Drowsy but awake with reflux?

How did you go about sleep training your babies? Mine are almost 4 months. I have read about putting them down drowsy but awake. I've tried that but they jus cry. Shoot, sometimes DD is sound alseep when I put her down yet she still wakes and we start all over again. I'm thinking about the gradual extension CIO method with DS (putting him down drowsy, then going in after x amount of minutes, the gradually making it longer). I want to do that with DD but she has bad reflux. If she cries too much she will spit up (chances are she will no matter what). I do keep her up for 20+ mi Kyra after eating but it really doesn't help. She spits up a lot, and crying to much makes it worse. How should I go about this with her? Any ideas? Thanks

 

As for getting them to sleep drowsy but awake-I waited until six months to do that because I was doing CIO to get to that point. "They" say not to do CIO before six months. My kids were spitters(happy spitters actually...), but they never cried to the point of spitting up. Have you tried keeping her upright longer? I don't know. I think if she has bad reflux, and it interrupts her when sleeping, I would be hesitant to get her to sleep through CIO. I would personally-rock her til she fell asleep. I know-not always the logical answer. When I put the kids in their crib, I would continue to gently bounce the crib, or pat their butts, whatever, so they knew I was still there-and they could settle into sleep. And sometimes I would just stand there, with my hand on their back/stomach and extremely slowly, start taking one finger away at a time. If I saw an eyelid open, I put my hand back and waited. LOL! I really think if she spits up that much, and crying only makes it worse, I wouldn't be doing CIO with her. Good luck! She will sleep through the night, she will fall asleep drowsy but awake, and hopefully she will outgrow the reflux as well!

 

I wouldn't try sleep training a four month old baby, reflux or no. They're simply too young to self soothe (and yes, I know some moms on here have done it and said it wasn't awful, but that doesn't mean it would work for me). And if your DD has reflux and spits up when she cries, you have to be extra careful. How will you know that she's crying because she wants you to hold her versus crying because her stomach hurts or she's just puked?

One of my daughters had reflux and we kept her upright for 30 minutes after eating -- what a pain!! -- and she slept on a reflux wedge. Getting her to sleep was a chore; some rocking and then patting her until she was almost asleep on the wedge. We did this until she was about six months old. I hated spending the time and worried that I was coddling her, but now... three years later... I know it was the right thing to do. She's an awesome sleeper and a happy kid and I don't look back and think that I made her life harder in order to make mine easier.

So my advice is to hang in there for a bit longer. Your little ones are young to try sleep training anyways, and reflux makes it even harder at any age. If you're determined to try, ask your pedi what s/he recommends. I was quite surprised how vehement my pedi was about us not doing CIO for a child with reflux.

 

mine are 4 months old as well and my son has terrible reflux. He's on Prevacid, but spits up all the time. We have decided no sleep training until 6 months. It's awful - he is up every 1-1/2 hrs to every 3 hrs all night long. Most time he even needs to be BOUNCED in his bouncy to stay asleep. But we are struggling through it. It's just too early to sleep train a reflux baby.

 

I know sleep training a four month old is a bit early, but you said you would rock then pat until almost asleep. Basically putting your baby down drowsy but awake and allowing her to fall asleep on her own. That's what I want to do.

 

Its too early for them to fall asleep themselves at 4 months.
At 4 months, most babies still need to be rocked to fall asleep. Our pedi said cio at 8 months. We did it at 6 months though.now we don't have to put them down drowsy. Its time to go to bed then they are sent to their cribs, stay in play then go down.
Oh and I never did let my dd cio when her reflux was so bad though. We did it when reflux was like 80% gone. Its painful enough for her..

 

I would talk to your ped about it at their 4 month visit. Is your DD on any meds for her reflux? If not, then meds could make a big difference. If so, she may need to have her dosage upped for the meds to continue to help. Both my boys needed their meds upped at 4 months and the reflux improved again. You could also ask about rice cereal in their bottle to help with the reflux. Until you know that the reflux is taken care of, I would not CIO.

Some other things you could try- warming up her crib sheet with a warm blanket before putting her down. We're warm and cozy and the crib sheet is cold, which can startle babies awake when you put them down. When you go to put her down, rock her as you're lowering her down (this hurts your back, but I've had some success with it), and slow down the rocking as you ease her onto the crib sheet.

Try reading the No Cry Sleep Solution book. My guys were really struggling with sleep for a while and I felt like the only thing most sleep books recommended was the drowsy, but awake method for getting babies to sleep. The No Cry book has a lot of different suggestions on how to help your baby fall and stay asleep without crying, so one of those suggestions may help you right now. I'm not against CIO at all, but I knew that my guys were too young for it, so having suggestions at least made me feel like we were trying to get better sleep and helped ease my frustration with trying the same thing over and over again with no results.

And to give you some hope, there has been a significant improvement in my guys' sleep from 4 to 5 months. We've gone from multiple night wakings (13 wakings one night!) to only waking at 1am and 6am for a bottle. I was at my wits' end just a month ago and things have improved so much since then.

 

We rocked our boys until they were 9 months old because they needed to be held upright for 30 minutes after eating and their reflux was HORRIBLE. Their reflux is getting better now, so we started sleeping training around 9.5 months. They are going down on their own at night, and we are starting to work on naps. It took them an hour to go sleep yesterday, but only 10 minutes this morning, so we are getting there. I didn't feel it was right to let them CIO until I was sure their reflux was under control, as well as the major stomach issues they have had (milk and soy intolerance, and just sensitive in general to any new food - they are finally getting better about that).