Parents: We Need Your Advice . . .

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Twins I had. Sleep I had not. There is nothing you can do except feed the child well before the final bedtime and hope for the best.

Don’t put the child in the bed with you unless this is where you’d like the child to be forever.

If the baby wakes up in the middle of the night, feed the baby and put him (or her) back in the crib. Do not play with, sing to, talk to, or in any way entertain the baby. If the baby has already been fed and starts to cry, check on her (or him), make sure every thing is o.k., comfort the child verbally, but do not pick the baby up.

I have to tell you, my husband and I became pretty harsh about the no playing rule after our kids became 7 months old. We had to. Being relatively quick learners, it took our children about 3 weeks to realize night time was not playtime.

Good luck and don’t worry. All this does pass.

22

H8–Count on it; whatever you try has a pretty good possibility of not working. That’s three kids talking. I fell into your ‘let’s sleep with mom-n-dad’ trap. I think the anxiety factor is a big one. I won’t bore you with my stories about how different my kids were, but I will say that when I griped to my first born (who’s eleven now) about his not sleeping in the crib, he said, “Hey, who doesn’t like to sleep with somebody else?”
I’m in for trouble with that one…but that’s another thread.
Keep your chin up. All mine sleep in their own rooms now and are very good about it. I couldn’t stand the crying and couldn’t imagine how anybody would want to sleep in a cage anyway (that’s gotta be how it feels to little kids). Not to knock cribs…
Babies are people, after all, who are each different from the other. Sounds like you’re a good daddy to me.

23

Ha, good luck.

My 15 month old still hasn’t slept through the night. I don’t have any advice for you because nothing I try works.

I figure that I’ll sleep when I die.

My kids brighten up our home. They never turn the lights off. -A Wallyism

24

I totally agree with SoMoMom. If your baby is still nursing, it is important for him to continue to nurse at night while he is still so young. I think the sleeping through the night is the biggest babyhood myth ever. Sleeping through the night is not the norm during the first 12 months. (My brother and sister were 20 months apart. They both had allergies. They slept through the night for the first time when they were 4 and 5 years old. That’s an extreme case though - and they slept in their own beds, too.)

If you have no problem sharing your bed with your baby, there is no reason why you shouldn’t comtinue to do so. If it maximizes everyone’s sleep, what’s the problem?

My son is 5.5 months old. He and I have slept in the same bed since he was 3 days old. We both sleep better that way. When he half-wakes to nurse (and he does at least once a night), I just scoot closer to him and he nurses for a few minutes and drifts back into a deeper sleep. He rarely fully wakes before 6:30am. Co-sleeping = more sleep for us both. Also, since I have had a problem with my milk supply since I’ve returned to work, the night nursing really has helped bring my supply back up.

I am also a single mom, so I have no one to help me with him at night. If he is up all night, I am up all night with him alone. I’m sure your wife is thankful to have a spouse who helps her at night, and lets her sleep some too. I totally understand what it’s like to be sleep deprived., especially since my son has been up practically all night for the past 2 nights with a cold/possibly an ear infection.

You could also bring his crib into your room so you don’t have to traverse the stairs if you’d rather he sleep in his crib.

Crying it out does work for some people. I have heard of people limiting the time a baby cries and gradually increasing the time. But I wouldn’t let the baby become hysterical. And if it isn’t working for you, stop and reevaluate. Crying it out would not work for my son. I would never attempt it. When my son cries, he does not cry alone.

A baby cries at night because he needs something. Whether it is because he is hungry or just lonely, it is still a valid need. If your spouse is lonely and needs to be close to you, do you push her away?

Babies are small for such a short time. He won’t be in your bed/room forever, if you decide to go that route. Follow his lead. Do what works for your family. Don’t let anyone pressure you into doing something that makes you uncomfortable.

Good luck, :wink:
h_thur

25

Well, I may as well check in as one of the monster parents who did the old-fashioned cry-it-out method. We did it when our daughter was 6 months and son about 6 1/2 months. Both were down to a feeding at about 9 or 10 pm and had been waking again around 3. Our pediatrician assured us that they did not need the food. (Presumably, at 8 months your son is getting cereal or something during the day.)

