One step forward, five hundred steps back
Oh what a shitty night. As usual, went to bed great the first time. Woke up and cried when I put her back down. Wanted to play. Ended up playing in the dark on the bed while I sat in the middle of the room. When she finally got tired I tried putting her to sleep BUT she apparently wasn’t happy with my patting and singing… she’d get almost asleep and then jolt awake crying. Happened enough times that she turned into the over-tired sleep monster. There was hyperactive playing at 11pm. And then once we took her to bed and nursing actually managed to get her to sleep, she woke up frequently, kicking and squirming and crying. Way over-tired. Oh, and plus since we slept in our room she woke up at 6:30 ready to play.
So apparently what I’m taking away from this is that there is a certain point where I need to give up and not try to get her to sleep without the old habits….. avoid the overtired monster at all costs. I just don’t know what to do when she gets like that… wanting to play and not sleep. Without holding her and nursing her, how the hell do you get a baby to sleep if they don’t think they’re tired? (But they ARE!) Plus the husband kept saying she’s not tired, let her play. Yeah, no. She’s OVER-tired.
Fuck man. We’re so tired. I’m just waiting for her to crash so I can put her down again and I can get more sleep. :/ I just want to start crying again. I don’t know how to do this.
No advice – just wanted to say you are not alone. Sleep was our very hardest issues. It is very difficult for a lot of parents – why do you think there are SO many books on the topic? It is really really hard. We just tried different things, (A LOT of different things), struggled through, drank a lot of coffee. It was awful. I was breastfeeding in the middle of the night when he was TWO! But, this too shall pass. I now have a 3 year old who sleeps 7:30 pm to 7:30 am every night. You will get there too – and when you do – you will hear choruses of angels..lol!!
*huuuuuuuuuugs*
I know you are not pro-CIO, but we did CIO and this was exactly why. When Hailey got overtired, she would cry until it exhausted her to sleep.
I am pro-CIO.
Have you read any books for some ideas. I read The Baby Whisperer and found it very helpful. Like you said, sleep train is the key word. You have to teach them to sleep. It is very challening. She will get it, but you just have to survive in the meantime. Hugs!
No advice here…just a recount of what worked for us:
When we were doing the sleep lady shuffle (with her in the crib) that first night she cried for 4 hours (ashamed to admit it, but i was right there with her the whole time encouraging her to sleep..she was one determined child!). I too worried about the “over-tired” and how would she ever sleep now???? We thought, “could she possibly die if she doesn’t get enough sleep?” Seriously. But once she finally collapsed, still sitting up against the crib railing, she woke up after 50 minutes and cried for another 2 hours. At that point, my husband went out back and hacked up some concrete and yelled so loud I’ think the neighborhood woke up. I swore if there was no improvement the following night, we’d quit. After that 2 hour stint, she fell asleep, exhausted (obviously) and then woke up every 50 minutes. but those times she cried/whimpered for 10 minutes b/f she went back to sleep. It was almost like she didn’t know how to lay herself down (we had to lay her down each time she awoke and patted her).
That followign day, since she had such a crummy night, I held her for both of her naps and slept with her. That’s how we tried to get her caught up on her sleep….may be something for you to try. We rocked, soothed, nursed, etc. to get her to sleep and held her so she’d stay asleep during the day only. For one nap I held her, the other, my husband..and this is how we caught up on our sleep, too.
the next night we did the shuffle again with me in the recliner next to the crib, but this time there was an ENORMOUS improvement. She fussed only a few minutes and slept for a solid 6 or 7 hours, roused, looked at me ( pretended to be asleep), laid back down and went back to sleep. Yet during the day, we still held her for her naps. it helped me b/c I felt like though I wouldn’t help her sleep at night, I could cuddle and hold her during the day.
