Bedtime battles - 5.5m

[Imeg]

Baby was (breast)fed to sleep until 3 weeks ago when I decided to stop because:

• he's too heavy to put down gently
• he was repeatedly coming on and off without feeding, just comfort sucking, and I was sick of it
• husband was never going to believe he could do bedtime

(Co-sleeping isn't an option.)

So now I don't reattach him if he wakes up when he comes off or when I put him in the cot. Instead if he's calm I stay by him in the cot, but when he gets agitated/distressed (as he always does sooner or later) I pick him up and rock him/walk up and down until he goes to sleep. To start with I was ok with this as I thought he'd get used to it but

• he seems to still be in a lot of distress every night (eg last night he was crying for a good half an hour despite being held) - I was expecting a battle but after 3 weeks I thought it would be improving. I feel like he;s crying himself to sleep every night.
• walking up and down rocking a 7.5kg baby is not doing my back any good
• all the suggestions about getting babies to sleep (apart from CC which I don't think he's quite ready for) seem to assume that they will calm down when you hold/rock/pat them, whereas once he starts getting distressed he just seems to keep crying until he falls asleep, regardless of what I do.
• husband is very reluctant to deal with a distressed baby and doesn't understand why I don't just feed him.

Other background

• walked in pushchair to send off for naps, typically sleeps 9-11 and 2-3 or so. This suits me as I like getting out and about.
• bedtime routine started about 7.30pm, massage, book, feed, once asleep at night sleeps typically 9-4 then goes back to sleep himself after night feed and sleeps till 6.30ish. Wakes up happy and smiley.
• sometimes if v tired goes straight to sleep after feed then wakes up half an hour later, I feed him again and sometimes seems hungry, sometimes not, and we have the battle then instead.

Any tips?
In particular, if he wakes up after half an hour should I feed him again before settling? Is bedtime too early/late? Should I be trying to put him in the cot for naps? (Am concerned this will mean 3 battles a day...)

(oops sorry it's so long....)

PS I've tried a dummy but he spits it out (sometimes sucks a bit first and then gets agitated)

Hi Imeg - our LOs are exactly the same age. I had to go cold turkey on the pacing / rocking to sleep because he got too heavy and actually it stopped working anyway because he no longer wants to be held "like a baby" he just kicks out and arches his back.

I still BF to sleep on occasion but after letting him cry a very small amount around 4 months (4 month regression pretty much broke me and it was my last resort!) he quickly learnt to self settle and so the majority of the time he goes down awake and drifts off by himself. Most of the time he still needs to feed first though, just to wind him down enough.

So even though you did day you weren't up for CC, I would maybe consider it, seeing as your LO is crying a lot anyway - you might as well make the crying "constructive" (I.e. Leading to self settling) if you see what I mean?

I have wondered about this as he is crying a lot anyway. He does kick and arch his back a bit too, but eventually he calms down and then he does go to sleep while cradled, but he is getting really heavy.
Could you tell me a bit more about what you did, particularly when you said you let him cry 'a small amount' - does this mean you left him for a particular amount of time, what did you do after that? As I understand it, proper CC means leaving them to cry as long as it takes, while going in at timed intervals?

I think we are finding it difficult because he's generally a very happy contented baby and doesn't cry a lot so we're not used to it.

And I do know that I'm lucky he sleeps for such a long period of time compared to some who post on this thread.

There is a no cry sleep solution by panties. I haven't tried it but it might have some useful suggestions if you want to avoid crying.

Does he self settle at all? I do find bedtimes are much more of a battle if dd is overtired.

I don't mind some crying, I'm just concerned he seems to be crying for a long time and it doesn't seem to be getting any better at all.
He does seem to be able to self settle after the night feed (though he didn't last night), not sure why that's any different!
I wonder about overtiredness too, maybe will try a little earlier or try for a third nap.

As a matter of necessity I needed him out of our bed and into his cot but couldn't transfer him down asleep so "sleep training" was non negotiable for me at that point - I know people feel strongly about not doing it under 6 months but I just couldn't cope with another 2 months of co-sleeping and constant wakings all night - I was loosing it.

