Help! Is there anything I can do to help him sleep?

[Beautitude]

hon. I know how frustrating bad nights can be but i dont know how you cope with it night after night. Im cranky after just 1 night so you must super mum!

I was going to suggest the sound machine idea too. DS has one in his room and i find it really drowns out the noise in the house. We have a tiny house and ds goes to bed at around 6 so its not feasible for us to sit around quietly all night. Plus we have a dog who barks and when i have been in L room with the sound machine on you can barely hear it. Maybe its noises that are waking him up or the quiet of the night. If he falls asleep to your heartbeat and wakes to silence that might make him feel insecure. If you prefer the idea of a cd we have sounds of silence from target that worked quite well in the early days. I like the sound machine better though as it goes constantly. In fact i am looking for one to buy as if ours breaks we will be in big trouble lol. Plus you can take it away with you too.

Another idea is maybe if you buy a special bed time bear or something and sleep with it yourself for a week so that it smells like you. You can then have a bit of a routine at bed time where you go tuck teddy into bed, give teddy a goodnight kiss etc and if he wakes at night the smell on the bear may make him feel more secure. This worked well for a friend who was having sleep issues with he dd.

[Rowellen]

Hi Sterla. Your DS sounds a lot like my DS. Our feeding situation was a little different though. I made the tough decision to change DS to formula when he was about 5 months. We did it 1 feed at a time. I tried to keep feeding him morning & night for as long as possible. By the time he was 8 months, he was waking often, 4 or 5 times a night, sleeping no more than 4 hours at a time but usually only 2 to 3 & I was often up for over an hour trying to rock him and comfort him back to sleep. One night I just felt so drained and he was sucking so hard it hurt, I decided to top him up with formula. He downed 150ml in no time. It clicked that he really was hungry & not just pretending. That was the end of bfing for me After that he started sleeping a lot better. He still woke regularly at first for the comfort, but now he sleeps through until about 5 about 50% of the time. & if he wakes, I'm usually only up for 10 or 20 mins.

Do you think he could be hungry? I'm not saying to give him formula if you're against that, but maybe a bigger dinner or could you try expressing to increase your supply & provide him with the extra night feed. My DS will eat quite a decent sized dinner now & will then down up to 300ml of formula.

FWIW, we still feed him to help him sleep. He doesn't go to sleep on the bottle, but it doesn't take long once he's done. We do that for his naps & his night sleep & if he wakes during the night but only after midnight.

[Sterla]

Thanks again for all your suggestions. Keep 'em coming!

So, the crappy nights continue, although we have had one small victory. Since I have added a massage and story to the bedtime routine, DS seems to have stopped waking up half an hour / hour after he goes down. So, we are getting between 2-3 hours sleep most night before he wakes up.

We have also got some nice peaceful sleepy noises/music set up in his room - tonight is the first night we're trying that out.

I also have a couple of books to work my way through.

We'll keep plugging away. Hopefully something will work/help.

Thank you again for your suggestions and support .

[sloane]

a small victory is still a victory!!

i hope the new peaceful music/sounds adds another couple of hours to the sleep

[Winter]

Hey Sterla, I just wanted to give you hope. I've been using methods out of Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solutions and DD is only waking once per night now - instead of 3 or more.

Basically, its a dinner, bath, bed routine. I've used the Pantley Pull Off (feed for 10 seconds or so until calm / sleepy then detach bubs, repeat when fussing / whinging / rooting, feed for 10 seconds or so then pull off) to minimize the feeding to sleep association, got a radio for her room and tuned it to white noise so that she doesn't hear all the bumps of the night, then I say 'sssshhhh, key bedtime phrase' over & over and then pop in cot (in sleeping bag to minimise the standing up in cot issue) and sit next to cot patting and shhhhshing until asleep. Also have cleared out any toys except for a teddy bear for her to cuddle.

She's only waking once at night and repeat the above! Then wakes at around 5am where we pull her into matress on floor of playroom where she feeds in bed then plays.

We got 11 hours out of her last night 6pm to 5am with 1 wake-up and we all feel human again!

So get the book out and start reading! There is hope and you can have success without CC or CIO!

[Sterla]

Thanks Winter - that really gives me hope!

I am in the process of reading No Cry Sleep Solutions (very slowly). I have done a few sleep logs, want to do a couple more before I read on.

Having said all this, DS actually slept 7 hours straight last night - the first time he's done that in over 6 months!!! Wouldn't it be lovely if he just started doing that from now on... I highly doubt it though! .

[Olive]

weve had some success with Dr Jay Gordan (google) ive modified it to suit me, a teething necklace and brauers teething relief!! (oh and we have NO teeth)