If I may, the triangular area under the ear lobe/jaw area is where you gently rub circles to increase the drainage of the eustachan tubes. Try it on yourself and feel the gunk slide elsewhere.
It can possibly help you with a fussy baby and toddler and save you a doctor’s visit to boot.
They drool excessively during teething phases. Ex.cess.ive.ly. Not all of it goes outwards.
The other S’s in the Happiest Baby routine are sleeping on side or stomach, rocking him with a “swing” motion, and “sucking” on a pacifier.
It’s really intended to be used in the first 3 months, though. The theory is that until then the baby isn’t really “cooked.” There’s sort of another trimester left after they are born until they can regulate themselves a bit. It’s actually based on some pretty substantial research, as well as observation of cultures where babies sleep with or ride around on Mom basically all the time.
Just throwing in my 2c, as the Kid was also a terrible sleeper. Like you, I listened to all sorts of contradictory advice and tried to make some kind of sleep deprived sense of it all.
I tried all the suggestions that have been listed here - and any one of them could work for your baby - food was the partial cure for mine.
I began her on solids at four months. Early - but she was showing the signs (mouthing everything) and took to it well. See.
It didn’t solve all the sleep issues, but it helped. Nine years later, she still doesn’t want to miss anything and my mum says that it’s a sign of intelligence. That doesn’t help so much (but it does a little).
We didn’t try cereal for ages. She loved all the new and different tastes, I had to sneak bland foods into the strained fruit and veggies. If it wasn’t the magic bullet for perfect sleep, at least it has given her a strong preference for fresh and healthy foods.
One mother to another (as my mum said to me), when it gets too hard; make sure the kid is clean, dry, fed and safe. Those are the things you can do. You can’t *make *your baby sleep or be happy. So, do what you *can *do, then take your favourite hot drink and sit on the doorstep (outside the door) as far away as possible.
You are allowed to take five minutes for yourself.
You have earned it with the brilliant way you are caring for your baby.
Hey, I too have a Godzilla baby (18lbs 12 oz at her 4mo appt) who doesn’t like to sleep! I’ve tried a lot of things, and have some good research at my fingertips, and for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts.
I know I’m going to get flamed, but baby’s health is too important to ignore this. Please don’t give your baby formula to try to get him to sleep. There is NO evidence that this helps babies sleep better (anecdotes aside), and there is LOTS of evidence that introducing formula increases the risk of respiratory illnesses, ear infections, gut problems, and allergies, all of which do interfere with sleep.
Also, if you’re going to try solids, make sure your baby is ready. Indications of readiness include sitting up by himself, being able to pick up items with a pincer grasp, and loss of the tongue thrust reflex. Again, if you’re concerned about allergies, early solids are not a great idea.
Also, while getting on a fairly regular daily schedule is a good idea, please avoid Babywise - it has terrible advice, endangers breastfeeding, and is based on the odious notion that babies are inherently evil and must be “broken” like horses or something. I believe it teaches parents to be insensitive to their babies’ needs. Check out Dr. Sears’s stuff, like the Baby Book and the Fussy Baby and High Needs Child. Pantley is great as well, but remember that even she doesn’t cover every baby - our kids don’t fit her mold of napping for an hour or more, they just don’t. (Take heart, my uncooperative first daughter now sleeps 12 hours a night, and for a long time also took a 2-3 hour nap each day - it will get better!)
I think you may just have a high-needs baby, and he may also have learned to associate the feeling of falling asleep with negative emotions. If he’s been put down to “learn to self soothe” and cried and cried, he may have decided that falling asleep is a sucky experience. Have you tried holding him or putting him in a sling for naps? Some babies just won’t nap any other way, no matter what the experts say. At the very least holding him for sleep for a while might convince him that sleep can be pleasant.
Argh, my baby is fussing, I gotta go. Let me just say I’m not against letting babies cry, but I think 5 1/2 months is a little early. They’re still very needy at that stage. When they are more like 8 mo, they start expressing wants and preferences and sometimes it’s appropriate to say “no.”
Good luck, I’ll try to check in again later when things are quieter here!
OK, my MIL arrived, I have a moment now (yes, I’m veryveryvery lucky).
When I said “our kids don’t fit her mold,” I meant my husband’s and mine - I realize that was a little confusing. What I was trying to say is that I now have an almost five year old, and she was a terrible napper, and not a great sleeper. She wouldn’t nap for more than 40 minutes or so no matter what I did. I got really frustrated. Now I think that’s just the way she was put together, and she had to grow out of it. By the time she was ten months old, she was sleeping and napping very well. We did let her cry for a while when she was seven months old and decided she liked nighttime visits, and was getting up every 30 to 60 minutes all night.
