Why won't she sleep?

[Amy loves Bud]

It's 8:30 and I'm up with my 7 month old -we've been up since 2:45. She's not particularly hungry, seems happy if I'm holding her. This is happening a lot lately. She's already a terrible napper.

I got so desperate that at 6:30 I loaded her into the car and drove around until it was good and warm in there, then parked us back into the garage. I was planning on sleeping there for a while (with the engine off, of course), but she woke up when I parked.

Is it possible that a baby only needs 6 or 7 hours of sleep a day? Right now she is playing and seems very happy and bright-eyed.

We've tried cosleeping, but she won't settle down in my bed unless she is nursing, and she doesn't relax when she falls asleep. She's attached to me for hours and I wake up feeling as if my arms are going to fall off from sleeping in such a contorted position.

We've tried Ferberizing her and it has done wonders for getting her to go to sleep at bedtime, but it absoutely doesn't work for naps or middle of the night wakings. But honestly, once we get up to a 20 minute cry session I can't stand it, and I certainly don't have it in me to let her totally cry it out.

I'm exhausted and at my wit's end. Plus I have a bad cold that I don't think I'll ever recover from at this rate.

Help meeeeeee.

[Soph the vet]

You may not have it in you to let her cry it out but hopefully your husband does! When my 2nd child was 10 months he was still waking at 2 am. I did not have the heart to listen to him cry it out. Instead, for two consecutive nights, I fed him at bedtime (about 10pm) and then went to my mother's house to sleep! My husband put in earplugs ( he could still hear him though) and Joe cried for 1 and a half hours on and off. The second night he cried for 5 minutes. The third night I stayed home and he slept. It may seem cruel in the short run, but it has great long term results to just let them cry it out.

[Mx5]

It's exhausting, isn't it?

Here's a link to 31 sleep enhancing tips (http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070300.asp) for babies.

It sounds like she's going to sleep, but just not staying asleep, for whatever reason.

[Mandamom]

She nursed all the time and wasn't interested in night weaning until 4 (I day weaned at 2). Naps were hit and miss for years although she had a napping pattern until she was 5.

She also suffered from insomnia from around 8 months till 24 months. She would be up and essentially playing for up to 2-3 hours per night approximately every one or two weeks. She wasn't unhappy, she wasn't hungry, and even nursing her back to sleep wouldn't work. She was just awake.

The insomnia pattern continues to this day although it is now about 1-2 times per month. She'll wake up in the middle of the night for a few hours and be fine the next day. I remember at 3 years old, I was mostly asleep on the couch and she was getting apples out to eat and coloring books for things to do. She would eventually fall asleep and wake up at her normal time at which point I was a disaster through the day but she was perfectly fine.



Napping was usually only in the car and I would let her sleep out in the car if she didn't wake up when I got into the driveway (due to our housing situation this was a safe option). It eventually did get better but was terrible while I was going through it.

I never did find anything to work consistently. I just wanted to share that you definitely aren't alone.

[Jennifer in MI]

Is this new? Or has she always had trouble sleeping? My dd is 2 and we still go through stages where she'll be up at 4:45 happy as a clam! We do co-sleep because she sleeps best with me. But, I've found there are some things that will affect her sleep patterns.


Teething
My cycle (seriously - she's up ALL night when I get my period)
Nightmares (this is new to us!)
When she learns a new skill (I remember when she learned to crawl, she would wake herself up getting into the crawling position!)


I'm sure there are more. But, I do know that just as I get to the end of my rope with very little sleep at night, she stops doing it and starts sleeping well again.

Is her crib in your room? I wonder if that would help so that you don't have to get up and walk down the hall to a different room? Can you dh help? I know if I've had a bad night, my dh will take her and rock her downstairs for an hour or so.

With napping, it helps my dd if I lie down with her and help her fall asleep. (I absolutely refuse to let her cry!) If she wakes up early, sometimes she'll settle herself down quickly (at this age, she can get up and come down the stairs herself, so I don't consider it crying it out!), but if she doesn't, I do go back up and lie down with her again for a few minutes. After a few days, she's back to napping a couple hours straight.

Gotta go run and actually school these kiddos!! LOL

[Mx5]

Is this new? Or has she always had trouble sleeping? My dd is 2 and we still go through stages where she'll be up at 4:45 happy as a clam! We do co-sleep because she sleeps best with me. But, I've found there are some things that will affect her sleep patterns.


Teething
My cycle (seriously - she's up ALL night when I get my period)
Nightmares (this is new to us!)
When she learns a new skill (I remember when she learned to crawl, she would wake herself up getting into the crawling position!)


I'm sure there are more. But, I do know that just as I get to the end of my rope with very little sleep at night, she stops doing it and starts sleeping well again.

Is her crib in your room? I wonder if that would help so that you don't have to get up and walk down the hall to a different room? Can you dh help? I know if I've had a bad night, my dh will take her and rock her downstairs for an hour or so.

With napping, it helps my dd if I lie down with her and help her fall asleep. (I absolutely refuse to let her cry!) If she wakes up early, sometimes she'll settle herself down quickly (at this age, she can get up and come down the stairs herself, so I don't consider it crying it out!), but if she doesn't, I do go back up and lie down with her again for a few minutes. After a few days, she's back to napping a couple hours straight.

Gotta go run and actually school these kiddos!! LOL

I never let any of my kids cry - yeah, it was exhausting, but now that they are older I am so thankful for even those sleepless nights. I held them too much, co-slept, nursed whenever they acted hungry, rocked & nursed them to sleep. They are the happiest kids in the world, even now that 3 out of 5 are teens. Despite Mr. Ezzo's warnings, my kids love Jesus and are respectful to me and my dh. Our family is very close, and the kids are smart. Is there a correlation to how I handled sleep issues? Probably not, but I am so glad for every moment I had snuggling my babies.

