Parents - did your baby ever stop sleeping through the night on their own?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey parents, need some advice. Last week (around Oct 25) Darby stopped sleeping through the night on her own. Now three things started around that time. She is getting four teeth, we spent the night at a hotel (all three together), and it snowed.

Since then, she hasn’t made it through the night in her own crib once. She always wakes up and doesn’t sleep well until she is sleeping next to mom. I realize her mouth is probably what’s bothering her right now, but I am worried this is becoming a habit. Dad is sleeping on the couch because the bed isn’t big enough for all three of us.

She has never had this problem except when sick or teething, so do you think it will pass when her teeth are in?? Any advice for what I can do incase it doesn’t solve itself? I am not a big fan or ferber’s “crying it out” method.

2

This very thing has happened to SmithWife & me. It’s always when baby is sick or teething, etc. as you describe. With a little gentle encouragement and some “crying it out” we’ve been able to get her back on her schedule as soon as things normalized (like being home instead of in a hotel, or when baby is feeling better after an illness).

Although the last 5 days baby has got some kind of respitory virus, and she’s not been sleeping well at all. She’s very congested and uncomfortable, and cranky, poor thing. None of us have had a good night sleep since last week. Even when baby finally goes to sleep, SmithWife & I are still half awake listening to her breathing.

Nobody told me being a parent was so difficult! :wink:

3

My two would go through phases where they needed Mommy close to them. I let my little ones crawl into bed with me when they were/are sick. When it was time to go back to their crib/bed I’d just sit with them and talk until they started getting sleepy and then I’d walk out. If one of them tried to come into my room during the middle of the night I’d just walk them back or else wait til they were asleep again before carrying them back to bed. Good luck.

4

We weren’t either, but we modified it to include more comforting time. Let your babe cry for about ten minutes, tops, then comfort her for 2-3 minutes. Don’t pick her up, though. She won’t learn how to drop off on her own if you do.

We found that Motrin is a great pain reliever for teething, lasting much longer than Tylenol. That means you don’t need to give the little ones nearly as much medication. We would generally do so only at bedtime, and only when absolutely needed.

5

My child has never slept through the night because I also can’t let her cry it out. She is autistic and she is now 3 and a half years old. I doubt your kiddo will keep this habit but if she does, there are a few books you can check out to help. In my daughter’s case, she doesn’t understand and it’s not something she can control.

I once watched my friends’ house for about 6 weeks and I got her to sleep alone and through the night but once we got home again, she went back into her old sleeping patterns. It was six weeks of heaven, though. She slept from 8:30 at night until 5:30-6 am, it was sweet. Alas, it was over so soon. We share a room and that also doesn’t help.

Does your daughter have her own room? That makes a huge difference, so I’ve heard. I’ve tried using melatonin (natural chemical we produce that makes us tired) and it puts my daughter out just fine but she still wakes up several times during the night. I’ve decided against using prescription drugs, it just isn’t worth potential risks to her health. I would maybe try that but talk to your pediatrician first. I know a few moms who use melatonin with great success.

Good luck!

6

Yeah, my guys would wake up and cry if they were sick, teething, or at a strange place, or for no discernable reason. Sometimes they would wake up and sort of whine for a few minutes and fall back asleep on their own. If they really woke themselves up crying, I’d go in and do something. I never liked the “cry it out” idea either.

I would try comforting without picking up first. That worked sometimes. But if you have to pick up, then pick up. If they have a full diaper or are having discomfort, then of course you have to deal with that. It’s hard for anyone to sleep when they’re uncomfortable.

I think that sleeping with Mom can easily become a habit. She has her own bed, get her back into it. Just do your comfort routine until she gets to back to sleep in her own crib. It might take a few nights but if you stick with it, she’ll get the idea.

It’s hard to believe now, but the day will come when it’ll be hard to get them out of bed. That knowledge alone helped me get through many a long night.

7

The very day that I stopped the bottle, he slept thru the night. Unfortuantely, I waited til he was over 3!
Before that, every night he woke up every 3 hours.
For three years!

8

We were lucky with the girl (2 and 1/2)… she started sleeping through at 8 weeks and did fine unless she was sick or teething. Then we had to sleep in a hotel for 3 nights this summer due to a funeral and when we came home she kept coming into our room in the middle of the night.

