My baby girl will be 4 months old next week, and I am 100% guillty for her poor sleep habits! haha...she will only nap in my maya wrap or if im laying down with her and nurse her the entire time. Her naps only last about 30 minutes unless i immediately nurse her back to sleep (then, if im lucky she will go back to sleep for a little longer). Nighttime is a joke. She sleeps in our bed and will get a good 4-5 hour stretch at the beginning of the night, but thats only after i nurse her down for an hour or more. Then after that she is grunting and rooting for my boob every 30 minutes until my 24 month old son wakes up for the day. My husband tries to help but there really isnt much he can do. He tends to all of our son's night wakings (which really only happens once a week maybe) but baby girl only wants the boob.
So i need to get her on a 3 nap a day schedule, and she needs to be able to fall asleep and stay asleep without being held or nursed the entire time. My son naps at 1 every day and I always lay down and sleep with her then. But she isn't getting good sleep at all because she wakes up the second i try to put her down for other naps--my toddler has a lot to do with that because he comes yelling and looking for me whenever i leave the room. His inability to play independently is a completely different post for another time. She is a very happy and pleasant baby, and really doesn't cry much at all. I am not opposed to CIO methods because it worked beautifully with my son and he is a gold medal sleeper and an all around amazing and loving little boy despite a little crying when he was a baby.
SO, enough babbling...my question is this: what do you ladies think would be the best approach to getting my baby girl the sleep she needs? Unfortunately we only have a 2bedroom place right now so she has to sleep in our room, but we do have a pack 'n play next to our bed for her (that is currently filled with laundry hah). If i get her napping on her own in her own bed, do you think her nighttime sleep will improve also? Or should i just hold out on nighttime training until we have a bedroom for her? Thanks in advance for all your help!
SO yesterday I put her pack 'n play in our walk-in closet (it's huge and fits in their nice, along with a fan for white noise and a humidifier for her) and will try only letting her sleep in there from now on. The past few nights have been insane--she wakes up every 20-30 minutes screaming, then nurses for 15 minutes while wiggling and punching the whole time, then falls back asleep for another half hour. I'm losing my mind and patience. My poor toddler doesn't deserve to have such a cranky, tired mama :( She is ridiculously overtired so i'm waiting until her little bout of congestion clears up then its time to CIO. I remember with my son, once he started sleeping through the night our whole family life got much easier and happier for everybody. And I absolutely do not think he remembers crying for a few nights when he was a baby, but he does know when he is tired and asks to go to bed. Thank you all for your suggestions! I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and will be implementing this program with her. With her in the closet, and my son with his white noise machine on he can't hear her crying at night. Hubby and I will be having a slumber party on the couch downstairs and holding eachother while we cry with the baby, i'm sure.
Thank you ladies!
I hope you can get something to work for you - my first daughter refused to sleep unless she was in my arms or rolling around the block in the stroller - for the first 8 months of her life! Total nightmare, and I was exhausted. But, I tried EVERYTHING. I think some babies are just like this! Good luck :)
I also sleep-trained when my daughter was 4 months old. Until then, she was a tough sleeper - was a colicky baby who had to be held, spent many a night sleeping in her bouncy chair (yes, overnight) before she transitioned to a vibrating pack-n-play and then to her crib. We used The Sleepeasy Solution, which I thought was very easy to follow. I also read Ferber, which confused me with all his examples and jumping around with regards to kids' ages and situations. I didn't like Weisbluth's tone in his book, and Babywise drove me crazy. The methods in the Sleepeasy book were also more or less verified by a child development specialist I consulted with when I started sleep training (yes, I was SERIOUS about training!) At her advice, I started at naptime, set a timer to go off after 10 minutes, went in to pat her for less than 1 minute at that interval, reset the clock and so on. It was really hard to listen to the crying (and to look at the frowny, "poor thing" face my mother-in-law made) but surprisingly it only took two interventions that first time, then one the next. After a very short amount of time, she fell asleep without a problem and was a GREAT sleeper (until we took away her pacifier...but that was a couple of years later!)
Good luck to you!
if you get a chance, check out the baby whisperer's book, it's all about getting your baby on a good schedule, and I dont think it should matter if she's in the same room with you. Her book was easy to read, in my opinion, I read it in a couple of hours while holding my baby when she was a couple of weeks old. Her routine is EASY, eat, activity, sleep, you, and is all about helping the baby understand what's coming next. And she has good ideas about getting them out of bad habits, like having to nurse to sleep. Good luck, mama!
