What next? Help! Tried it all!

[Desperate2012]

Hi. DS 8.5 mos has never been a good sleeper, but after 8 weeks concerted effort I feel like I've got nowhere. Here's what I've tried , and our success:

1. no cry sleep solution: well wasn't no cry for us! Got him into cot for day naps tho
2. gradual withdrawal: helped get him in his own room, but was hou crying/hour sleep from 2am most nights, and proved he didn't need to eat from 11pm-6am
3. cc: first three nights a revelation (even night one!) after GW, but after 6 nights is getting progressively worse again. Last night 2 hours crying from 230-430am.

I should say the issue is 2am on (always has been). He goes down fine and self settles with never more than a whimper until about 2.

Should I just leave him to CIO? Cranial osteopathy? Sleep specialist? Everything we do seems to work fo 3 days. I would go back to cosleeping, but he crawls about the bed now and I don't want to be fishing him off the floor with a bump on his head!

All advice considered!

Oh you poor thing, really feel for you. What's his daytime sleep like? How well is he taking his solids? Cranial osteopathy certainly wouldn't hurt. Have heard a lot of good things about it. My ds still needed a night feed most nights until a year old, unfortunately.

God, DD1 did this. I remember the pain. We ended up doing CC/CIO at 11 months because she would scream for two hours no matter what we did - literally, you could be cuddling her for two hours, and she would still scream for that amount of time.

Have you considered he might be hungry? A baby who is hungry may often wake for a bit, sleep for a bit, wake again, etc, etc. If I had my time again, I'd have been more keen to feed DD1.

Are you sure he's not hungry?

Have you considered cosleeping?

When you do sleep training such as CC or PU/PD things often fall into place within a few days & then there can be a regression & it all seems to get worse again. This is a test for you of consistency - if you stick with your new approach he will eventually get it. The older he is the longer it may take so for well ingrained sleep habits it may take a couple of weeks to sort.

That said, there can be other reasons for waking at night. Hunger as pp's mentioned, although if he is eating well in the day he shouldn't really need a night feed any more.

Routine issues can cause NW's - so it might be useful to post your daytime routine, wakeup time, nap times & length & bedtime??

Finally for us, screaming wakings in the early hours were usually teething related. Is he showing any signs of teething atm? If he is, then use of CC or any other sleep training method wouldn't be appropriate to deal with the screaming b/c it may be pain related. In which case you would need to wait until the teeth have cut, & if the screaming continues, then look at sleep training again.

HTH.xx

Hi guys. Thanks for the ideas. Not hunger (I dream feed at 11), no sign of teething so not that either . Other ideas?

Sorry to keep pushing this, but why are you so sure it's not hunger? Many babies need at least one night feed (even with a dream feed) until around one.

He might just not be ready to sleep for longer. Are there any other things you could do to help make things easier while he's in this phase. It helped us to have an arrangement where I would get up early (dd woke at 5am at this age) but with a 'guarantee' that DH would look after her while he got ready for work, so I could be back in bed perhaps 6.30 - 7.45. Or do you have any chance to rest or nap in the day? Sometimes just a change of perspective on the situation helps. My DD slept through the night from 15 months after 9 minutes of CC (admittedly I hadn't tried it sooner). I think it happens when they're ready, unfortunately.

Right, routine:

630- feed, sometimes get up but usually
715- up
8- breakfast
1030- feed, nap
1145- up
1230- lunch
315- snack, nap
430- up, dinner
630- snack (formula, cookie)
7 30bath
745/8- bed

Note: the sleep training has totally thrown this as he's sometimes tired early and will no longer go down easily for a nap in his cot, so I often have to take him out in the pram, but this is what I strive for.

Should have said
730pm - breast feed
11- dream feed!

Pps- re: feeding, I should add I've tried feeding him when he cries but he will only take 1-2 sucks, then cuddles in for a snooze, so not hunger!!

Bedtime seems late to me for such a young baby. Have you tried 6pm bath and 6.30 bed? Doesn't always, as we would imagine, mean waking even earlier.

3 hours of daytime naps seems quite a lot, and the second nap is quite late. Have you tried a 30 min nap around 9am and then a longer nap directly after lunch? Then a 6/6.30 bedtime if tired. Might be worth a try

To stick my oar in - I don't think you can ever rule out teeth.. There aren't always signs other than screaming out in the night.

My ds used to b feed twice a night (about 4 hourly) til 11 months.. Self settled fine etc but when he was teething he could wake hourly for a week and then go back to his old pattern of twice a night.... It is very exhausting.

I have a teething 7 month old. No teeth through yet but she is certainly teething! Screaming. Waking suddenly at different times. Waking early. Staying a wake... Etc etc etc

I think between 6 and 12 months is a tough tough time for sleep.x

I agree with belindarose and ilovemountains. I was afraid of changing DS schedule as I thought it would make a bad situation worse....but it worked. An earlier bedtime was what did it for us and we follow the 2-3-4 nap routine as well as we can. So nap 2 hours after waking, then nap 3 hours after this waking then bedtime 4 hours after this. So basically very little sleep after 2.30/3pm ish where possible.

Thanks for the advice.

One nap today (at mo), then early to bed.

I'll try calpol the minute he wakes up tonight in case of teething, and offer boob immediately too, and then if it's neither I'll be back to the old drawing board again.

I think I made it appear my concern was sleeping thru or waking up early-it's not, I don't mind him waking up or needing feeding, or getting up at 5am (he's a baby, he's welcome to do all those and I'll be there like a shot to reassure him). It's waking at 1am/2am/3am and not going back to sleep afterwards, with each day getting worse than the one before that's the problem; at the moment he doesn't go back to sleep without getting extremely upset for 2 hours despite all attempts. We tried CIO last night at 1am- so distressing and when he pood and my husband called me in to change it, and I saw what a state he was in I brought him into bed with us, where he took another 30 min to calm down enough to sleep. I feel awful

Back to GW to rebuild his trust

Yes I understand - that is why I changed his schedule - he started waking at 4 am and not going back to sleep, it was because he was overtired. So changing his naps and bedtime it really helped. Think your DC is perhaps getting too much daytime sleep too late in the day (IMO??).

I've been there too - awake between 1 and 3 every morning. What worked for us - changing the daytime naps, stopping all night feeds. Good luck!

Forcedinsomnia - when did you start the 2-3-4 thing? What age I mean? Sounds like it makes sense to me and similar to ds when he was a baby if I recall. Dd now 4 months - I think maybe a bit young...?

Hi Shirley - Possibly a bit too young. I started just before 7mo. He is now (nearly 8mo)sleeping much better....don't want to say too much in case I jinx myself. having said all that it may just because he is now crawling, eating and wearing himself out a lot more too. WHO KNOWS?!?!

Hmmm, I would agree that tweaking day naps would help (short 30min morning nap and then max 2 hrs after lunch, although dd needed 1.5hrs max at that age. Also, if he is waking at the same time every night then he may have got into a rut of always waking then. Could try wake to sleep to disturb the pattern but I would probably try the naps first. Also stay consistent...minimal interaction etc