (we do not co-sleep), given him Tylenol, etc. and no matter what, he woke about every 1 1/2 hours. He finally woke DS1. We were literally out of options (other than feeding them which we haven't done in months), so we let them cry for 15 minutes. Then they slept til 8:00 a.m. (which is an hour later than their normal wakeup). I have looked into other sleep training methods such as The No Cry Sleep Solution, but I can't get past recommendations such as "don't let him/her cry, not even for a minute." Who can do that with multiples (I am alone with them a lot while DH works)? I'm worried that we're sending them mixed messages by rocking them sometimes and not other times. How are they supposed to know when we will and when we won't? DH and I are desperate for some good sleep though, so we are going to have to make some compromises here.
WDYD? Any suggestions? tips? I'm happily listening Thank you.

 

Well, first off, I think you need to find a system with which you are comfortable. You need to eliminate the rocking at bed time. I would suggest you rock them until they are sleepy but not asleep and put them down. If they fuss, rock some more and repeat. Slowly, over time, you cut down the amount of time you are rocking until you just read them books or cuddle with them and put them down awake. Your other option is to go cold turkey and just put them down without rocking. The first will take longer and will be more frustrating because you won't think it is working. The second will be frustrating because most likely you will have to let them CIO, you may see results sooner.

Once you have established which system you want to use, you need to be consistent every time they wake up. They will get it, you just need to be strong and not give in/go back to old ways.

 

it does sound like now would be a good time to change the routine. i think you could still have rocking as part of the bedtime routine, but try to avoid rocking them all the way to sleep. for example, when you rock them, do it with the lights on, while reading a story. then turn the lights off, tuck them into bed & say goodnight.

as for the No Cry Sleep Solution - i would say, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! like any parenting book, not everything in it will work for you or your situation. so disregard all the guilt stuff about leaving babies to cry, and take the useful stuff from the book that might work in your situation. a lot of her principals are sound & i would say worth revisiting. have you read her toddler book as well as her baby book?

as the PP said, you can sleep train without crying but it's usually a slower process - CIO is effective, but not everyone is comfortable with it. usually, with any kind of sleep training though, for the first little while you'll get less sleep while you're doing the training, before it starts to get better. :hug:

 

My DD liked to be rocked to sleep and I think my DH finally had to stop rocking her around 13 months (we split bedtime). We had noticed when I, my mother or my SIL would put her down to bed, we did not rock her and she'd go to sleep with no problem. With DH, she expected to be rocked. So, what we did was change up her routine. Instead of rocking her, he will sit with her on the rocking chair in her room and read her a story and then put her to bed.

 

I definitely agree with not rocking them totally to sleep. Maybe you can give the bottles earlier in the routine or encourage them to hold their own bottles so they don't fall asleep. You could do bottle, then stories, then rock till they are groggy, then bed. As far as picking a method, I think you pick what best fits what you feel comfortable with, then modify it to your own needs. You are right that it's not realistic for no tears, but remember that fussing/whining is different than actually crying. The night waking is likely a sign that they are learning to work you guys and they definitely need to learn to self-soothe. That doesn't mean that you have to let them CIO though. My DS will wake at night occasionally (we think he has nightmares) and he actually does worse if we pick him up. Instead, we rub his back and he falls right back to sleep.

I know its hard to stop rocking them because it's a sign they are growing up, but eventually we have to admit that our babies are becoming toddlers (and even though yours were early you are probably seeing glimpses of toddlerhood in their behaviors). There are days I miss rocking my munchkins, but being able to put them in their cribs, say goodnight, and walk out with them smiling is so much more gratifying!

 

I used to nurse my boys into oblivion, but I discovered as they got older the harder it was to put them down asleep. They really seemed to need some wind-down time in their cribs. I started to put them down awake after I weaned (~17 months) and it was rough for a couple of weeks, but we got through it, and they go down really well now. We developed a bedtime routine that worked for us, and we'd repeat as necessary until they quieted down. I did not CIO, but I also didn't run back in at the first noise. If they were muttering, fussy, or just gave a few cries I'd wait and see if it escalated or they settled down. If they were screaming, I'd go back and repeat the bedtime ritual (in an abbreviated fashion).

I don't know that rocking them to sleep is *necessarily* a problem like the night-waking is, but just be aware that it might not work forever, and at a certain point you probably want them to self soothe.

