[ScottishBrit]

Who does this?

I dont want to start a debate since I know this may be a touchy Subject I just really would like to know what you do with your baby and maybe some tips and advice?

I have always Nursed to sleep and then when he's out ( I did the same with Cambria ) I put him down asleep. Well now he's been waking and I nurse him and the moment i put him down he cries and it goes on about 5 times before he gives in. This can take up to 2 hours and at 2 am this is not fun. Ive decided that he needs to learn how to self soothe. Ive been reading parts of various books, doing research online, and asking my friends who have kids of all ages questions so Im trying to figure out what to do.

This is day 2 now. I decided to start with naps. Easy and I think he'll catch on faster. Plus I dont feel like hes getting the sleep he needs during the day cause his sister keeps him up. The only time before he would nap is in my arms. He hates the swing, mat, bouncy, everything!!! He just wants to be held. Well I also found that a lot of people do the eat play sleep thing and watch for signs that their LO is tired. Then they put him down awake but tired. Ive been doing this about 3 times during the day and of course he's cried the entire time! I feel SO BAD! I feel like Im a bad mom and Im abandoning him. I have gone in to check on him. pat him tell him it's ok etc..And that just makes it worst. I also read that they will either calm down or cry louder cause they have developed the ability to self soothe yet, which is the goal Im trying to achieve. I dont think Im letting him CIO to the extreme. But I am letting him cry I know I should have started this along time ago so it might take him a while since he's now got a habit that needs to be broken but I think If I wait longer it will just get worst. I do feed him when he wakes in the middle of the night. I have no problem with that! I just want him to learn how to self soothe him self back to sleep.

What do you do with your LO's? Did you decided to sleep train ( for lack of a better word ) later and how did it turn out? How long did they cry till the understood?

[ANGWife]

We did the EASY method starting at about 2 months. I honestly don't remember exactly how it all went (hmm can we say sleep deprived new mom haha). But I do know it took several days and even I cried a lot. But once he was on the schedule, things were awesome and I'm so glad I stuck with it.

[soImarriedAnerd]

{{hugs}} sorry your having such a hard time. I'm no help with suggestions though, I did a little no-cry sleep solution but not even that hard core.

[alicenwonderland]

we didn't follow any "protocol" but just did what we wanted and it worked. Teddy never slept well in his bassinet, so from a few weeks old, he was in the crib swaddled. Then swaddling didn't work, so we let him sleep on his tummy. Then that didn't work. There was a great period where i'd nurse him to sleep and he'd stay down.... but now that hes older, he wakes up when he hits the mattress. We've developed a method we call "Pat him down"

I nurse him, put him in his night diaper, nurse him a little more. We cuddle. Then i put him down on his tummy and pat his back. Sometimes he falls asleep sometimes not. If not, i walk away and he starts to fuss. I come back, say shhhhhhh while patting his back, then walk away again. Repeat. It almost always works after a couple attempts. sometimes i send dh in to pat him down, because Teddy knows Daddy will not cave. (He puts him to bed when i work nights) I've found that now, Teddy barely fusses at all. He knows what bed means, so if he can't sleep, he lays there and talks to himself. We don't do naps in the crib. We do them in a playpen. When i did, he would get confused and cry, because he knew it wasn't night time.

ETA:Also for naps. We don't have a set time or anything. He tends to take 2 naps a day by himself. He'll either fall asleep nursing, or get hysterical to the point that i have to cuddle him until he passes out.

[Resi]

I hope you figure it out. It will most likely become the norm for him if it continues. Oliver was like that until I started to night wean and we still have problems with him waking up between 4-6AM wanting to nurse back to sleep. If there is a next time around for me I'd like to start different habits.

[Mars]

I can't offer any real advice. I never did any sleep training but we didn't go through that phase for a long time. When we did hit the "as soon as I put her down to sleep she awoke" phase, I would just keep rocking/nursing her back to sleep and keep trying until she didn't get up. When I was too tired to do it, we co-slept. Fortunately, Amara's sleep patterns improved on thier own when she was ready. I co-slept, nursed her to sleep, rocked her to sleep, got up every time she did and the list goes on and on. I probably did most things a lot of persons would not have recommended but she settled when she was ready. At different stages I would try not to nurse to sleep, rock to sleep, etc and if she was ready, we adjusted. If she was not, we waited.

[Alison81]

I tried to follow so many different sleep techniques with Elsa, none of them worked and she didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months old.

With Kylie I was VERY laid back. I let her sleep with me mostly, or let her sleep in her carseat the first few weeks, since she slept great in the carseat or occasionally her swing. Honestly, this worked for her. I think because even though it wasn't in her crib, she learned to go to sleep on her own in the carseat. Although, she was always a good sleeper. Even when she woke up to eat as a newborn, I'd nurse her, she'd be done, then go right back to sleep next to me. When she was 2 weeks old I tried putting her in her crib to sleep, put her in with a blankie, pacifier, and music from her crib toy and she was asleep within minutes and that was that. But as I said, she was a good sleeper. I don't think all babies are, so what worked for her might not work for somebody else. But I did try to establish a comfort item, which was her blankie, right from day 1. And after my experience with Elsa, I think just do what works to get him sleeping on his own.

[Mjp121212]

have you tried a light weighted blanket? I know they make them in lap sizes for toddlers, but he might just like the feel of the weight from your arms. Brayden was like that and he slept really good with the weighted blanket.

and i don't mean the 12pound blankets lol. I'm talking about a really light and small lap blanket that would be just enough to allow him to feel a bit of pressure. Maybe a pound or 2 tops spread out. you can even make them yourself. If he doesn't wiggle his head under and can roll and stuff, i'd think for naps it'd be fine, then maybe he'd learn better and easier? i dunno.