We let her do that for a couple more months (because I was due with the boy) and we figured she’d get jealous if we booted her out only to bring him in so now that he’s out of the basinette and into the crib this is what we did to get her into her room:

We made a big deal about going to the store and getting her a basket and we bought a ton of little flocked bears (20 cents each at the craft store) Now every night that she sleeps in her room she gets one and if she wakes up and comes to us we walk her back. The first night she cried a little and I sat with her until she was sleepy but now she walks back on her own and instead of two or three trips we have one and it is much later after she goes to bed.

I think there is a difference between ferberizing your kid and not giving in to their every cry. I don’t let them cry needlessly but if I’ve said ‘no candy’ and she wants to go in her room and cry I’m fine with that. Likewise when I’ve said bedtime tears are not going to manipulate me. If you are consistent (and I’m not talking about doing this with an infant… crying is their only method of communication) then the instances where they do indeed cry it out are very very few.

9

That seems right, tanookie. Our daughter (we have twins) goes right to sleep when we put her down, without a complaint. Our son, though, will cry, every single time, regardless of how exhausted he is.

He will generally go to sleep within 5-10 minutes, though, and wake up un the morning happy and chatty. We don’t get too worked up about it anymore, though we do wish he’d go to sleep happy as well.

Different kids, different methods. This is very obvious when they’re growing up together like our two.

10

Some kids go through night terrors. Basically, these are nightmares from hell. (I don’t remember what causes them, and I’m too lazy to get my psych textbook.)

Aaron got these fairly predictably. He’d start screaming his lungs out, but he’d be half asleep. Once we woke him up completely, and he could see that he was at home in safe surroundings, he went back to sleep.

That said, he’s never really had problems when we were on the road. I guess it’s because he’s used to sleeping in different places and accepts a new place as just another place to crash.

Mr. Moto, Aaron was a holy terror at bedtime for a while. Then we put him on a fixed, inviolable bedtime (6:30 with the time change; it was 7:30) and he’s been fine ever since.

Robin

11

I wasn’t a big fan of the “cry it out” method either, but after little to no sleep for 6 months…we were ready to try anything…teething or no teething.

Our compromise was that we would only let him cry for 10 minutes straight…then go in his room, check the diaper, give him his nukie, put him on his stomach and rub his back until he stopped crying.

Then go back to bed and repeat until he was down for the night.

First night it took 10 tries or more (honestly I lost count)…2nd night about 1/3 less, 3rd night about the same, 4th night the same…on the 6th night, it took once and that was it.

He woke up at 6:30am after going down around 9pm on the 7th night and now life is good!

I can’t EVER recommend bring the baby in bed with you…kids are always going to prefer sleeping with parents rather than alone…and it’s like breaking a 1 year old’s crack habit getting them to go back to their crib rather than their parent’s warm bed.

I also totally support the use of Motrin when his/her gums are raging on specific evenings…we would use 50% of the recommended dosage and it works like a charm.

Good Luck…we’ve all been there…trust me it will get easier…this is until they can stand up in their crib at 4:00am and yell “MOOOOOOOOOOMA”…“DAAAAAAAAAAAAADA”

Then it’s a whole other ball of wax! :wink:

12

It is a whole other ball of wax when you get up at 6am to find your kid in the bay window writing bad checks… our house is like lockdown in the penitentiary and every day she learns to circumvent something else we’ve done!

But I can’t complain since she’s such a fun and sweet kid … I’ve been told the boy will be her polar opposite. Time will tell; not like I can give them back :slight_smile:

I have learned to rue the word ‘Uh-oh’

13

We’re having this at the moment. A day or two of sickness, teething, anything at all where they get something different than usual, and they think it’s a new routine. Then you have to get them back into the old habit.

Baby g, age 7 months, has decided that she won’t go to sleep unless someone is holding her. Once she’s put down, she pops awake and cries. Last night was awful, with one long crying session and two wakeups (with attendant crying), where she used to sleep just fine. I hope tonight will be better. Oh, for the days when I plopped her in the crib and she rolled over and went to sleep…

14

We co-sleep, so the idea of allowing a baby to cry for ten minutes without comfort (when they’re obviously crying for comfort) just flabbergasts me.

You might want to look for the book “No Cry Sleep Solution.” I can’t, off the top of my head, remember the author but the title is accurate.

15

I’m the hideous awful other side of this coin evidently.

I’m the father of now 10.5 month old boys. Both of them have gone through a period of ‘object permanence’ where they figured out mom and dad existed even when they weren’t in the room.

In both cases, it lasted a week or three and they got over it. The object was to make them feel wanted and needed, but that there were boundaries. There’s obviously a difference between a child that wants attention and another that’s genuinely frightened. If they needed assistance, we picked them up, otherwise, poking our head in the door and telling them they were alright was often all that was needed.

