I’m getting desperate.
The kid, 5 months, has gone through a few periods of sleeping pretty well, gradually getting better and better, but lately, things have fallen off a cliff. We can’t get him to nap unless it’s on one of us, and if he does fall asleep in our arms, he wakes up as soon as he’s in the crib. Rarely, we can get him to stay asleep there, but then only for 30 minutes or so. This weekend, we tried letting him cry for 5 minutes, then soothing, then letting him cry for 10 minutes, etc. This just results in hours and hours of crying, and little to no sleep. We spent almost every waking moment trying to get him to sleep.
Nights are just as bad. A few weeks ago, he was down to getting up once or twice at night - last night, he was up almost constantly. But not awake and playful - he clearly wanted to get back to sleep, but was too cranky and exhausted to do it. His longest stretch was from 6:00pm until 9:30; after that I think he slept for no more than an hour and a half at a time. Again, he falls asleep in our arms easily, but can’t fall asleep or stay asleep in the crib.
I’m starting to have thoughts of quitting my job so he (and we) can get some sleep. I’m also terrified that we’ll wind up with a 2-year-old who needs to be rocked back to sleep five times a night.
What the hell do we do?