[ashj_1218]

Okay...I am here...again. About the same point I was here with Liam.

I am DONE getting up every hour at night. Kieran is a horrible cosleeper. He tosses, turns, pulls my hair, headbutts me in the chin, kicks, throws Pacis on the floor, and on and on and on all.night.long. So he has been going to sleep in his crib, which means I have to get out of bed and nurse him every time he wakes up. Which is about every hour lately.

This was the same stage with Liam that I miserably plugged along for another two months before finally deciding he was not going to sleep without crying it out. I was uninformed and really, it did seem like the only solution for me to get some sleep. I understand, in my crazy sleep-deprived state, how it sounded like the only way.

And two years later, I am right here again. I am losing the ability to be a good parent because I don't sleep. I am grumpy with my toddler, I am snappy with my husband (I am always angry with him about something) and I am slogging through my days eating badly and not being active enough because I am exhausted. I feel like it is affecting my ability to parent how I want to...and just to be the person I want to be.

So I read this No Cry Sleep Solution. I IIke the book and the gentle methods. And it seems doable (mostly). But, of course, the book itself has glowing reviews...but I frankly don't see how it works.

We have a bedtime routine, he goes down awake and often falls asleep for naps without any assistance from me (just lays down after I sing to him and goes to sleep). When he wakes at night, he generally does not nurse all the way to sleep. He knows I am putting him back in his crib. If I try to soothe him in his crib or with his paci when he wakes up at night...he freaks out. But it seems like the basis of the book is that when he is not nursing to sleep (which he doesn't), he will stop needing to nurse when he wakes up in the middle of the night and will learn to go back to sleep himself. Which hasn't happened yet...

So why would it work now?

Has anyone tried the methods in the book? If so, did they help at all? I guess I don't have much to lose...but I want some "real world" opinions. A load of bunk? Or might it really help? I know he is only 8 months old...but I am not one who can go at this for 2 yrs without serious consequences.

[Jule'sMomInOR]

I'm sorry I can't offer much help. I was going to say that the biggest thing I took from the NCSS was to not nurse all the way to sleep, and that did help us some but certainly was not enough to make Juliana put herself back to sleep every time she woke up. However, Kerian is already not nursing all the way to sleep.

Have you tried side-carring his crib? That way he has his own space and can't kick you, but you are super close when he wakes up. Juliana started with the kicking and squirming when she was about Kerian's age and when I finally got her to sleep in the side-car crib around 10 months, it was like heaven. It was the perfect solution for us and I can't recommend it more!

He WILL sleep without CIO, it just may not be as soon as you would like. Do you think he is teething? I know with Juliana we went through phases. I think somewhere around 10 or 11 months old she actually got to where she would wake up only twice per night, and that lasted around a month. Then teething hit, and then developmental milestones, and there went that. I'm just thinking that you may not have to consistently deal with this for a long period of time, but you may have a few weeks on and a few weeks off and it will gradually get better. I don't want to make it sound rosy, because it won't be, but it probably won't be quite as bad as you're thinking.

((HUGS)) I promise this will pass.

[angelsailor288]

Sorry to say it hasnt worked for me, at all. Nicholas freaks out in his crib and there is no comforting him.

[Cruiser]

I got some IDEAS from the book, but the title I think is misleading - it sounds more like a method of helping them sleep, when really it's just a bunch of things to try. And it can take a loooooooooooooong time to see any progress, which when you're exhausted makes it seem like nothing is working.

I liked the idea of tracking sleep, because I could see that sometimes it wasn't as bad as I thought, and was improving, albeit slowly.

Something we had to do with my DD was have my husband go in with her to see if he could console her. I was desperate for 3-4 hours of sleep in a row and he would usually be able to get her to sleep pretty easily if I wasn't around.

[mgm78]

using just a few suggestions in the book we went from 6-10 night wakings to 2-4 night wakings, which was huge for us.

[alwayssmile]

We used the NCSS at that age. It really is all about picking a routine that you want for your family and sticking with it. Don't skip recording wake ups, how they went back to sleep, how long they were up, etc. I didn't use their form, but just entered stuff into my phone. I felt like we were making no progress, but after 10 days I realized we were thanks to my logs. We had gone from 10-13 wakings a night to 6-7. My poor body felt the same, but reality was there was positive changes. I then looked into anything new we might need to do to encourage better sleep, which ended up being having no lights in his room at all. Even small electronic lights made a difference that I didn't expect! It took us a good 6 weeks for the family to settle down at night and for us to all be sleeping well. Looking back it wasn't that long, but at the time it seemed like forever. My husband finally agreed when he had a break of training to go in and console DS if he had just BF within the past 2 hours. DH was able to do things that I could never do with DS to calm him down. Eventually DS went from waking and freaking out immediately to waking and making a few complaint noises that we were able to go in, pat him on the back, and he'd go back to sleep. DS had turned into a horrible cosleeper and side carring the crib wasn't an option there (not enough room), so we went from cosleeping most of the night to crib sleeping the whole night. I know some of his night wakings was him just wondering where we were and figuring out that he needed us we'd still be there for him.

I feel like a lot of sleep books are just giving "the magical answers" where NCSS is giving suggestions and reminders to keep things in perspective. It is not a quick solution at all, but it helps give you some ideas and structure during a time when you're losing your mind.

[PinkFireFly]

I tried No Cry with DD around 1 year because I was getting frustrated, we did it for about 2 weeks and I didn't see any improvement and I couldn't handle the fact that I was so much more stressed out hoping "this" worked and it didn't. I just kept reminding myself "this too shall pass" and it has but it wasn't without emotional sleepless nights and breakdowns...

((hugs))

[ashj_1218]

I can honestly say every response here has helped a lot. I am just feeling burnt out and I am trying to keep it in perspective.

I am going to continue trying the routine things and using whatever of the NCSS that I can apply comfortably. But we are def in a bad sleep place. We side carred the crib this week and I am just hoping things get better soon. Even one night of somewhat decent sleep will help!

I will do those sleep logs. I think I just get so frustrated because it FEELS like I am literally up all night. But I bet the reality is that I am getting some sleep in there.

I did notice that if I put him down at 7:30 he sleeps worse than if I put him down at 8:15. Which is contrary to what most people or books would say. But i am going to experiment with naps and bedtimes and routines to see if we can fall into a good one. I would settle for 3 hours at a time right now (when a month ago, that seemed too often!)

Thanks ladies. I love having you all in my corner.

[Jule'sMomInOR]

I can remember feeling very burnt out on many separate occasions and it seems like it always go better, or at least started to, right about the point where I thought I couldn't go on any more.

Even though it might show progress, I never got anywhere with the sleep logs because I had to wake myself up more fully to find the pen and paper, look at the clock, and write down the time. I think I did it for one night and gave up. IDK, it may be worth it though. Hang in there and KUP!

[alwayssmile]

My son for the longest slept better with a later bedtime. It wasn't been until recently that an earlier bedtime has made a difference! Good reminder that every kid has different needs and there is definitely not a one size fits all solution!