[PariSarah]

Theo has been a bear to get sleeping, too. (What is it with these later-in-life, several-years-after-our-first-babies babies???) But I think we've turned a corner. (It's one of those corners that's so rounded and long that you can't even tell it's a corner, KWIM? More of a really flat parabola. Or a curvature-of-the-earth-sized curve.)

We did Ferber-lite. It takes longer, but it doesn't involve three-hour crying fits in the middle of the night. This is how we eventually got Theo stabilized, although when he's got a cold (like now) or teething (like now), we still ending up getting up at least once.

We picked the eight hours that we most wanted him to sleep (that is, the eight hours WE wanted to sleep) and whether he was awake or asleep, we got him up and fed him half an hour before the start of that eight-hour period.

And then the first step was that we did everything we could to get him back to sleep during those eight hours except nursing. Held him, rocked him, sang to him. Nothing he would interpret as play-time, either--the room stayed dark, we spoke in whispers, and if we had to change him, we did it quietly and with a very dim light. This stage lasted about two weeks.

Once we got to where he didn't seem to expect nursing (and we were confident that he wasn't getting up because he was hungry), we did everything we could think of except singing and rocking. We picked him up and held him a minute, we whispered gently to him ("It's bedtime, lovey. Shhhhh. Mommy loves you.") until he was almost asleep. Then we put him down, and he usually fell asleep. Sometimes, he would wail as soon as we put him down; we'd pick him up and do it again--everything we could except rocking and singing, putting him down only mostly asleep. (Mostly asleep is still slightly awake. With all asleep, there's only one . . . uh, never mind.)

When that started working pretty well--it would just take a minute or two of holding, and sometimes, we didn't even need to hold him at all--we stepped down to not picking him up, and if we did need to pick him up, only holding him until he was not crying--not holding him until he was dozy. This was the longest stretch, and involved several nights where we would literally put him down, move away from the crib, and step right back up to it five minutes later. I think these last two stages were the stages where I just slept in Isaac's bed all night (they share a room) and let Isaac sleep on the futon in the study.

By that time, he seemed to have formed an attachment to his blankie, so it got to the point where he naturally transitioned into only needing us to come in and tuck a little piece of blankie in his hands so that he could suck his thumb and rub it against his face. This was a great stage--we ended up getting up maybe twice per night, but only for about ten seconds at a time, and he would go right back to sleep. And it wouldn't wake Isaac up at all, so this is when we all got to sleep in our own beds again. This was also the stage where there started to be a distinction in how he fussed--there were times when he woke up MAD, and we knew almost immediately that this was going to be a needing-to-pick-him-up night. But other times we could tell that he was just fussing, not crying, and we just needed to push him over the edge of sleep by rubbing his blankie against his face.

And then maybe about two months ago, we started waiting for about five minutes, maybe ten, before going in. And eventually, eventually, he would fuss himself to sleep. Before then, it just. wasn't. possible. He would scream for an hour if we let him. (H3ll, sometimes he screamed for an hour even when we were rocking him.)

So, he still wakes up most nights once or twice, but he's content to grumble a bit and go back to sleep. He doesn't really need any intervention, and he rarely really wakes up and cries.

This was not how I wanted to spend the first five months of his life, LOL!! But he just really couldn't figure out how to get himself to sleep for the LONGEST time, poor thing. He needed help even to get to the stage where "let him fuss" was even possible. Naptime was a whole separate adventure. :rolleyes:

Oh, I hope you get sleep soon, Amy. This has just not been a fun stage for us. But I think we've turned the corner. I think.

[Tammyla]

Oh, you poor thing. I'm not going to make any suggestions, except if you're near me...bring the baby over. My kids are so big now, I could enjoy a night up with a baby. The little dear will grow, and you will sleep again. I promise.

[Amy loves Bud]

Thank you all! We just took a nice 2 hour nap together (that's the only way she'll nap more than 20 minutes) and I feel much better.

We have an extra week floating around in this school year, and I'm going ot use it now by doing half days for two weeks so I can focus on establishing a better routine for her - even if that means some long nights ahead, or lying down with her for each and every nap time.

I'm reading your advice and taking it to heart. I'm so thankful to have the two olders right now, because even though I'm exhausted, I have a frame of reference as to how quickly it goes by, so I appreciate these days even though they are difficult.

Thanks for your help and keep it coming if anyone has other thoughts!

[Sandy in Indy]

BTDT...I used to tease my dh about not cutting the cord the right way for our last child. He definitely was the exception to the rule. He NEVER slept more than 6-8 hours a day (even as a newborn) and then only if I held him or was lying next to him. He literally had to touch me 24 hours a day. Exhausting, it was just exhausting. But he did sleep at night if I was with him and napped in the afternoon if I held him or laid down with him. And forget about putting him in a crib...he had crib radar. Putting him in the crib was like ringing a huge alarm clock! I did try letting him cry a time or two...I think he would have cried for hours, made himself sick and still stayed awake. I just couldn't stand it, nor could I stand the lack of sleep. It was easier and more restful for me to hold him. So I did.

And unfortunately, his attachment wasn't just for sleeping. I could hardly leave him for the first 5 years. He didn't even like his dad for the first 18 months...it was a very L....O....N....G haul.

But, he's now very independent, happy and well adjusted. Sleeps fine on his own (though still less hours than most kids his age). It was well worth any discomfort I endured to secure his emotional well being.

Is she napping a lot during the day? Maybe you could try keeping her up during the day so that she'll need to sleep more at night.

You have my sympathies...it's so hard when you're not getting enough sleep.