As far as night-wakings go, we had a huge problem with that from about 10-13 months with Jack. He went down fine (self-soothed) but would wake up multiple times per night. I think now it was a combination of teething, new milestones, and nightmares. I did not feel that CIO was right for him; he would wake up terrified and howling like a wild animal. We tried a lot of techniques to try to get him to go back to sleep (pick-up/put-down, Ferber, cosleeping, rocking) and nothing worked until we decided to talk to him before he went to bed. We gave him a "pep talk"; told him how night-time was for sleeping, Mama and Dada are right here, etc. This really helped! He was old enough to understand, and I think it gave him reassurance. Now if he night-wakes, we rock him for a few minutes and whisper that it's night-time, we all need to go back to bed, and he usually goes right back down.

Good luck, I hope you find something that works for you and your boys! All kids are different and respond better to different techniques, but I think you got some good ideas from the PPs.

 

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. I do agree that a good sleep training routine can be a hybrid of several of the well-known techniques out there, depending on what works for each family. I do not completely propose or oppose any one method. I think I'm somewhere in between CIO and responding to every fuss every time. We are going to start our new routine tonight and rock with low lights for the last bottle then read a story. We'll try to put them down while drowsy (this has not worked for us to date, but I'm hopeful). We are also going to try to introduce a comfort toy (neither of them is particularly interested in any one stuffed animal right now, so maybe this is good time to do this). I know we'll have tears, especially from DS2. We plan to do a sort of graduated extinction with the crying and start tonight with going in every 10 minutes or so to give paci, pat, sshhh, etc. (and hopefully not pick up unless the crying is very bad). I'm hoping each night will get a little easier. We'll also be consistent with naps. We'll see how it goes.....

 

It sounds like you have a good plan laid out! :good: I hope things go well, good luck!

 

I did a modified CIO - I would set a timer and turn off the monitor (they shared a room) and then when the timer went off if they were still crying I would go to them. This gives you a taste of it - see if you can live with it. I accidentally CIO'd the first time and that let me know it was OK. I was in the shower, alone in the house and the kids were down for a nap. I could hear them, but I was in the beginning of a much needed shower. So, I finished getting myself clean and dry and got out and they were DONE! Back to sleep.

They are 5.5 now and have great sleep habits! I used Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and really liked the common sense approach and used my own version of it.

Good luck!! :hug:

 

It sounds like you have a good plan, and i hope it helps! As someone pointed out though, at first it's going to feel like it's never going to work. And you may find yourself getting less sleep than before. Give it some time to work before throwing it in the dumper and trying something else

My ds also went through a rough sleeping period around the same time, and nothing worked! After about 6 weeks I was a walking zombie. All of a sudden, he went back to sleep normally again! I also suspect teething/nightmares/milestones. He just didn't deal well with all of it at once.

 

I have a follow-up question for you ladies. When we leave the room after bottles, stories, saying night-night and they are still fussing/complaining (or going in and out of crying...cry for a minute, stop for 3 minutes, etc), but NOT all-out crying at our 10 minute mark (or whenever we say we'll return to soothe), do we go back in? I'm afraid that going in will make things worse. But, do we let them continue to fuss beyond the length of time we decided on? WDYD? What is your threshold for going back in? Thx!

 

i think it depends on your kids. going back in might be that last bit of contact they need to calm down completely. on the other hand, it could just ramp them way up. if it were me, i'd probably ignore mild crying indefinitely, but that's because, for us, going back in & then leaving would start a full fledged double tantrum.

 

I agree with Rachel, it depends on your kids and how ramped up they are. After a lot of trial and error, I know my boys' "I'm tired and I just have to let this out before I fall asleep" cries, vs. "something is not right, come get me" cries. If it was mild, intermittent crying, I'd say let them figure out how to calm themselves down and hopefully fall asleep, because that's sort of the point of sleep training, right? But if they're too worked up screaming their lungs out, I'd go in and start again.

 

I agree with you both. We ended up waiting it out a bit and both fell to sleep and slept all night. We heard them each fuss once more, but did not have to go in! I'm pretty good at this point about distinguishing the cries and it's rare that they ever really "need" us, so I'll just keep paying attention to that. Thanks!

 

Glad it worked! Our rule is that if there is full out wailing, we go back in. Complaining, we only go in after 30 mins because that means someone has a poop. I swear I am going to teach them the word "poop" next because of how often they do it at bed time these days.