I tried PUPD, the picking up soothed him "in the moment" but did nothing for the root cause of his upset which was not being able to go to sleep - which in turn infuriated him and made him the most distressed I've ever seem him. He's not a very "cry-y" baby and this was a particular low point for me.

So I decided instead of keep picking him up and seemingly annoying him more and more that I would make sure he was comfortable, dry, etc...then just put him down and leave him.

I was in the room at the head of the cot the whole time, but out of his sight. At intervals (not particularly timed) I'd lean in, re-position him if necessary, shush him and whisper to go to sleep and put my hand on his chest for reassurance then back off again.

After about 30 minutes he found his two middle fingers to suck on, and within minutes he'd soothed himself to sleep.

The crying was never a proper distressed cry (like it was when I was picking up and putting down!) but more of a frustrated, tired grumble.

Within 3 days we were doing all naps in the cot and I was able to pop him in in his grobag, he'd pop his fingers in and drop off to sleep with no fuss.

Since then we've had a bit of a regression and had to repeat the process. He's dispensed with the fingers now and instead rolls over to his tummy and does a low groan before dropping off.

I stand by it as one of the best parenting decisions I've made. We went from waking up every 2 hours all night needing a boob in mouth to go back to sleep to leaving him to self settle when he stirred and only feeding him when he got grizzly which is usually only once now around 3am.

It does sound like it's what he needed so sounds like you did the right thing :)

Hmmm, the neighbours are on holiday for a week, maybe this is the time... Though I think it would be distressed crying rather than tired grizzling. I know I can't keep walking him up and down though. I've put the rocking chair back in his room so I'll try that but the trouble is that when I sit down with him he thinks I'm going to feed him...

I notice you're on 2 naps now - when did you drop the third one?

We're in a weird half way house at the moment where sometimes he's tired after 2 hours, sometimes happy to stay awake for 3 hours so I never know how many sleeps he's going to need. He's only just starting to pull longer sleeps our of the bag occasionally after being a 30-40 minute catnapper since birth. If he stays awake 3 hours and still wakes up after 30 minutes it's a real PITA!

We also did sleep training at 4 months as I was at the end of my tether, up every hour of the night and doing lots of rocking / bouncing / feeding which I couldn't sustain. It was hard going but worked within 24 hrs. She went from doing an hr at a time to 7-8 hrs, literally overnight. I actually got a maternity nurse in for two days and she was amazing. It was CC with some PUPD. I haven't looked back. Not sure I could have done it by myself so, while expensive, it was well worth it IME.

Mrs mugoo - We're also in between two and three naps - didn't want to write an essay - so it depends on the timing of the second nap and how close to bedtime it is when he wakes up. The third nap, if he has one, is often just a brief catnap but does seem to help recharging his batteries.
Definitely - sounds like an interesting option, doubt I'd be able to convince husband it's worthwhile! If I'd been up every hour I doubt I'd have given him the choice though... At least mine sleeps quite well once he's finally asleep.

Right, well it seems we are doing CC after all... I decided three weeks was long enough to try rocking to sleep, so I tried a sort of settle and leave type strategy, leaving for a few minutes then rocking a bit then leaving again, but he was just getting more and more agitated and distressed and after 75 minutes husband wasn't prepared to carry on with that so I either had to give in and rock him or feed him or leave him for longer. So I left him for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes etc and within half an hour he was asleep and slept for 9 hours. Since we've started we'll carry on - I know he's not 6 months but picking him up etc doesn't seem to help so I think overall this is the right option. Was so wound up last night when he finally fell asleep though that it took me several hours to get to sleep... But actually I think listening to him crying from outside the door might be less stressful than rocking a crying distressed baby.

Hopefully this will work and since we've started I am prepared to persist with it (hopefully husband will put up with it) but now I'm wondering - when he starts teething or gets a cold or similar valid reason for not going to sleep how do I keep being consistent but respond to genuine discomfort? Will I know the difference between tired/frustrated crying and pain/ill crying?

I'm so glad that worked out for you - that was my reasoning for doing cc too. Some babies (mine!) just seem to prefer bring left alone and given space to figure it out for themselves rather than constant stimulation (picking up, rocking etc). No one likes to hear their baby cry but I see it like learning a new skill like riding a bike - they will fall a few times and there may be a few tears on the way to working it out.