My baby won’t sleep and I’m at the end of my rope

[briank7]

@pz128 There are so many things you can do to optimise sleep without CIO.

I have never formally sleep trained my nearly 7mo, but she sleeps through the night and has started to take cot naps. We used to rock to sleep but gradually faded that out over 6 weeks due to my slipped disc.

It's taken A LOT of effort, time and patience but it is possible.

I would post your full schedule and routine to try and get as much useful info.

Things that have helped us are:
1) waking up at a consistent time since 5 months. This is usually 11 hours after bedtime

2) contact napping in day to ensure she isn't overtired and gets 3 to 3.5 hours of sleep. Only in the last week have we tried nap 1 in cot

3) following age appropriate wake windows. At 6mo, we were at 2/2.25/2
5/2.5

4) optimising calories during day. Adding in solids and BF every 3 hours as a minimum

5) strong bedtime routine since 3mo of age

6) limiting reverse cycling

My husband is a paediatrician and works 13 hour days. He still used to do 3 out of 4 nights with baby

 

[pz128]

@briank7 I have done all of those since 4 months old but it doesn’t help her sleep unfortunately

 

[briank7]

@pz128 I'd recommend the sleep training sub. I'm not pro sleep training whatsoever, however, this group has helped me with scheduling etc.

To be honest, you can't really give extinction or ferber a go until your schedule is nailed otherwise you're setting yourselves up for failure. Not sure how old your baby is

 

[pz128]

@briank7 I’ll check it out, thanks! I would never ever even consider extinction or Ferber! When I say CIO I mean drowsy but awake, pick up put down or sitting next to the crib comforting baby without picking her up

 

[ijaz123]

@briank7 Great tips, whast #6? Reverse cycling?

 

[briank7]

@ijaz123 It's when babes get too many calories overnight and thus won't feed well during day.

We would try to limit feeds to 2 a night from 5 months old because I knew she could do this from tracking her. Any other wakes would be for comfort so we'd rock her, pat her etc and not feed

 

[ijaz123]

@briank7 Oh great thank you. I’m struggling with that and my almost 4 month old, he wants to be up every 2 hours at night eating

 

[nonehere]

@pz128 I could have written this post myself when my baby was between 10- 11 months. It is so, so, hard, Extreme sleep deprivation is something else. I didn’t do anything that magically changed how she slept, but one day close to her first birthday she just slept for most of the night and sleep was never that bad again. In our case she was probably waking up so much due to separation anxiety. She wanted to be next to me but wasn’t comfortable sleeping next to me. We also had several changes going on in our lives and I think that she was sensing my stress and anxiety. I later also realised that she is low sleep needs compared to children her age (she still doesn’t sleep at night if she naps during the day while toddlers her age tend to have a long nap and 11 hours at night) so she was possibly sleeping too much during the day. Why don’t you try shortening her day naps for a week and see if has an effect on her sleep at night?

 

[paulsuni]

@pz128 This is so hard! I can relate as my baby refused to sleep in the crib from 6-12 months. And if we did manage to make the transfer she would wake immediately and after 20 mins. It was exhausting and extremely emotional. Eventually we started co-sleeping. With some boundary setting we managed to get her sleeping in her crib again around 12 months but she still woke over night to nurse 2-3 times a night for a few months.

What I wanted to share was, are there some small ways that you can split the load even a little at night with your husband? What worked well for us was that when baby cried my husband would go and get her from the crib and bring her to me to nurse her in bed. And then when I was done he would bring her back to the crib. Just the ability to stay in bed all night instead of having to constantly get up and walk to her room or nurse in the rocking chair helped me feel sooo much more rested. I realize this means your husband’s sleep will be interrupted too. But maybe it’s a small way he could help?

 

[pz128]

@paulsuni I wish he would! He sleeps in a different room on work nights so I’m on my own for the nights