When the babies woke up at three, we just let them cry. It took one night for our daughter and two nights for our son. They cried for about half an hour, sometimes loud, sometimes just a little whimper. And then they went back to sleep. The next morning they were their usual happy, bubbly selves. The next night they whimpered for about 5 minutes, the night after that, nothing. This was not the Ferber method–we didn’t go into the room at all.

I should note that neither of our kids ever had separation anxiety. They started going to a babysitter during the day at about 5 or 6 months, and so were perhaps more used to the idea of multiple caregivers than some kids are. They were also never the type of babies who went into hysterics if they cried to long. During the day we never left them to cry.

My daughter is almost 3 now, and my son is 10 months. Both sleep through the night unless they are sick.

It might not be the best solution for you, but I thought I would let you know that it does work for some.

26

My little man is now 25 months old, so that first year is mostly a foggy, sleep-deprived memory now, but here’s my thoughts:

First, just because he’s big doesn’t mean he’s getting enough food. If he’s 90th+ percentile (my son was over 100th in height for a while), he needs more food than the average kid. Breast milk is great stuff, but you might need to supplement. It’s very hard to tell how much milk a baby is taking (unless your wife expresses ahead of time or has superhuman knowledge), so your kid could be getting just a little less food than he wants at every feeding. The one great advantage of bottle feeding is that you know how much food the kid has eaten.

Next, he could be gassy. My son would holler every time we put him on his back after a feeding for the first few months, because he had trouble passing gas. We used simethicone drops (they’re at any drugstore, in the baby section), and it worked like a charm. This doesn’t sound like the problem you’re having, though.

Does he usually have a poop (pardon my baby-talk) when he wakes up? Maybe he’s gotten in the habit of having a BM while he sleeps, and it wakes him up. Dunno what you can do about that.

Your kid’s a little older than mine was when he had his big sleeping problems, but one thing that worked very well in the first six months or so was a “womb bear.” It makes soothing noises, like the mother’s heartbeat, etc. as if heard from the womb. He upgraded to a white noise machine before he was one, but I can’t remember the context right now.

And what everyone will tell you (and it doesn’t help at all at the time, I know) is that “this will pass.” It does. All kids sleep through the night eventually. You will have a good night’s sleep again (until the next kid…)

I’m your only friend
I’m not your only friend
But I’m a little glowing friend
But really I’m not actually your friend
But I am

27

I said that it was not right for all babies. It works for lots of families.

If you sensed some anger in my post it was at the magazines that print advice without giving little details like who shouldn’t use the advice given. Like I said, my baby had separation anxiety before we tried to Ferberize. Oh, and she also went to day care, what’s that got to do with separation anxiety?

I don’t want to hear you call yourself a monster parent again, unless your Elmo’s parent. Geez, as if parenting wasn’t hard enough without people saying you “have” to do this and you “can’t” do that.

28

SoMoMom:

I wasn’t responding to your post in calling myself a “monster mother.” I agree completely that what works is going to be based on your baby’s personality.

I was mainly kidding. If anything, I was responding to the “Mothering Magazine” sort of extremism that insists that there is only one “natural” way to raise babies and that anyone who doesn’t do breastfeeding on demand until 2, co-sleeping, and so on is wrong.

(BTW, I do read Mothering occasionally. I just don’t find that I agree with them all the time.)

The daycare thing was just a WAG on my part. I really don’t know why my kids have never gone through any kind of apparent separation anxiety. It’s just the way they are, I guess.

29

My babies were mostly bottle fed except for the first and that was only for 6 weeks until I went back to work. But I strongly do not agree with loading a baby’s tummy up just to make them sleep through the night. I’m sorry but when the doctor says no solid food, no cereal until 4/6 months then I agree. However this child is older. I also have to disagree with the idea that it has nothing to do with breast feeding. I just don’t think you can discount that as a factor. Breastfed babies are a little different than bottle babies, as are babies like mine that had to go out to a babysitter by 6 or 7 weeks.