She's 4 months old... even if you gave her synthetic nutrition... she'd STILL want to sleep close to Mommy, it's biological design of infants.
I'd wait until about 7 months to really try and have her nap separate from you. Babies crave the closeness of Mommy until way past the first year, and comfort nursing and nutritional nursing are one in the same for an infant's 1st year. You are building up safety and trust in your child at this time. Making an infant CIO will negate that trust.
She is probaly too young yet to Ferberize-wait 'til next month-but you could try feeding her, burping her and putting her in a swing or infant seat afterwards-it sounds like she is nursing almost continually-which is difficlut for mom. She may fuss alittle-but in the meantime, you could take the laundry out of the pack-n-play-or something that only takes a few minutes. It's hard to manage everything when you become the human pacifier-so, more awake time when she is attentive and eating-and less drowsey eating-she'll get used to it and it will be better for all-good luck!
I had the same problem with my son waking up every time I put him down. I read that it takes babies about 30 minutes of light sleep before they "transition" to a deeper sleep. When they're transitioning, they might cry in their sleep a little bit, toss and turn, etc. If their eyes are closed, they're sleeping. Once the baby has "transitioned", she will be able to sleep through your son's playing (hopefully), but until then it's best to keep her sleep environment as quiet as possible. Have you tried a noise machine? That might help drown out the extra noise. As far as training her to fall asleep on her own, we started at bedtime first and then gradually worked in the daytime napping the same way. I think most of the methods are similar. It's important to put the baby to sleep when she's sleepy but not sleeping. I'm sure you did something similar with your son which you said worked great. I wouldn't wait much longer though. Who knows when you'll have the bedroom for her and they say that the best time to teach them to fall asleep on their own is when they start showing independence - using hands and finding feet... good luck!
I also recommend the "healthy sleep habits, happy baby" book. The big point he makes is "sleep begets sleep - it isn't logical, but it's biological". At that age, your baby girl should be getting 13 or more hours of sleep a day, and based on her current schedule, she may be overtired. The less she sleeps, the harder it is to fall asleep and stay asleep. Once you get naps started, the longer nighttime sleep should fall into place naturally (or vice versa). I think the key with CIO is that you can't let them see you, which may take some creativity if you're in the same room with her at night. Two things I did with my son at that age was to switch to nursing only in a chair, to separate eating from sleeping a bit, and to get him up and nurse him before I knew he would be waking up on his own - say 4 hours after he had gone to sleep. I was still getting up at night, but it only took 15 minutes instead of an hour or more because he never really woke up. Good luck!
THe Baby Sleep Book by Dr. Sears, The Baby Whisperer, and The No-cry sleep Solution. Read all 3, use the tips, tricks and info to teach your baby how to sleep and keep your sanity! These 3 were my life-savers. I also exclusively nursed and co-slept at times. I found that once I got the naps in place night fell into place but remember your baby is still very young and it may not "click" for a while but you will lay the groundwork for good sleep and learn how to teach baby to sleep.
I would start training today. I used the Babywise schedule and found it very successful. My DD didn't sleep through the night as quickly as the author said but she was sleeping 9-12 hours by the time she was 4 months old. My DD doesn't nap for the hour and half like the books says either but she does take three 45 minute naps each day. The book is a very quick and easy read and I know several people who used it and were very happy with the success. It does take time to sleep train and reteach habits but don't give up, you'll get there-- especially if you don't mind CIO.
I think so far you've been doing a great job and meeting her needs very well. At her age, you are right, she is probably ready to start self soothing. I have used Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby by Dr. Weissbluth religiously for my three children.....I think at this point, an early bed time to establish night sleep is your best bet....then the three naps will follow.
You need the book, 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' by Marc Weissbluth. I used that book with my twins, and they were on a schedule by 4 months. It was great. You might need to let her cry it out, when you do put her down for naps. I would not wait any longer because it will just get harder. We had our girls sleep in our room until 7 months old, and we still sleep trained them. Does she take a pacifier? I love gumdrop pacifiers..they are more like the nipple and my girls wont take anything else. I started with night sleeping first. If you try to do it all, it will make you crazy and feel like your not making any headway. I started with letting them cry for 3 min..give a pacifier walk away..then if they started crying went to 6 min...pacifier..then 9 min..pacifier..etc. The longest we went was 18 min. It was hard..hard i tell you for the first few days..but they learn. I hope this helps! Good luck!