I think you have to listen to your gut on the cry it out advice. If you are completely mental from sleep deprivation, you cannot be a good parent. And if CIO seems to work, and it doesn’t bother you too much, I guess it’s better than miserable zombie Mom! But if it gives you an ulcer to leave your baby to cry, like it does me, feel free to try other things. Also beware that CIO tends not to work for high needs babies - they cycle up and up and up instead. People who tell you they had miracles with CIO probably had babies of more average temperament. Anyway, there’s no law that says you must not lie down with your baby for naps, or that you can’t hold him. Whatever gives you the maximum combined sleep and peace of mind.
Oh, as for tummy sleeping, IIRC, 90% or more of SIDS cases occur between 2 and 6 months of age. Personally, I would feel comfortable removing one SIDS precaution around 6 months. Obviously, ask your doctor, but if you have the baby in your room, no one smokes around him, he has a safe firm mattress, no blankets or pillows, and so on, the risk might be very small. Of course, if he’s rolling, he might chose his tummy all on his own, and all the experts say not to worry about that.
Here is what’s working to keep us sane right now. Sometimes I hold Claire for naps, sometimes I put her down and resign myself that she will be up within 30 minutes. To get her to sleep, we give her a pacifier and either rock her or wear her, sometimes with patting as well. Standing up is often required.
At night, she gets a bath at the same time every night, then into her PJs, nurse, swaddle, and I hold her till she’s asleep. Then she sleeps in her Amby Baby hammock bed in our room. I get up with her when she wakes up, sometimes nursing sometimes just rocking/paci. Around 4-5 am when she gets up, I just take her into bed with me, since she has trouble getting back to sleep around then. If she’s been up a lot, and I’m really tired, I wake up my husband sometime between 4 and 6, and he takes her out of the bedroom while I get to sleep for 2-3 hours uninterrupted, which really makes all the difference. (And evidently you can play Team Fortress II with a baby strapped to you.)
If you would like some support, some "you poor thing!"s and some ideas that might help, I suggest checking out a La Leche League meeting. Sometimes it helps to just talk to other mothers, and the organization is not just about breastfeeding, but about supporting mothers. You can find a meeting here: http://groups.lllc.ca/groups.php?prov=ON
I was thinking about this overnight. Does he sleep if you lay down with him? If he does, I would just do it. With babies, sleep begets sleep (generally speaking), so if you can get him sleeping decently either at night or during the day – by whatever means necessary – you might have more luck with his sleep during the other period.
Plus, even though you might have stuff you want to get done during his nap, I’m sure you could use some sleep, too!
I’m doing the ear massage, thanks, Shirley (Mr. Lissar says it’s a useful pressure point- he’s the tai chi guy, not me), and half-doses of Advil. So far today he’s slept miraculously in his crib once (30 minutes) and on the bed (hour and a half, nursed to sleep).
We’ve started getting up at the same time today- 5:30, which may be a little early for his biological clock, but not by much, and it’s the only workable alternative to me and the kid moving to the couch at three every morning. We’ll see if a dependable waking time helps.
He has refused a bunch of different pacifiers, so I’ve given up on them. He does prefer to be cuddled to sleep, but that only really works if he’s hungry, and so today I’ve had, oh, 50% success with CIO. It totally depnds on his mood, and since he’s really sleep-deprived right now I’m not doing any Ferberizing, even if our neighbours would permit it. :rolleyes:
Any cosleeping Moms have any ideas about how to make leaving him alone on the bed safe? I could just lie with him, but if he sleeps five times a day I’ll be grumpy and stiff by bedtime. The drop off worries me, although I’m not ready to ditch the deframe yet. Suggestions?
I’m probably going to get flamed for this because it’s not exactly recommended, but we have a king-sized bed and just used to strip off the comforter and sheets and put our baby smack in the middle with his sleeping space surrounded by pillows to prevent him from going anywhere.
Then we’d stick the monitor on top of one of the pillows and check on him every half hour or so or if we heard enough movement that he might be rolling over. We would have preferred to put the mattress on the floor, but it was just too heavy to lift off and on.
Letting him sleep on our bed where he could smell my smell during naps was a life saver. If you can, you could put the mattress on the floor just in case. Also, if you feel more comfortable buying something to keep him in one spot, there are these things that look kind of like a diaper-changing pad, only the top half and sides have folded-up portions that come up, say, 5-6 inches and hold the baby in place. They can be used in a crib or in your bed. Our son has always been a thrasher, so other than swaddling, an object to keep him in one spot would not have worked.
Does he sleep sitting up? In the car? In the swing - or does he just not sleep?
My daughter went through a period where we had to have her sleep in her carseat (she had one of those baby buckets), slightly reclined. She wouldn’t sleep lying flat. Eventually, we propped her crib mattress so she was on an incline.
My son wanted to sleep with us (still does). My daughter - cosleeping was a disaster.
