Updated: ATOT Parents: How to get baby to sleep

[Patt]

A bit of background:

[*]daughter is 7 months old[*]daughter has slept in bed until now, Mom's decision[*]daughter sleeps in crib during the day for irregular naps[*]daughter is still breastfed, supplemented with some solids (rice cereal, mashed veggies/fruit)[*]wife is opposed to 'cry-it-out' methods[*]we have a regular nighttime routine of feed, bath, reading, bed[*]Mom feeds daughter in bed at night[*]nothing we try is working, and she doesn't sleep for more than 4 hours, and every night it is a hassle just to get her to bed

I realize that many of our problems are due to the fact that the baby is used to be nursed to sleep, but my wife's patience with that is wearing thin, and it is becoming unmanageable for me to put baby to bed without Mom having to intervene.

For those who have gone through this, what method(s) did you use, and please, please, tell me it is going to get better

UPDATE: Well, there were a few tears around the house last night, but for the first time my daughter spent the entire night in the crib. A couple more nights like that and we'll be in the clear I think. Part of our effort is removing at least one of the night feedings as well, so my wife gets a better sleep.

Yesterday evening I fed her dinner, and she ate at least twice as much as normal, which I hoped was going to be a positive. It turned out OK, though it was a bit rough on my wife. On to night #2 ... and hopes for a quieter tomorrow

Update #2: The little girl is now solely sleeping in her own crib. She goes down to sleep in about 10-15 minutes after we put her down, with some crying, but no serious screaming anymore. She still wakes twice a night for feedings, but we're working at cutting one of them out. Such a treat to actually have a little bit of time in the evenings alone with my wife, and to have a well-rested child. She's also napping more reqularly

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Step up and tell your wife that the kid needs to go to bed in her bed. Put her in her bed and let her cry for 5 minutes. Take her out and calm her down. Put her back in and if she cries again wait 10 minutes and take her out and calm her down. Then have her go to bed with you guys if possible. repeat until she accepts that she is to go to bed in her own bed. This is what we did for our youngest.

Took about 3 days to work.

 

[amddude]

Routine, routine, routine. Always put the baby in bed around the same time. And yeah, just let em cry for a while. If they're not down for 30 mins, you can take them out and try something else. Just get them used to going to bed at the same time.

 

[dainthomas]

My grandma used to dip her kids' pacifiers in brandy.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Our baby has been sleeping through the night since 2 months. Sometimes I believe it is just luck of the draw, but the one thing we did that changed things pretty much overnight was rice cereal in the last feeding. The very first night we put rice cereal in the bottle, the baby made it through the night. I didnt give a damn what people said about how horrible that was. It was good enough for our parents and grandparents, so it's good enough for my kid. This might not apply anymore since your baby is 7 months, but it might still be worth a shot. Try about 1 tbsp rice cereal per 2 ounces, and widen the nipple on the bottle so it'll pass through. Also, you need to get the child out of the bed. It can be dangerous, though probably not anymore at that age, and it is just going to make it more difficult later on. Also, though it will break your heart, babies need to cry it out. Try to tough through it for the first week, and it will probably get better. Ours doesnt cry at all anymore at night, and will often cry for about 5 minutes when put down for a nap.

 

[Azraele]

How many irregular naps does she take?

Maybe reduce the number if naps or make the nap time regular as oppsed to irregular?

 

[jmdeathsquad]

benadryl

 

[rivan]

We used this book.

It outlines the amount of sleep a kid needs at different stages of life, and really hammers on the idea that the average kid today doesn't get nearly enough. Oddly enough, being short on sleep makes it MORE difficult for kids to go to sleep - they need a nap *before* they get to the point where you can tell they need a nap.

It also outlines three different approaches to getting your kid to sleep:

--Extinction - let 'em cry til they're asleep. Obviously, make sure there's nothing in the way of them sleeping while you're doing this - they need to be clean, warm, and have a nice full belly.

--Graduated extinction - Intervene on increasing intervals. Let em cry for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15, etc. until sleeping.

--I forget what the last one's called, but it's basically comforting the baby until she's asleep, no matter how long it takes.

The goal for each is to get a child able to go to sleep by herself. The first one produces the fastest results, the second one is slower and the last is slowest by a huge margin.

We did 'extinction' and our baby was going to sleep by herself peacefully after 3 days - but she was also much younger when we started. She was sleeping through the night (~7 pm-6 am ish) with two 2-3 hour naps during the day at 4 months. At first there was still a late night/early morning feeding, but she'd go right back to sleep afterward, and those phased out.

