S.O.S! Mayday! Overtired cycle disaster, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO

[finlandia]

PLEASE help.

9.5 month old, never been a phenomenal sleeper, but we co-slept and contact napped so that made up the difference. Now that he's older/more mobile/hitting milestones like crawling/standing, we're needing to transition to the crib, which lives in our bedroom (no other options). We have loud white noise and keep it very dark, and recently hung a curtain between his crib and our bed.

I am WELL aware that our habits are not the best, but I'm willing to do anything to fix them. As of now he is SO overtired and I don't know what to do.

Here's our routine at the moment:

Wakeup is usually between 7 and 8am. First nap is between 10 and 11, I nap with him, and he gets 1-1.5 hours. Second nap is around 2 or 3 and he naps by himself, and only gets 30-40 minutes with RARE 60 minute exceptions. Bedtime is between 7:30-8pm.

We tried CIO with him several weeks ago and within a week he was falling asleep with no fuss at bedtime. He would sleep for an hour or two and then wake, and I would either nurse him back to sleep or just bring him to bed with me.

He still does okay when I first put him to bed, but since we started trying to leave him in his crib all night (except for a feed or two), things have gone to s***. If he wakes up less than 3 hours after his last feed we let him cry it out, which can last anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour (much more common) and nobody is sleeping during that time. He has had ONE 5-hour stretch since he was a newborn, most of the time he sleeps anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours at a time and then we either feed him and he maybe goes back to sleep or we leave him and he throws a fit. Sometimes he sits up and can't lay himself back down, sometimes he stands up... it's never a good time.

All of this was to say we're in such a terrible cycle of overtired=poor sleep=overtired=poor sleep, and on and on.... he's just wrecked. I feel terrible and I need help.

 

[geoffbob]

@finlandia My little guy went from co sleeping to crib when he was 5 mo. He is also a poor sleeper, early crawler and now standing up soon to walk. He has serious FOMO.

First I worked on getting him used to the crib. He only went in the crib to sleep. Removed mobile and anything stimulating within eye sight. I would take him out to nurse etc, but he always had to go back in the crib to sleep. He would fall asleep on the breast and I put him in the crib right away when he was still on his milk high. I was up every 30 min to 2 hrs to milk him. As time went on, I started timing him and unlatching after a minute or two and then putting the paci in. I only used the paci at night or in the car. I slept on the floor for thispart.

For naps, just do whatever works until he’s night trained.

Then I started with drowsy but awake. Which was really hard. Figure out what you LO likes. Mine really likes to have his fingers stroked. I know, weird!!! He likes patting. It was so much work. I would nurse him about an hour before putting him down. So he could take his time and still have time for teeth brushing, reading and rocking. By this time he was used to the paci before bed.

Then i started CIO. It wasn’t until nearly 9 mo!

First night of CIO he never cried longer than 5 min so I didn’t nurse him. He’s in the 98th percentile for BMI and pediatrician said it was ok. I left the paci in the crib for him. He would pick it up from time to time.

Only question I have left tho is whether I should nurse him at 5am when he wakes up, or push him to sleep until 6am. Trying to figure that out.

Good luck!!!

 

[mysz]

@finlandia Does he snore or sleep with mouth open? If you rule out any health issues then you should see some success if you make some changes.

First, I'd cut out night feeds. At that age it's not necessary but he's waking up for comfort. If CIO works for you then do it for the whole night. I know my daughter's cries so I don't pick her up if I know it's a sleepy cry.(All sleeptraining rules go out the window when she's sick though. I always attend to her in the MOTN when she's sick if she needs me.) Sleep begets sleep so when the nights get fixed and no more feeding in the MOTN then naps may get better on their own. I'd contact nap the second one if it helps to lengthen it, at least for now.

 

[geoffbob]

@mysz I have a 9 mo old who is being sleep trained. He goes to bed at 7:30pm. He wakes up at 5am and tries to go back to sleep but can’t. I am worried he’s hungry. If he can’t go back to sleep for 30 min, I wait until he’s laying down and quiet and then open the door right at that moment. I nurse him and he usually falls back asleep. Should I do this? He’s really big for his age so I think he’s hungry. I weaned him this week of night feeds.

 

[finlandia]

@mysz Thank you for your reply! He does not seem to have any snoring issues and he generally sleeps with a pacifier in his mouth (which might be a sleep association issue I guess, but I don't think it's the main issue). The only reason I hesitate to cut night feeds completely is that he had been basically nursing on and off all night long for his entire life while we coslept, and I wanted to cut back gently instead of cold turkey. But maybe it is time.

 

[lostandinsecure]

@finlandia Sounds like he is getting a decent amount of calories overnight and that's a hard habit to break. He is going to fight it. I would get rid of the pacifier or teach him to find and replace it by himself. Personally, I think a gentle method is best for your night weaning, given what he is used to. But you might have to choose a longer window so that he is able to go back to sleep by himself first. You're going to need to really focus on getting him completely full up before bed though. It's worth going hard offering feeds during the day so that you know he isn't really hungry and it's just habit.