I’m saying all this to say, if she gets over-tired at night, you can try making up for it in the day time as you are doing the sleep training. Chances are, you won’t get much night sleep on those nights, but you can catch up with her in daytime.
sorry for all the typo’s! I really should edit b/f I hit the submit button.
One more thing..I promise I’ll quit after this!!! About the playing..Lizzy did the same thing! I just let her play by herself in the crib and kept telling her that it was time to lay down and sleep. She did play for about 1.5 hours that first stint b/f fussing and crying the other 2.5 hours. I think Kate will get to the place where play will not be her desire once she gets really, really tired.
Sleep was one of the hardest parts of parenting and neither of ours consistently slept the night until they were 3 years old. The bad news is once they did sleep the night they woke daily at 5AM ready to start their day and continued this until they were 8 or 9 years old. It was doable though because we all just went to bed at 9 PM and had the straight good 8 hours. We had to adjust to it like it or not.
Also this book is worth it’s weight in gold and does not include CIO–ever for any reason..
Sorry, this is the book: Nighttime Parenting: How to Get Your Baby and Child to Sleep by William Sears
Here is what worked for us (I have three boys ages 4.5, 3, and 18 months):
Will she sleep in her own crib?
Can you do a bedtime routine with her (bath, books, nursing, cuddles, etc) and lay her down drowsy but awake, and leave the room? Yes, she may cry/play/whimper, but at least she’ll not have “an audience”?
Can you start with a firm routine at the time she is currently going to bed and then start bumping up the time? At 8-9 months, my kiddos were going to bed around 7:30-8 PM. Now, at 18 months, my youngest goes to bed between 7-8, with 2 solid naps during the day. FWIW, my middle son was a daytime cat-napper and terrible sleeper until he was 9 months old, and then suddenly something just clicked with him — he SLEPT! And now, at 3, he is a fantastic sleeper. Some kids just take longer to figure it out….
My kids are great sleepers, but it’s because we have worked hard to teach them to be so – they had to learn to self-soothe (yes, we are CIO parents here – or a modified version of it), and put themselves back to sleep (they all took pacifiers, and have huge white noise machines in their non-night-lit rooms).
I’m not saying it was perfect (we still have many sleepless/interrupted nights!) but we found a routine that worked for us, and did everything within our power to stick to it. That meant giving up a lot of evenings out with friends/family to get our boys home and in bed….now we also work, then come home to cook dinner, clean up, play a little, and almost immediately start the bed-time routine.
And I agree with the above poster, and call ours the “Rule of 3 Nights”. Whatever method you use to sleep train Kate, stick to the same method for at least 3 Nights.
Expect the first night to be absolute hell (like as in “I am not doing this, it will never work!” thoughts), the second night to be a little bit better, and the third night to see that everything is falling into place (and “it might just work after all!” thoughts) – worth trying at least, because it sounds like anything is better than where you’re at currently. This Rule has seen us through many transitions in our house ~ STTN, cribs to toddler beds, potty training, night potty training, changing rooms, etc…we have a newbie due in a couple of weeks, and I will be reminding myself very frequently of this Rule! :)
Hugs, Mama. Sleep deprivation for kids and parents is ruthless. But you will get to a good place, eventually, I promise!
(sorry for the long-windedness)
We were at the same spot. From the time she was born we would pick her up and nurse to sleep and rock her. now I know how wrong we were. She never learnt to go to sleep on her own. It was a great fix for the day, but came back to bite us big time tomorrow. I hate CIO, and I am completely against the idea, but it’s working for us and when we started doing that, things got better overnight and now we have a best sleeper ever. I am not kidding.
Thank you all for your support and suggestions.
She clearly doesn’t know how to lay down and go to sleep on her own, I have to keep laying her down and patting her. I’m not sure how to teach her that one. At this point there’s a lot of crying regardless of what I do – either she cries if I try rocking her to sleep or she cries when she’s overtired from playing or she cries when I leave the room.