Edit: I make extinction sound like a bed of roses. Those nights where she cried - we were both in the next room, terrified, thinking we were horrible parents. We sat, staring at the monitor the first night for ~30 minutes while she cried. It was HARD. The next night was more like 20 minutes, the third was like 5 minutes. The rewards since have been more than worth it.

She's three now and as long as we follow her sleep routine, she's pretty trouble-free going to bed. These days, the routines's much longer than it was then (back then it was music+ rocking chair for 5 minutes with a book - now it's bathtime, brushing teeth, etc) but it's still a routine.

 

[Wapp]

Originally posted by: amddude
Routine, routine, routine. Always put the baby in bed around the same time. And yeah, just let em cry for a while. If they're not down for 30 mins, you can take them out and try something else. Just get them used to going to bed at the same time.

Don't put the kid down when she is tired. Put her down at scheduled nap times.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Originally posted by: Wapp

Originally posted by: amddude
Routine, routine, routine. Always put the baby in bed around the same time. And yeah, just let em cry for a while. If they're not down for 30 mins, you can take them out and try something else. Just get them used to going to bed at the same time.

Don't put the kid down when she is tired. Put her down at scheduled nap times.

Yup. She should be on scheduled feeding times as well.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Wapp

Originally posted by: amddude
Routine, routine, routine. Always put the baby in bed around the same time. And yeah, just let em cry for a while. If they're not down for 30 mins, you can take them out and try something else. Just get them used to going to bed at the same time.

Don't put the kid down when she is tired. Put her down at scheduled nap times.

:thumbsup:

 

[nakedfrog]

Mozart CD + repeat?
Other than that, eventually she'll probably have to accept letting the baby cry it out. That or you'll end up with your kid sleeping in your bed until she's 4 like one of my GF's friends.

 

[Rage187]

my daughter is 4 months old and sleeps in her crib from 9pm-6am

she then wakes up and put her in the bed with my wife so that she can feed her before work.


We got her on this routine starting when she was 2 months old. We would let he fall asleep on the bed with my wife and then we would put her in the crib. She used to wake up every 3 hours or so and we would bring her in with us and as soon as she fell asleep again we would put her back in the crib.

Just get in the habit of putting her in the crib once she falls asleep on the bed. She will eventually sleep the whole night in the crib.

 

[d3n]

During the nightly feed make sure it includes some solids like baby cereal with some juice or something. The weight on the stomach will help.

 

[mad0maxx]

What I use is a portable radio and turn on the radio and tune into some plain static noise and turn it up kinda loud because baby's like loud noises and after about 5 minutes they go to bed and gradually turn down the static till you turn it off... works like a charm!

 

[Patt]

Excellent advice from everyone ... I think we're going to start, as one poster mentioned, an 'extinction' method this weekend. My wife is busy for a few nights in a row, and although it does break my heart to hear it, I am able to let her cry for longer.

The baby usually naps from 10-11 in the morning, and then again from 3 to 4 or 4:30, but sometimes she just won't go down at those times.

Rivan: my wife has read that book ... I think she is concerned about long-term damage from crying it out. Exactly why she would be baffles me, I think she's got a bit of hippy in her

 

[MX2]

You guys will get through it just fine...patience is key

 

[Kelemvor]

First off, get the kid in the drib at night. Sleeping in the same bed with the parents doesn't help past a couple months old. Our daughter never slept in bed with us. We had the crib in our bedroom at the beginning since she had to get up to feed all the time anyway, but get her in her own bed/crib.

We put our daughter to sleep by going into her room, turning all the lights and such off, turning on a CD with lullaby type music, then holding her and rocking/swaying with the music for a bit until she pretty much falls asleep in your arms. Then we can usually lay her down, cover her up, and head out.

If she's waking up to feed, that's normal. Have your wife nurse her and repeat the rocking, music, etc. I don't recall what age our daughter started sleeping through the night but every kid is different.

And feel free to browse this. Might offer some other ideas even though it's biased towards breastfeeding always and forever... heh.
http://www.lalecheleague.org/FAQ/sleep.html


And here's a TON more links...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wh...p+through+the+night&btnG=Google+Search

 

[mad0maxx]

Originally posted by: Patt
Rivan: my wife has read that book ... I think she is concerned about long-term damage from crying it out. Exactly why she would be baffles me, I think she's got a bit of hippy in her

Your wife is right... you should not let your baby cry for extended periods of time because a baby does not know what is good or bad for him he just knows how to cry and cry expelling all of his air out of his lungs and it was scientifically proven that extended periods of crying reduces oxygen to the baby's brain which is bad!

