This is for all you veteran moms out there! Lately, Ben and I have had a hard time sleeping. Ok, really, we would sleep just fine except for a little noisemaker we like to call Brandon. From the time he was about a month old, he did really well sleeping through the night. If he happened to wake up, we just had to go upstairs and put his pacifier back in his mouth and he was out. Those days are gone...in a major way.
Brandon is very attached to me. (Can you blame him really?) He wakes up every night around midnight and no matter what we do we are fighting a losing battle for two hours at a time. If Ben goes up there, he cries. If I am up there not holding him, he cries. If I start to rock him and then have the audacity to put him in his crib, he screams. Sometimes we give him a bottle (I know I know, big no-no) and he will go back to sleep. Other times, he won't even take the bottle. If I don't rock him to sleep and continue holding him he wakes up angry. We have tried to just let him cry too, but he is a persistent little fella.
We didn't really have this problem with Rachel. She would wake up at night, but it was really easy to put her back to sleep most of the time. And if she did cry herself to sleep, she was sleeping through the night within a couple of nights.
If anyone has some good tips or even just some encouragement it would be greatly appreciated!
6 comments:
Let him sleep with you. I know sounds awful but Rylie slept with us and she has turned out just fine. It was the only way they and you get any sleep. Plus they won't be doing it with they get older, and you don't want to ruin the attachment; it will be developed once he turns two. You will learn to love it!
But what do I know...
Oh yes - and we have a california king... I don't know how you will like it in a queen or smaller.
I'm not sure how much help I can be. As you know I have a situation of myself, but you could try fading out. Spend two hours or so the first night with him rocking, bouncing and feeding. Then the next night maybe replace bottle with some watered juice. The next night just water. The night after don't bounce and just rock and sing. So on and so on. I hope this helps. For me, my kid is just hungry and there is no technique to cure that.
Michelle, I have the perfect advice that someone else gave me which has saved me! They recommended this book (really it's a good one, not weird at all) called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Mark Wass-something, can't remember his last name. It goes through every age and stage (from the day you bring them home from the hospital and up) and discusses different methods, not just one, so you choose the one you're comfortable with. It has research to back it up, and I give this book all the credit for having Jeremiah be such a good sleeper. I love this book because, like I said, he teaches you how to do what you're comfortable with. I've tried having Jeremiah in bed with us a couple of times out of desperation, but I got no sleep, worrying about rolling on him, squishing him, Parker rolling on him, if he's warm enough, too warm, etc . . . Not my thing, but again, it is an option discussed in this book. You can check it out from the library, and I just bought it online for 10.00. Hope this helps! I know it can be totally frustrating and exhausting! Good luck and let me know how things go!
Hey Michelle,
I wish a was a veteran mom like you, then maybe I could give you some good advice. Eden still needs to hold my hair to fall asleep, I thought about cutting it to see what she would do, but I just don't have the heart (to hurt Eden or my look). One thing that always helps me is that even when you let you baby cry (and even scream) when you finally go to them, they never hate you, it always seems that they love you even more because they hold you even closer. So just remember when he's screaming, at least he still loves you. Good luck!
Karla Smith
Wish I could help. I've enjoyed reading everyone else's advise though. We struggle with Dallin too sometimes. I'd let him cry it out if he wasn't sharing a room with Tanner. I still give Dallin one bottle a night, but it is about half what I usually give him. I am slowly taking it away. Works ok so far. Good luck. If you find something that works be sure to post it.
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