I also have to strongly agree with the bed deal. My son was sick. He got an ear infection when he was less than 6 weeks and kept one or at least fluid in the ears until 9 months. I had sleep depravation. I had tried everything but many nights we ended up on the couch together, me sitting straight up with him on my shoulder because the pressure in his ears was terrible when he was laying down. He slept in the bed with us most nights and it took me until he was almost 5 to break him of it fully. Actually the little fart will be 9 in August and he’s crawled into my bed every night this week except last night. I’m single too.

If the child slept for a couple of months through then it’s a fair bet that he will again pretty soon. Just don’t resort to feeding him to much or letting him cry for long periods of time. They are after all sweet little babies and he won’t be very long. I do hope you realize that even if he does sleep all night…you’ve got kids now and it’s your duty to be tired all the time, just like the rest of us! Just think you only have a few more years before you are running every night after work with piano lessons, ball, dance lessons, karate, PTA, cheering, etc. etc. etc.

Needs

30

biggirl:

That would be news to me, my wife, and my three-year-old son. He was breast-fed until just after two and slept with my wife and me (usually) until about that time as well, though by that time he was only nursing just before going to sleep. Starting with an occasion when my wife needed to make an overnight trip out of town, I began to put him to sleep myself (without his nursing, obviously). Between two and three, I typically read to him and then spent some time in the bed with him until he dropped off to sleep, then went back to my own bed. There were times I regarded this as a major pain in the butt, but by and large I didn’t mind. Just after his third birthday, I started kissing him goodnight, tucking him in, and leaving him to fall asleep on his own, which he did pretty readily. For a long time after he stopped nursing to sleep, he had seemed to need someone’s help in settling down enough to go to sleep. The decision to start leaving him on his own came when it became apparent that my presence had become a distraction, a reason to stay awake, rather than a help. For well over a month now, he’s gone to sleep with scarcely a mumble and stayed asleep through the night (keeping him asleep, except for the occasional night terror, hasn’t been a problem since he was eighteen months old). For the first several nights, he asked me to stay with him when I started to leave, but I just explained that I needed to go back downstairs and he didn’t really protest. Bedtime has never become a source of anxiety or tension for us (though it was somewhat inconvenient at times to stay with him), and when he showed signs of being ready to move on to a new way of doing things, we’ve done it.

My point is not that the way my wife and I handled him is the “right” way, but that to say as you do that putting a child in bed with you means they’ll stay there forever is just plain incorrect. Many parents would be doing themselves and their children a disservice by following this practice, just as many parents who misapply Dr. Richard Ferber’s research and ideas (or, God forbid, Gary Ezzo’s) do by leaving their kids to “cry it out”. There is a broad spectrum of parental practice, and while the far extremes of it in any direction are potentially dangerous, most of the area in between can be usefully and happily occupied by different individuals. Allowing a child to sleep in your bed, or sleeping in theirs, requires certain sacrifices and adjustments that are not for everyone, but it’s definitely not a life sentence for the kid or the parent.

“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” –Satchel Paige

31

biggirl:

That would be news to me, my wife, and my three-year-old son. He was breast-fed until just after two and slept with my wife and me (usually) until about that time as well, though by that time he was only nursing just before going to sleep. Starting with an occasion when my wife needed to make an overnight trip out of town, I began to put him to sleep myself (without his nursing, obviously). Between two and three, I typically read to him and then spent some time in the bed with him until he dropped off to sleep, then went back to my own bed. There were times I regarded this as a major pain in the butt, but by and large I didn’t mind. Just after his third birthday, I started kissing him goodnight, tucking him in, and leaving him to fall asleep on his own, which he did pretty readily. For a long time after he stopped nursing to sleep, he had seemed to need someone’s help in settling down enough to go to sleep. The decision to start leaving him on his own came when it became apparent that my presence had become a distraction, a reason to stay awake, rather than a help. For well over a month now, he’s gone to sleep with scarcely a mumble and stayed asleep through the night (keeping him asleep, except for the occasional night terror, hasn’t been a problem since he was eighteen months old). For the first several nights, he asked me to stay with him when I started to leave, but I just explained that I needed to go back downstairs and he didn’t really protest. Bedtime has never become a source of anxiety or tension for us (though it was somewhat inconvenient at times to stay with him), and when he showed signs of being ready to move on to a new way of doing things, we’ve done it.