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: mad0maxx

Originally posted by: Patt
Rivan: my wife has read that book ... I think she is concerned about long-term damage from crying it out. Exactly why she would be baffles me, I think she's got a bit of hippy in her

Your wife is right... you should not let your baby cry for extended periods of time because a baby does not know what is good or bad for him he just knows how to cry and cry expelling all of his air out of his lungs and it was scientifically proven that extended periods of crying reduces oxygen to the baby's brain which is bad!

Exactly.

Babies don't cry for no reason. There's always a reason. They could be hungry, lonely, scared, having digestive issues, etc but there's always a reason when they are that young.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Originally posted by: Patt
Excellent advice from everyone ... I think we're going to start, as one poster mentioned, an 'extinction' method this weekend. My wife is busy for a few nights in a row, and although it does break my heart to hear it, I am able to let her cry for longer.

The baby usually naps from 10-11 in the morning, and then again from 3 to 4 or 4:30, but sometimes she just won't go down at those times.

Rivan: my wife has read that book ... I think she is concerned about long-term damage from crying it out. Exactly why she would be baffles me, I think she's got a bit of hippy in her

That is hippy crap. Parenting is hard, but some people make it much harder that it should be by following advice like this. I think we, as a society, had general parenting figured out pretty well about 100yrs ago, but have started getting worse at it since we've started listening to so called "experts" instead of our parents and grandparents.

Just look at how clingy and emotionally fragile many kids are today for proof of this.

 

[mad0maxx]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx

Originally posted by: Patt
Excellent advice from everyone ... I think we're going to start, as one poster mentioned, an 'extinction' method this weekend. My wife is busy for a few nights in a row, and although it does break my heart to hear it, I am able to let her cry for longer.

The baby usually naps from 10-11 in the morning, and then again from 3 to 4 or 4:30, but sometimes she just won't go down at those times.

Rivan: my wife has read that book ... I think she is concerned about long-term damage from crying it out. Exactly why she would be baffles me, I think she's got a bit of hippy in her

That is hippy crap. Parenting is hard, but some people make it much harder that it should be by following advice like this. I think we, as a society, had general parenting figured out pretty well about 100yrs ago, but have started getting worse at it since we've started listening to so called "experts" instead of our parents and grandparents.

Yeah, 100 years ago parents never shook their baby's and never let their baby's lay in their cribs and cry for hours... we have experts now adays because people now adays are generally not fit to be parents like they were 100 years back...

 

[marleymarl]

You'll be amazed at what a few days of routine will do. We screwed up our kid on the begining with her sleeping habits. She'd either be sleepign with us or on the couch for the first 2 years of her life. It wasnt always like that. From about 3 months to 9 months she basically slept in her crib with minimal intervention.

Then something went wrong and she would only sleep in our bed or on the couch from 9 months to 2 years. I thought that we were screwed. 3 days of routine and consistency and she was back in her bed, sleeping all night. Those first 2 days SUCKEd but cmon, 3 days to reverse over a year of laziness and stubborness its really quite amazing.

Now she is 5 and is a model sleeper. She brushes her teeth at 745pm, does the bathroom thing, fills up her water bottle, I read her a story (or she reads me one now) and I tuck her in and she goes to bed.

So the moral of the story is no matter how much you screw up with certain parenting things (nothing extreme obviously) its relatively easy to "fix" what you screwed up, it just takes patience, consistency and firmness.


Good luck!

**Edited for atrocious spacing and typos

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Patt
[*]daughter has slept in bed until now, Mom's decision
[*]wife is opposed to 'cry-it-out' methods

You've made two mistakes, I highlighted them both right there. From now, you can either:
(A) Be miserable for months/years until the problems go away - probably 18 years of problems with that type of parenting.

(B) Change your ideas on the parts above. Look at rivan's and marleymarl's example. A simple change on the ideas, and bingo 3 nights later the problems are gone.

(C) This is probably the easiest, find a new Mom since it seems that Mom's ideas are the root cause of the problems.

Probably 99% of ongoing problems with babys/children are due to parenting choices. If you aren't willing to change the parenting style, then you'll suffer the consequences.

 

[SlowSpyder]

My son will be 7 months old on April 1st. We got him into a routine. Also, stop being a wuss and coddling your kid. Let her cry it out. Our baby has a schedule he sticks too and regulary sleeps through the night and has since he was about 4 months old. Our baby also slept in his crib since the day we took him home, never in our bed. You'll want to break that habit too.