In other words, if there is something (anything at this point) that works for your kid.
Hmm. I wonder if I could make a changing-pad-like cushioned thing? I might also get killed for this, but we did the same thing, overlyverbose, except now he rolls so efficiently it’s almost like crawling. I figured, he could flip himself over at two months, and he sleeps with his face either flat into the mattress or pressed against my breast or arm. If he’s going to smother he would have done it already. Besides, he’s big, and the bigger the baby, the less risk of SIDS in general.
He slept sitting up until two months, then abruptly stopped. Now he wants horizontal and dark. With me cuddling.
So I may be dense, but I’m confused - are you saying that method does work? Or that no methods are working?
If it’s that something DOES work but you’re trying to get him to do something else, I’d give up on the something else.
Lots of experts say you have to do XYZ or you kid will never sleep properly. I don’t think that’s true at all. Kids go through spells when they sleep well, and spells when they don’t. For lots of reasons.
You may well come to a point down the road when you have to put your foot down and be strict (we’ve had to do that), but I don’t think you have to accomplish it now.
Wouldn’t we all? 
Quoted for truth. One of the hardest lessons to learn, especially for first-time parents. Sometimes they cry for a discernible reason. Sometimes they cry for a combination of reasons. Sometimes, they just cry.
The other hard lesson to learn is that one day you will miss this. You never learn that one until it happens.
Regards,
Shodan
pffffffffff - not me, buddy.
Now, if I could flash-freeze some of these 4-yr-old moments (but not all of them) I’d do so.
Horizontal and cuddling work sometimes. As above, mostly when he’s hungry. If he’s not, no dice. CIO works, oh, 15% of the time. Maybe. The last couple of days, nothing works until he’s so tired he just shuts down, which takes about three hours of unhappiness (about twice as long as his happy awake time).
Today has actually been okay so far, through painkillers and massage, although when he falls asleep on the bed I can’t move him without him waking up, and I have the abovementioned rolling problem.
Could you put his crib mattress on the floor and sleep w/him there, so you can get up and if he rolls, it’s ok?
I used to put pillows around the periphery of our queen-sized bed.
Or I’d just let them sleep on the floor.
Have you tried slinging him? I mean, wearing him in a sling (not slinging him up against the wall, though Og knows we all have moments when it’s tempting LOL).
Even though the baby is young, have the pediatrician check out the tonsils. My little guy had trouble since he was really little. Finally read about sleep apnea due to tonsils. Sleep study confirmed his interrupted sleep. Had his tonsils out and he started sleeping like a log.
Good luck.
He may grow out of it. I know that doesn’t sound especially helpful at this point.
I’ve been there.
My girl (21 months now) was just like that at that age. She wouldn’t nap unless I laid down with her, and would not, would NOT sleep without one of us beside her. (and she pinches. It’s the craziest thing. In order to be comfortable, she has to be pinching your neck)
I started putting her in her crib for naps. That worked…eventually.
Then it progressed to where she would go down in her crib at night.
Until around midnight or so, when she would wake up, and want company. Then it was back into the guest bed with her, to be pinched for hours.
I despaired of ever getting to sleep by herself, trust me.
“Crying it out” didn’t work - she could scream for hours.
But…gradually she was waking less and less…and now she goes down without incident, and sleeps through the night.
It absolutely could be allergies…my one sister had a milk allergy that the docs wouldn’t consider. She was either hungry and crying, or she’d been fed and so her stomach hurt and she was crying.
The other sister had a back problem, and it hurt her to lie down. She would only sleep sitting up. As soon as you laid her down, she was back up and screaming. (we were treated to descriptions of this at her bridal shower on the weekend)
Hang in there. It does end. Eventually.
Smacking can help send most babies off to sleep.
Just a couple of grams, mind…
It seems (from way over here, just reading) that it’s something to do with the ears. You’ve massaged to clear the tubes, given painkillers and he’s slept a bit better. Congratulations.
With the drop off worry, I’d be inclined to sew a couple of pillows (or rolled up towels) into a sheet. Sew a tube each side of the sheet with enough distance between to let him sleep comfortably, then slip the pillows into those tubes so he can’t push them out of the way or roll over them.
Does he respond to singing / soothing noises? Since you’re able to *get * him to sleep, would a recording of your voice help *keep * him sleeping?
I (with medical approval) occasionally fed mine after I’d got her to sleep, she’d half wake enough to suck and then sleep for a couple of hours more than usual. I didn’t do it often as she was already a lazy feeder, but the Dr backed up the advice my mum gave me - if it helps you cope, it’s not all bad. To repeat for clarity - I didn’t do this often, only when I *really needed * to get some sleep myself. It can affect feeding patterns. Her feeding habits had *already * required supplementary bottles and early solids.
