Need 2 know...

Sending out a plea to all mothers who have somehow mastered the sleep through the night for thier babies around the same age as ours...it has been 2 yease since I have slept more than 5 1/2 hours at a stretch. The sleepless nights are long and exausting. It seems that eveytime we seem to be maikng headway we backslide due to a cold or a trip to family (out of state). I have tried going to bed earlier but still the wakings persist.

I am sure you get this all the time, but if someone has any fresh ideas it would be greatly appriciated.

 

It's not a fresh idea, but CIO is what works for us. At this age, they are more stubborn so it might take a bit longer but it works. I did it with all my kiddos at about six months. Put them to bed, leave the room and don't go back. When we did it, I'd go back at 15 min intervals if I needed to but at this age that will just escalate the crying. If they fall asleep and then wake during the night, you can do a few things. Don't go in at all, don't go in for 15min, or go in right away and do whatever thing you usually do when putting them to bed without talking. I would go in, give a hug without picking up if they were standing, lay them back down, whisper "it's still night night time" and leave. You have to be super consistent in how you treat the wakings and they'll catch on.

 

Can you figure out why they are waking up?

Also, what kind of naps do they take during the day?

We CIO'd it at about 6 months or so - they only wake up now if something is 'wrong' like a foot between the rails or something like that. It will be rough at first, but you might be surprised at how quickly it works out.

alexis

 

Who is it who gets up with them in the middle of the night? Are you nursing them at night still? (<--correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you breastfeed them) What helped us is if dad would get up with them. All it took was a few nights with him getting up for them to realize they weren't going to get me when they woke. Even now, at 6am, if I go down, they 'insist' on getting up if I go into the room whereas if Daddy goes into the room, they go back to sleep with just a backrub. Good luck! Finding out what is waking them can be difficult, but that might help too!

 

My boys were bad sleepers from 9 months to about 14 months. They had always been pretty good sleepers but then they had a bout of RSV at 9 months where we ended up holding them to sleep a lot so they could breath better. Then we moved soon after this and they were sleeping in my room and got used to me putting them in bed with me if they woke up during the night (bad Mommy :blush: ).

At 14 months I decided that this had to change. We used the book "Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West. This process worked very well for us.

I believe Ms. West advertises that her method is not CIO, but in my opinion it is, just with more involvement of the parent in reassuring the child that they are there. It was painful for a few nights, but it worked.

BTW, we have had to do mini reinforcements after illness and such when their sleep routine was interrupted for a time, but it has never been a problem to get them back to their regular routine fairly quickly.

HTH.
O.

 

A friend of mine has a son who's 3 & still waking up like 10 times a night.....so they had him tested & turns out he's got a breathing problem and that's what was waking him up.

 

We used CIO too.

 

We also did CIO. It was hard, but only took two nights. Hope you find what you're looking for and can get some rest soon!

 

My girls slept through consistently after 10 months but they always reverted after a cold or trip and we had to do CIO for a few nights to get them back on schedule. At that age, I didn't do a graduated CIO. I just didn't go in at all. They had their sister in the room so I wasn't too worried about them being all along while crying. After a few nights, they'd sleep through again.