I’m in tears…

@bobezeh It probably isn’t helpful but here’s what happened for us:

We had 90 - 120 min increments for months. We dealt with several food allergies or irritants/intoletances (dairy, soy, corn, oats, legumes). I posted at 4 1/2 months and a lot of people said that there was definitely another issue and not to sleep train. They were right.

Around 7 months we realized the more donor milk we gave, in place of my ‘paleo milk’ the worse our baby would sleep. We would do shifts and I would get up and pump (I still do) as well as stay up late to pump. I was exhausted. (Still am somehow, but different now)

Turns out my baby is allergic or sensitive to corn and the more that was in her system the worse off she was for sleep.

Once we figured that out we got a lot of 4 hour stretches and now at 10 months we have 0-3 wake ups a night, but usually 1.

Is it possible that your LO is suffering with a food sensitivity that’s affecting sleep?

FWIW: my terrible parenting moment: I had a night out and was pretty buzzed, I was NOT getting up. My husband would not get up so we let LO cry it out for an hour… on and off, she was not bawling the entire time. She did learn to cry herself to sleep that night though. Which was good for awhile until we hit another allergy
 
@snowmang Wow, thank you for sharing. I don’t think it’s a food sensitivity, especially because she just slept for 4 hours no problem (!!!). Overall she is a very happy and easygoing baby. When she does wake up a ton at night she doesn’t even seem uncomfortable, but it is definitely something I will keep in mind.
 
@bobezeh Well, 4 hours is great! Not all babies can survive all night without milk

I only mention because after we had cut out everything else, we had good stretches randomly and it took us 2 months to figure out that the donor milk was out 1 factor that affected sleep depending even on what time we fed it.

It’s like drinking coffee and giving that coffee milk to baby before bed lol.

You would have other signs though! Glad your LO is a happy babe
 
@bobezeh I have so much to say but I’m so tired also and my baby is 20 months. But I love how sweetly you talk about her that’s exactly how I feel about my girl. But my baby will wake up soon…again lol so goodnight
 
@bobezeh I have so much to say but I’m so tired also and my baby is 20 months. But I love how sweetly you talk about her that’s exactly how I feel about my girl. But my baby will wake up soon…again lol so goodnight
 
@bobezeh Do you have a schedule to share? I know some people don’t follow WW but maybe some tweaks will make the process smoother?

We also did gentle methods at 4 months too which did lead to independent sleep. Although the independence slipped a little so we recently did full CIO but it didn’t last too long since the Independent sleep was already learned before.
 
@ilovejesus985 I haven’t been great about following a by the clock schedule these past couple weeks. Baby and I have both been sleeping late to make up for the lost sleep during the night. I do try to follow wake windows, though - about 2 hours between naps. She takes three 45 minute naps a day - though I predict once we’re back to starting the day at a normal baby time she will sometimes take four. Bedtime is around 7:30/8. I keep having to tweak everything as she can stay awake longer. I can barely keep up with it all! But my ideal bedtime for her is 7:30 if that helps.
 
@bobezeh I HATE to say this, but when my 5 mo old’s sleep was all over the place one of the first changes that really helped was no more early morning boob cuddles — if babe wakes up at 4:30 then I want him to be fully awake for at least two hours. Or sucks because I enjoyed the morning cuddles and because he gets very cranky waiting for that first nap…. but I think the half-asleep dozing was setting him up to be micro-napping for the rest of the day/night.
 
If baby wakes up at 4:30, I feed, soothe, and try to put down in his crib — sometimes he will surprise me and go right back to sleep after fussing for a couple minutes. If not, then lights on, we’re starting our day: change clothes, tummy time, go outside. He’ll act sleepy, but I keep him up for a full minimum wake window, and then the first nap is usually a really really good one. Good luck!
 
@bobezeh Well at 5 months, you could be in the territory of dropping to 3 naps and staying there. It just really depends on your baby if they are really fussy after 2 hours then you can stay in the 4 zone for a little longer.

When we our LO was in 3 naps, he did a schedule of 2/2.25/2.5/2.75. As weeks…yes weeks… it went to 2.5/2.5/2.5/3.25 (crazy I know) but he simply needed more awake time or else he was undertired and would fight us for every nap and sleep.

Having a proper schedule helped make the sleep training much smoother because they’re properly tired so the gentle methods and the more traditional Ferber/CIO didn’t take too long.
 
@ilovejesus985 This response! Try to get a schedule or at least figure out how many hours of "sleep" a baby your age needs. Then it's kind of trial and error to see how long your baby's wake windows result with nap length. You are trying to build up sleep pressure as the day goes on. Your baby still might not sleep through the night but you should get a decrease on wakings at least.
 
@bobezeh I don’t have any helpful advice, but I totally relate. You can go back and read my posts 🤣 my baby is 10.5 months now and just starting to sleep a little bit better recently. I have 4 friends who have all had babies within the last 6 months and I want to scream because they all have slept 12 hours by 3 -5 months without any interventions at all 🙃. My baby’s sleep really started to improve around 8 or 9 months I think… hang in there
 
@bobezeh You’re doing great! Just be careful with sending baby mixed messages.

My baby fell asleep at the 32 minute mark the first night.

Your baby could have been so close!

Keep it up :)
 
@sushiburger Thanks!
For naps today I just worked on having her fall asleep in the crib and not in my arms. After we get that down for naps and nighttime we’ll work on easing off the soothing in the crib. I hope this works!
 
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