She’s never slept in her crib, but she stays on the futon mattress at night, she just sits there and either plays or cries. Last night I was in the room laying on the floor pretending to be asleep and she was just playing away with the toys on her bed (a book and teether). If I leave the room she screams.
Hang in there, mama. I know that it seems endless. She’ll figure it out. She will. I promise. I promise. I promise. We learned that if we held her or patted her, she seemed to get more upset, so all we did was talk to her. And when that seemed to upset her (she’d cry harder), I just sat there quietly. At one point, I put the ipod in my ears and listened to soothing music. (sound callous? yeah, maybe. it was the only way I could take it. I just kept telling myself that she knew I loved her b/c I wasn’t leaving her alone.) I was so exhausted that I fell asleep when she was still fussing intermittently. but I could tell she was close to figuring it out b/c she’d fuss and stop, fuss and stop. Next thing I know, I woke up 5 hours later and she was asleep. so somehow she figured out how to lay down from the sitting position she was in. It was like that was the moment she turned the corner.
It may not help now in the depths of all of this, but she will not remember this..she will continue to love you both, thrive, be happy, well adjusted, etc. You won’t forget it, but she will! :-)
Maybe if you move a little farther away every night? I know with my son, gradual was the key. Small changes, a few nights at a time….
No advice either, just support. It is so hard. My son is only a few months older than Kate and we’re a long way off having this perfected (we probably never will!)
One thing I will say is, sleep issues did tend to get worse for us around big milestones, like walking and crawling. Their little minds must just be so busy. And with little Kate now taking her first steps, maybe it is all tied in to this? Just a guess. Of course you know your little girl best. I send you a huge hug to get through this. I absolutely know how hard this can be and just how tired you must be feeling.
xo
With my first baby,one of my friends recommended this video:
http://www.drhull.com/
It is not a cry it out system, but teaches you about observing the signs for tiredness and determining the child’s natural bedtime. Once you determine when the child is ready for bed such that she will fall asleep quickly, he shows how to move the bedtime in 15 minute increments until you get the child to the bedtime that you want.
It was really helpful in getting both of my children away from falling asleep in my arms and immensely helpful with breaking my son of the hourly nursing sessions he so enjoyed while sharing our bed. I never had to use the lifetime e-mail support but several friends did. They said the doctor was fantastic — he responded quickly and gave them a lot of information and support as they went through separation anxiety issues that affected their children’s sleep habits.
We’ve had and sometimes continue to have the same angst. That’s when a crib came in handy bc we eventually had to let him cry some (luckily I had Jen from here we go again for moral support who had the same problem) bc otherwise he would stay awake at all costs. It was painful but we never let him cry the anguished cry and never the mad cry more than 5 mins. It got less each time and got better.
Just saying we’ve been there. It’s hard.good luck
I’ve never commented here before, but thought I would chime in… I have a 13.5 month old and he just started sleeping 7-9 hour stretches about 3 weeks ago. I usually nurse him to sleep, put him down in a pack and play and then sleep with him in bed from whenever he wakes up until the morning. Even in January after he turned 1 he was still waking 5-10 times a night and nursing. And then one night … he just didn’t anymore. We can take no credit for this phenomenal change in sleep habits! I just wanted to provide a perspective that you are not necessarily dooming Kate to a life of not being able to put herself to sleep/stay asleep if you don’t feel like promoting that right now. I also agree with the previous poster about sleep disruptions being correlated with big skills like walking. It may be a few rough weeks coming up as she masters this skill, but hopefully the sleep issues will start to decline after that. Good luck!
Whenever we made changes to my kids’ routines I’ve always found that days 3-5 are the hardest. It’s like the kids are fine upfront and then realize it’s becomming a new routine and test the waters a bit and once they realize that we’re not giving in they seem to settle into the routine. This is of course after all the Mommy doubt and guilt that comes with the decision to make a change to the routine. Hang in there. Hopefully she’s just testing you.
Good luck!