There was one night early on, where Mrs. Blank was up at 9:30, 10:15, 10:45 and 11:20. At 11:20, I walked into the baby’s room and said “Look at him, he’s playing you.” It was pretty obvious what he was up to, and he’d figured out how to get mom in the room. We left, closed the door, and he cried out for about 10 minutes, then went to sleep.

My kids go to sleep by themselves, and sleep throught the night. If they’re grumpy and go down crying, it’s RARE that they do so for more than 6-8 minutes. I’ve also come across them 30 or 60 minutes after bedtime quietly playing in their cribs. We’re okay with that as they should be allowed and learn to self soothe.

I’d recommend the Baby Whisperer books for parents with newborns, I’ve just started the Baby Whisperer for toddlers as that’ll be the NEXT thing we have to deal with.

Monday through friday, they get up about 5:30am with us (go to bed at 8) Saturday and sunday, Collin will occasionally bleat out at 5:30, but then go back to sleep, getting really demanding around 7am or so.

16

Poor baby. All of mine have gone through periods of not sleeping, but if you gently work her back into her normal schedule, she should be fine.

Slight hijack: Once I had a 17 year old student of mine living with us a good deal of the time. She had night terrors. Holy cow, what a nightmare.

Good luck.
Best,
karol

17

[\Holier than thou soapbox which nonetheless contains some measure of advice and things to think about for people wondering what to do with their future children]

We never had any problems getting our kids to sleep through the night, and I almost never had to get up to answer a cry. Magic? No, just that they slept in bed with us. Sure, I got booted to a spare bed when first daughter was around 18 months so I got better sleep. But when daughter 2 came along, Daughter 1 moved into my bed. This was MUCH easier and gave me far more sleep than other friends I know. Sleeping with your kids is done by FAR more peopel than commonly suspected.

Sleeping with a parent is like crack for babies? That would imply addictive AND harmful, which it is not. If YOU like sleeping with a warm body (your spouse) why would you actively deny your helpless infant the same pleasure? Once they outgrow sleeping with a parent, it will be decades before they share a bed on a regular basis. You get to go back to snuggling with your spouse. Hardly seems a high price to pay.

(Daughter 1, now 5, has just started sleeping on her own in her own bed on her own initiative.)

[/soapbox]

18

I would never look down on anyone for cosleeping… but it does not work for me. I know many people who do this and some love it and some feel trapped by it. I get far less sleep and I do not like it at all.

I am a light sleeper from decades of abuse. So every rustle and kick and snore brings me wide awake. My husband sleeps like a stone through everything but I just lie there and stare at the ceiling for a while. We had my daughter in bed with us for months and it was horrible. She liked to sleep across us in an H position and I spent too much time with her head in the small of my back or her feet kicking me. She also talks in her sleep and is that ever distracting!

I don’t like sleeping with a warm body and generally sleep all the way away from hubby coccooned into the covers as much as possible. I know I’m in the minority but that’s how I am.

Honestly the only cries I’ve had to answer besides the very occasional sick call or rogue night waking are hungry cries. My kids are hardly in their cribs desolate and sobbing because mom and dad have forsaken them.

My philosophy has always been to do what works for the individual family.

19

I co-sleep with both of my youngest. Usually, it’s lovely and warm and snuggly.

But then there are mornings like this one, where I just needed one more hour of sleep before I headed out to run my second route. Instead of sleeping, though, I spent that hour listening to the Weeping Princess sing her abcs over and over and OVER.

It’s much cuter in retrospect. Lucky for her she’s adorable. :slight_smile:

But like tanookie, I could never co-sleep with my older kids when they were babies. I very rarely had to get up with either of them. With the last two, we just ran out of room and it was easier to keep them in with us than to rearrange the rest of the family.

20

sigh of relief Last night went far better for us. Baby g woke up at 9.30, for pete’s sake*, but after that only once, at 4 am. Mr. genie went in and held her for a minute before putting her back down, and she calmed down within a couple of minutes and went back to sleep. It’s difficult, because if I go in there, then nursing is pretty much inevitable, but that only trains her to wake up more often. So it’s entirely up to mr. genie, who we thought would be giving a huge presentation today (only he’s off the hook now), so spending half the night with her didn’t seem like a good idea. Anyway, things are looking up. I hope.
*Our routine is to wake her up at 10 for a final nurse, and then she is supposed to sleep the rest of the night.