eight month DD wakes every 2 hour - can DH save the day??!

[Fourteeth]

My DD has always woken a lot in the night. He is BF and sleeps in cot with open side next to our bed. I am finally admitting to myself that he will not sleep for longer periods unless we try something new. I go back to work part time next week.

So... DH is going to spend two night with DD rocking and cuddling him back to sleep. Our thinking is that this might help DD get back to sleep without BF. I find the idea of not being there for him hard though!

We've explored No Cry Sleeep Solution, Pick up put down, are not really into controlled crying, and to be honest am sick of sleep gurus!

...but have any of you enlisted DH to solve the problem and did it help? Would love to know

[EffiePerine]

i think it can work - DS1(who had similar sleep patterns) would sleep much better when I wasn't around to proffer milk. You'd have to be in another room tho.

[thisisyesterday]

i wouldn't count on it!
we did ncss at about 9/10 months with ds2. I did stop him feeding so frequently. however he still woke at least 2 hourly just for some comfort and cuddles.

it might work. it might not. personally I actually found it easier to just fee dhim back to sleep because I dozed myself whilst feeding.
once I had stopped breastfeeding in the night I found it really hard to get back to sleep once i'd woken

[Fourteeth]

and how is your sleep these days? how old is your dd now?

[milki]

Just posted on gentle night weaning thread - DP was essential in our recent night weaning of DD (11 months), so worked for us.

[thisisyesterday]

ds2 is 15 months now and has just started sleeping through!

[jomole]

my ds was doing similar at 5mths. i was exhausted and decided that it couldn't continue. my dh (armed with a dummy which ds had never seen before) sorted the problem within 3 nights. i was in the same room but just didn't hold him or offer to feed. i think he was suckling for comfort and although not keen to use dummy found that it worked. he has slept well since then and quickly started sleeping 12 hrs at night. hope this is helpful

[Itcanwait]

Ooo-watching this thread with interest. Could somebody please tell me what the No Cry Sleep Solution is? Currently in a similar situation with 6 month old (wakes every 2/3 hours in the night)although she has only just started weaning and I'm still pretty much BFing on demand so am not helping things much I know........

[bluebread]

I don't know about the No Cry Sleep Solution, but my dh definitely saved the day for us - a few weeks ago when dd3 was 7.5 months. V similiar to jomole, except my dh was armed with a cup of water which dd took a few sips of. She was cross and unsettled for a couple of nights, but from the third night on she slept right through from 6.30pm to 7am. We haven't looked back .

We did try a few weeks earlier, but on that occasion I still went in to try to settle her myself, and it didn't work. She was still waking frequently in the night and after several nights I decided she wasn't ready to stop the night feeds. She is now eating much more during the day and has plenty of protein which I think has helped her sleep better. But I'm sure dh's role was crucial this time round.

For what it's worth, I dropped the dream feed at the same time. She only woke for it on the first night and dropped it completely after that. I think it would have confused her to continue feeding her then but not feed her at other times during the night, iyswim. hth

[Fourteeth]

Thanks this is really useful. the NCSS is a book by Elizabeth Pantley - really nice (but ultimately didn't work for us!) gentle book very BF (although formula too) and co-sleeping friendly strategy for encouraging more sleep - focusing on enabling babies to fall asleep themselves away from nipple/dummy/bottle - and without crying!

[bluebread]

I really like the approach of the NCSS. Our strategy was only to let her cry for max 5 mins to settle herself before going back in, but tbh, she was loads calmer being settled by dh than she had been by me when I tried without feeding her. So altho' we were prepared for quite a lot of crying on the first night in fact there was very little.

[Fourteeth]

hello there hope some of you are still there... just wanted to give up date and ask for advice! DP has done two nights with DD - he is not sure but similar amount of waking both nights i.e. every 2 hours ish. but it was easy to get him to sleep with cup of water. do you think we should keep going a bit longer - doesn't feel like his actual sleep pattern is affected although nice to know he wasn't upset by it all...

[babyOcho]

I would keep going for 4 nights.

[AmIOdetteOrOdile]

[Fourteeth]

whoops yes sorry ds....

dp can't have ds tonight as has tough meeting early tomorrow am. i hope this doesn't put us back too much? i start back at work tomorrow and can't face not bf him if i have him tonight so we'll have to start again on mon night.... sorry i'm wittering....

[chatti]

MY DH managed to break the bf through the night habit for me 9 days ago. It took three nights of him rocking DS (11.5 months) to sleep. We are now doing PUPD to try and get him to sleep without bf. On day 7 now...We've had some progress... he will go to sleep fairly easiliy in the evening in his cot after 5 mins or so but daytime is 45 mins of on/off crying which is horrible. He is also still waking during the night....3-7 times! I clocked up 3.5 hours sleep last night which was less than I got when co-sleeping/bf. We're going to give PUPD another week to see if it improves. May go mad in the process! Good luck

[Fourteeth]

My heart goes out to you Chatti - it's tough not sleeping although amazing what you can get used to! Good luck hope all goes well. Does your DS sleep in the same room as you?