My point is not that the way my wife and I handled him is the “right” way, but that to say as you do that putting a child in bed with you means they’ll stay there forever is just plain incorrect. Many parents would be doing themselves and their children a disservice by following this practice, just as many parents who misapply Dr. Richard Ferber’s research and ideas (or, God forbid, Gary Ezzo’s) do by leaving their kids to “cry it out”. There is a broad spectrum of parental practice, and while the far extremes of it in any direction are potentially dangerous, most of the area in between can be usefully and happily occupied by different individuals. Allowing a child to sleep in your bed, or sleeping in theirs, requires certain sacrifices and adjustments that are not for everyone, but it’s definitely not a life sentence for the kid or the parent.

“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” –Satchel Paige

32

I know that pediatricians are strongly recommending putting children on their backs to sleep, but I found out by personal experience that they slept much better on their stomachs. At 8 months, he’s probably past the SIDS danger for the most part.

I also have found that white noise helped them sleep. Box fans (not quiet ceiling fans) help lull the baby to sleep. Just don’t point the thing to blow over them all night.

And finally, I was one of those moms that meant business at bedtime. Still do. I reinforced at a very young age, 6 months or so, that when I kissed them on the forehead and put them into bed that that meant mommy wasn’t coming back in. I know other parents who STILL have a bedtime battle every night and I’m glad that I did that part right.

Good luck!!

33

I agree that letting the baby into your bed doesn’t doom you forever. Our son slept with us for the first couple of months–until he started kicking me too much :). We actually kind of wanted our daughter to sleep with us, but she didn’t really like it–she always slept better in her crib.

I want to add that different practices apply at different ages, too. We still let the baby settle himself down on the rare occasions when he wakes up for a few minutes at night. On the other hand, when our daughter wakes up now from a bad dream, or whatever, we do let her come in to sleep with us. She goes back to her own bed just fine the next night.

34

Thanks to all the parents who’ve responded so far. I don’t think separation anxiety is a problem for him, but then again we’ve not had him to a pediatric psychiatrist.

Seriously though, both of the pediatricians told us that he’s getting plenty of nourishment to get through the night, but one of them didn’t necessarily think the not-picking-him-up-when-he-wakes-up-crying method would work, the other one did.

We did try leaving him in the crib last night. He woke up and started crying at 2:10. I went to his crib, talked softly to him, patted his tummy, pulled his blankie back over him, then walked away. He start crying, then screaming, then whimpering, then crying out “Muh, muh, muhhhh muhhhh” like he usually does when he wants his Mommy. He cried off and on for 15 minutes, I checked on him again, and he cried-whimpered for another 10 minutes. He stopped crying at some point and I fell asleep, then I woke at 3:00 to silence. I checked on him and he was sleeping soundly, and he was still sleeping when I left this morning. This would be the first full night of sleep my wife’s had since December.

I think we’ll try again tonight and see if we make any more progress, UNLESS he’s very cranky and agitated today. If so, then maybe the separation anxiety is a factor and we’ll rethink this approach.

Thanks again to all who responded.

Coldfire, let’s have lunch someday; we’ll go dutch.

35

Both of my breast fed kids slept through the night by 3 months. That has very lttle to o with it.

36

1st night, cried for about 45 minutes, then slept.
2nd night, cried for about 20 minutes, then slept.
3rd night, slept through the night.
4th night, slept through the night.

I’d H8 to jinx it, but I think this approach is working.

Thanks again to those who offered advice.

37

Congratulations! We used the same approach with our now 4 year old son, and things worked out great. He’s now one of the few children I know who goes to bed at a decent time without a whole lot of fuss.