[ScottishBrit]

I have a little pink blanket with a bear head that Ive been trying to get him to "like". Of course Im gonna go and buy the same one in a more Boy color this week but Im hoping he gets attached to something that will help soothe him. I do think he's getting a little better. I put him down for late nap today...drowsy. Of course he woke when I put him down but I patted him and said nite nite and turned on his Aquarium. He cried for maybe 5 mins. Slept for maybe 20. I heard him cry for a few mins and I went to go check on him and right when I was gonna open the door he was asleep again and went down for 45 mins! So Im thinking he MAYBE understanding? Although I will say last night he woke every hour wanting to eat. I would feed him his normal feeding but when he re woke I would let him cry a bit. I felt bad but I dont want to start the habit of me running to him..As long as he can put him self to sleep during the day then Im gonna try night's...

[ANGWife]

Originally Posted by ScottishBrit

Although I will say last night he woke every hour wanting to eat. I would feed him his normal feeding but when he re woke I would let him cry a bit. I felt bad but I dont want to start the habit of me running to him..As long as he can put him self to sleep during the day then Im gonna try night's...

Ahh poor mama! You must be exhausted taking care of DD too.

[bittersweet]

We had the same issues for the first 3 months. I used the methods from the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. LOVED the book. We did eat, play, sleep. Except for at night, I'd nurse her before bed.

Basically, it says babies under 6 months shouldn't be awake for more than 2 hrs. If they are, they will get overtired and more difficult to put to sleep. I couldn't read her 'tired' signs at 3-4 monts old, so after about an hr and a half of being awake, I'd start soothing her (rocking, reading, cuddles). She never ever fell asleep while I soothed, in fact sometimes she would cry louder. If that happened, I'd just put her in her crib. It says to not soothe for more than 10 minutes. According to the book, I would not respond to her for a minimum of 1 hr, or until she woke up if past an hr. I started giving her a blanket..I use the Aden and Aines muslin blankets since they are very thin. She would use that in her crib to snuggle and suck on (still does). At first she'd cry for up to 20 minutes. But eventually she would fall asleep and sleep for an hr or so. Then when she'd wake, I'd nurse her. When it started getting close to 2 hrs, I'd put her down for a nap again. So she would take about 2-3 naps per day.

At night, we did the same thing since it was taking me 2 hrs to get her to sleep. I would do her bath, nurse her, then just put her in her crib. At first she cried for 10-30 minutes...but after a couple weeks, she was asleep usually without a peep. I also would still nurse her in the night if she woke up...but she'd sleep for 8 hrs, wake and eat, then sleep for another 2-4 hrs. Sometimes she'd wake twice. I was fine with that since she ate well and went back to sleep easily.

If she was waking more frequently then every 4 hrs or not wanting to go back to sleep..or just wanting to play, I may not have responded.

So yes...we did eat, play, sleep b/c I wanted her to self soothe also. It is a lot easier to do at 3-6 months. Jenna is 10 months now. It would be alot harder to do now that she can stand and yell louder

[**jessie**]

My exerience was very similar to Erin's.

The first 2 months were relatively 'easy'. He tended to sleep so much anyway and not really be aware of too many things. Month 3 was pure hell. At first I didn't know what was going on, but after awhile I figured out he was ready for a schedule and needed more consistency. That's when we started with a bedtime routine and a strict bed time (7:30 pm). It is also around the time we moved him to his crib in his room. We would also wake him (oh, that was hard!) if he was not awake by 7:30 am. Then we did the no longer than 2 hrs awake, which usually equated to 3 naps per day.

At bedtime I would feed him in the living room, do some cuddles then go into his room. I kept a simple folding chair right next to his crib. I would sit and hold him in the dark for a good 5 minutes and then he would be drowsy and I would lay him down on his belly. He would normally start to cry. I stayed sitting in the chair beside his bed in the pitch dark and make shhhh noises and rub his back or hold his hand. At first it would take quite awhile but he got better and better within a couple weeks. After about a month I was able to lay him down after our cuddle time in his room, and he would put himself to sleep with no more than 5 minutes of crying. Since that point he has always been able to put himself to sleep. He began sttn at 6.5 months. It would be soooo hard doing all this when he is the age he is now!

[midnight_starr]

I hope things get better. Adeline is still sleeping great at night, I think I am going to start trying at her naps next week because she is the same way as Baylen and won't sleep more than 20 minutes unless it's on me. I also bought some sleepsacks to try out since she doesn't like being swaddled. Keep us posted!

[Bre*n*Will=Reid]

Amy, I actually think that he might be a bit too young to sleep train. I think we did it with Reid around 7 months which was a good time for us. It was sooo hard, but at the time I was working outside of the home and waking up every hour was literally too much for me to take. I would put him in his crip after a basic bed time routine and let him fuss/cry....I would go in every 5-10 mins to soothe him (not pick him up) but that honestly seemed to make things worse, so after a while I just quit going in Eventually he fell asleep. It took about 3 days (first two nights were bad...he cried for a long time) but then it WORKED. He would still wake up every now and then, but I could handle that, unlike the once an hour thing. I also never let him get to the point where he would cough/choke/vomit which I've heard sometimes happens when you do CIO Thankfully he was a fairly mild crier. I felt soooo bad, but I can't say that I regret it. Reid has been a great sleeper (for the most part) ever since.

Call/text/email me any time if you have questions!!

[~* Helen *~]

I was about to mention EASY .. which Morgan has already mentioned

We did this with Chloe for a little bit as she then found her own rotuine that stuck.

Have a look here :

E.A.S.Y. Forum