[chatti]

Yes, DS is in the same room, cot at the end of the bed. We just have 2 bedrooms and the DS1 is in the other. Don't want to put them together yet as it will disrupt DS1's sleep. One waking is bad enough. We'll get there. How did you get on without DP? My son seems to get more hysterical with me than DH. Might smell milk??

[Fourteeth]

Sorry took me ages to reply - have since gone back to work so things got a bit manic. Well, I had DS one night and he woke a little less often than usual, then DP had him again last night i.e. only cup of water when he woke and rocking to sleep and we're not entirely sure but seems he woke (only for a few minutes at a time) about 4 times again. But yes Chatti - same for me he would rather feed if I'm there although occasionally I can rock him to sleep too. Our trouble is we can't manage more than a run of a couple of nights for DP to be with DS due to work - wonder whether this means we can't solve the problem properly.

[chatti]

Hi Fourteeth. It's a tough one isn't it. Although I am feeling much more positive today (wasn't on duty last night so slept for 6 hours solid, amazing how a good nights sleep can give you a new perspective!!!) I haven't fed during the night for 11 nights now and DS is sleeping in his cot (which he never did before so I have evenings again...bliss!) And he is waking less. When he does wake he settles for DH in a couple of minutes. Much longer for me though (but I think that will get better the more I do it as DH is doing it more at the mo. Also, hopefully the more DS gets used to it the more he can self settle and so the less aware we will be of his wakings. Maybe!? We are going to do alternate nights for another week or so and then review. (Gosh, that makes us sound very professional!)I'm hoping that he will have stopped waking by then. We no longer offer water, we just say "sleep time" "don't worry we're here" and other such soothy type things. Have you stopped bf during the night completely? I too hate sleep guru's (license to print money) but I do agree with the consistency arguement so I reckon you can crack it by sharing with DP if you are both consistent. Hard for you though as you are back at work so need sleep. I'm still at home so can whimper to myself. Sorry v.long post. Let us know how you get on.

[Divejaney]

Been reading this with great interest as we were driven to trying something similar last night for the same reasons.

DS nearly 6 months has just started waking every couple of hours - previously was only waking once or twice and had managed some sleeps from 11pm to 7am before - not sure what has changed but we can't take it any more.

Last night we tried my dh settling him rather than me apart from 1 bf (I didn't want to cut him off entirely in case he needs something). He still woke up the same amount but settled fine without the feed. He was a bit off his morning feed so we might even try without the feed - not sure yet!

This thread has encouraged me to keep on with the strategy - good luck to you with your ds.

[Mazzie74]

I'm new to this site, but found it while surfing. I haven't figured out what all your abbreviations mean yet, so sorry. I stopped breastfeeding my almost 8 mth daughter during the night, 6 nights ago. I just stopped cold and she wasn't waking starving in the morning at all so obviously doesn't need the milk any more, it was just habit and an easy way to get her back to sleep quickly. I thought she would magically just stop waking in the night but she is still waking at least twice and becoming increasingly difficult to get back to sleep. We've been doing controlled crying - Supernanny style (going in to settle her every 15 mins). She screamed at top volume for over an hour and a half last night. I'm getting by on about 4 hours of broken sleep a night and am ready to crack but know I should carry on with this now we've come so far. Dad can only help on Fri and Sat nights because he has a really demanding job. Why are our nights getting more disrupted not less??! It's not supposed to be like this surely? Any advice would be really welcomed - I'm pulling my hair out.

[minty66]

Just joined - I am desparate with a seven month old who has started waking every hour and will only be BF to sleep. We have tried the No Cry Method (Pantly) and its hopeless.
Just read The Good Sleep Guide (Angela Henderson)Which makes it blaringly obvious that I have trained my baby to cry when he wakes in the knowledge that I will feed him back to sleep and he wont accept it any other way (he does not know how to go to sleep on his own). This book explains that letting a baby cry is not harmful etc. So we are faced with the possibility of trying this sleep programme this coming weekend. Trouble is I feel totally crap about it...any advice?

[beanbearer]

Haven't got any special tricks (my DS's sleeping is legendarily bad) but I would suggest being a bit tougher with hard-working husbands. I say this having spent months 5-8 of my pregnancy working full time and getting up 3 times a night to feed DD, who suddenly went from 0-1 feeds to loads as milk supply dropped. It wasn't fun but it proved it is possible to have broken sleep and still function in a demanding job. I was far too soft with my partner first time round, letting him get 8 hours undisturbed beauty sleep as though it was his right. They are partners in this and tough as it is, they have to step up when you and your child need them to. Don't let them use work as a let-off. Especially when you're in the middle of a process to change what is 'normal' for them.