Nighttime crying!

Poor DS seems to be having such a hard time. He has never liked taking naps and it seems as if at least THEY have improved but night time is
most nights kind of a nightmare with him! DD is doing pretty well with her sleeping despite the fact that her brother is SCREAMING in the same room
with her. Some nights she wakes up and just stares at him. If DD wakes during the night she might cry for 10 minutes and then give up. Not DS.
He usually wakes up once anytime between 1am and 4am and SCREAMS like someone is killing him. Both are 6 months. Both no longer feed during the
night. Both eat their solids like crazy so they are not hungry at night. When we started CIO at 5 months we figured we'd have a week of crying. DD took only
2 nights and she learned quick. I can not say the same for DS! Almost every night he wakes and he does not give up for a minimum of 45 minutes. Usually he will fall back to sleep for the rest of the night. Last night he woke 3 times. Once at 1am. Cried for an hour. I checked in on him without picking him up or letting him know I was there. He fell asleep and again woke at 4am. Same thing. Checked and everything seemed ok. Then he woke again at 5:30 after only
sleeping for about 30 minutes! Finally DH had HAD it and he went in and put him in the swing. I don't know what the problem is. Am I doing something wrong!? Should I be breaking my 'pact' with the CIO in order to soothe him? I know my ped said not to give up and just keep letting him cry but it seems not to be working? I imagine he could be teething but we have even tried nights giving him motrin and teething tablets and it is no different so I'm thinking it is not that.

Naps are-
wake up 6am-7am
Nap between 8:30 and 9am (sleeps 45 min to 2 hours)
Nap at 1pm (sleeps 45 min to 1 1/2 hrs.)
Bedtime 7pm

Some days his naps are good, but usually one nap is 45 minutes and then the other nap is about 1 1/2 to 2 hours-never both!

 

Well the best advice I ever got was "a good day makes a good night". So true. A baby must be properly fed and napped during the day in order to assure a good night. You say that he eats like a trooper, so let's rule out a food issue. I can see that he is not napping enough. If you look at any napping guideline for a 6 month old, it will tell you that they need to be napping a total of 4-5 hours per day and sleeping 12 hours at night. He looks to be getting 3 hours of naps at best. I would really work on that using the same CIO techniques that you do at night. Also, be sure that you are napping him in the same place, with the same conditions that you use to sleep him at night. I'm sure you are, but some people nap their kids in the middle of the livingroom and then wonder why they won't sleep in their crib at night. Do not give up on CIO! From what you mentioned, hubby just set you back A LOT by what he did when he couldn't take it last night. He gave in and put him in his swing. That sent a HUGE mental trigger to the little guy and you're going to have to get control back now momma. Hubby can't be doing these things. If he can't take it then kindly ask him to sleep in a different room with a noise machine and fans or whatever on to drown out the noise. You can do a month of CIO but if you break once, you're screwed and consider yourself starting all over again. You are on the right track, just work on naps and STICK TO THE PLAN!

 

I should add that I had one very difficult twin too who persisted on like this 1-2 times per night while her sister always slept through. I igonored it and did CIO and it did take her a good 3-4 weeks to do a full 12 hours uninterrupted, but she did it. I NEVER broke pattern though. I do feel for you, trust me.

 

Just wanted to chime in that your naps don't seem that off - it is recommended by most that they get 3-4 hours of naptime between 2 naps at six months old and it sounds like yours are getting almost 3 hours each day, which is fine. My ds was pretty stubborn too but it only took about a week of crying hysterically for up to an hour periodically through the night before he started sleeping through and has ever since, just hang in there! I did give up a couple of times and take him to the swing or pick him up and rock him, etc. and it didn't ruin everything - in fact, the two times when to me it sounded more like pain cries than angry or tired cries we did find that he the first time had a double ear infection and the second time had bleeding gums from teething so bad and it really doesn't throw off the process if you comfort them if something else is wrong - are you sure he doesn't maybe have an ear infection that hurts him when he lies down? My DD sleeps great, DS is now a good sleeper but it took pretty strict CIO to make him realize that night time was sleep time - sounds like you just might have a stubborn one too! They were never rocked before bed, and always put down to sleep awake so we knew that he could self-soothe and wasn't hungry or anything like that - he just would wake up and want to play and was MAD that we wouldn't come get him!

 

Just to clarify one thing- DH only put DS in the swing this morning at about 5:45am. We usually get them by 6am (unless they sleep longer!) so we're only talking 15 minutes so I can't yell over that! Otherwise DH is right on board with the CIO...in fact he usually has to hold me back because I instantly want to console them.

 

Mine are almost 6 months and I am contemplating doing Ferber. We did it with DS at 6 months, and it worked in 2 days. The girls are approaching 6 months, though they were 3 weeks early and twins so they are a bit behind, closer to 5 months in development.
The difference with DS was that he would wake up 2-3 times a night and only eat a little bit at a time, so it was clearly a habit rather than hunger. The girls wake up only once and eat a full feeding, so they are clearly hungry when they do wake up. Does it mean they are just not ready to skip that feeding yet? Seems cruel to let them cry if they indeed are hungry. Or should I try decreasing the amount little by little maybe? The problem is they might wake up multiple times then...
Rebecca is great at self-soothing, we just put her down wide awake and she puts herself to sleep. Maya is a challenge. Even if she is fed and changed she will cry unless either rocked or has a bottle in her mouth. Last night we did the first CIO session, and she was asleep after about an hour of crying with periodic visits from me. She still woke up to eat at 1 am (and woke up Rebecca). I expect them to sleep until around 6 am. Should I let them CIO for that feeding even though they are really hungry and inhale a full bottle?

 

Just passing through with some :hug: for you, it sounds really tough!

I fear that if smething drastic doesn't change soonn with Amber we may be joining the CIO club in a cple of mths.

 

What we did was increase every daytime bottle by one or two ounces. Also per our pediatrician we follow this solids feeding schedule-
8am cereal plus fruit (about 2 to 3 ounces)
12pm veggie plus fruit (about 2 to 4 ounces)
5pm oatmeal plus fruit or veg (about 2 to 4 ounces)
Add to that at 6 mo babies should be drinking 24 to 32 ounces of formula. Ours drink 3- 6 ounce and one 8 ounce per day. Our doctors
said that with this feeding schedule they should not need to be feed during the night. In fact all of the doctors in our practice said once
they are eating enough during the day that feeding them at night would be establishing a night time feeding habit that was based on
wanting to be entertained and held during the night. Sending a message that daytime is for holding, eating, playing is good and night
time is for MUCH needed sleep!
DS stopped waking for a bottle at night around the 4 mo mark...he only occasionally woke. DD is much smaller and she really needed
that one night time bottle until a few weeks ago. When she started drinking only about 2 to 4 ounces at the night time feeding I knew
it was not hunger. So I stopped. She actually did really well once she caught on. She is less stubborn than DS. He did so well
for over a month but once he started rolling over he thinks he's a big boy now and ought to be up walking around!