I've gotten at least 6 questions on this in the past two months. And, frankly, I've been avoiding answering them because I don't really have an answer. So let's all take our best shots. I'll just summarize, because all of the questions were essentially the same.
Everyone wrote:
"I hope you can help me because I'm about to go insane. My beautiful baby has been sleeping with us for the past few months, but in the last couple of weeks she's been waking up 3-4 times a night. She'll nurse (or take a bottle) but then won't go back to sleep right away. Instead, it's like she wants to stay up and play for some reason. She never did this before. Why?!In addition, she wiggles around so much in the bed that I can't sleep for more than ten minutes, and my poor partner is getting kicked in the kidneys all night. It's definitely time to move her to her own crib, but I don't know how to start. Should we put her crib in our room and work on that, then move her to her own room? Or should we just go cold turkey and put her down in her own room? She seems to be one of the kids whose tension increases from crying, so I really don't want her to suffer if she can't fall asleep right away in the crib.
She still nurses at night,and I don't want to wean completely until she's at least a year, but I don't know how to night-wean if I'm still nursing during the day, because I'm afraid it'll confuse her. Also, she's always been a great napper, but in the last week or two she's started to nap poorly. Should I work on getting her to nap in the crib first (she's always napped on our bed, but that isn't so great now that she's crawling) or try to do both nighttime and naptime sleep in the crib at the same time?
In the beginning we got so much more sleep with her in the bed with us, but now I'm afraid I've created a monster by not switching her sooner. Help."
The bad news is that you people all have a lot of stuff going on. The good news is that you're not the only ones. Almost everyone's baby starts sleeping poorly during the 9-month sleep regression, no matter where they sleep. So there's absolutely no need or reason to recriminate yourself or look backwards. You made the best decision at the time. The situation has changed, so it's time to adjust and move on.
Now let's start to pull this all apart. The first issue is the poor sleeping. That's a result of the 9-month-sleep regression, and there's nothing you can do about it (short of drugging your child) until the baby goes through that developmental spurt. So tired you forgot what the sleep regressions are about? Here's the post. Their little bodies just can't stay asleep because there's so much going on inside their brains.
This is also a prime time for learning to crawl, pull up, walk, etc. All that physical development also makes it really tough for babies to sleep, and they often wake themselves up in the middle of the night with movement. It's a little funny when your baby wakes up and is shocked to be up on hands and knees rocking. His or her body just did it without any conscious effort.
The trifecta of sleep disturbances is completed by teething. I don't know if anything more needs to be said about teething. If you want to give remedies, there are a bunch here and in the comments, but some kids are just really rough teethers and those kids are going to have disturbed sleep no matter what.
So. Your kid is sleeping poorly right now and you've determined that there's nothing you can do about it. That means you have to approach from the angle of your own sleep. If you have a partner, the two of you can take turns sleeping and being the night parent. Divide up your nights any way you want to (some couples will do a 2 am divide so each gets half a night of sleep, while others alternate nights), but the person on duty is on duty, and the person who's not is sound asleep and blissfully unaware of how restless the baby's sleep is during the other parent's shift. If you don't ahve a partner, maybe you have a relative or friend who would come over and take one or two nights for you so you can catch up a little on sleep. remember that this is a time-delineated problem, so if you can just make it through the next few weeks things should settle down at least a little.
The real problem with being in this situation is that you're desperate for the baby to be out of your bed and just sleeping, and you can't take it anymore. But right now is exactly when it would be a disaster to move the baby into a crib, and would just mean hours of trauma and crying for all of you. You're desperate to nightwean, but the nursing is the only thing that creates any remote sense of peace at night.
IME, and I've heard this from a fair number of other parents, that point of maximum tension, when something's got to change or you will lose your mind, is right before things get better on their own. It's almost as if the balance of the kid's development is somehow designed to push the parent to the edges before retreating back to a point of comfort. With that in mind, deciding you can hold on another hour or day or week when you feel like you're seriously going to lose it is sometimes the best thing you can do for your emotional health. At other times, the best thing you can do for your emotional health is hand the kid to someone else and just leave for an hour or a day to get yourself back a little. There is no shame in saying "I just can't take this right now" and asking for help.
So now let's assume that you've made it through the awful not-sleeping phase and your kid seems to be less restless and better able to get back to sleep. But you still want the baby out of your bed. Now's the time to switch to the crib (or mattress on your floor, or whatever you choose) since the developmental spurt is over.
My recommendation is that you think about how your child is, and how you are, and let that help you pick where to put the crib. If it were me, I'd try with the crib in the other room just to see what would happen. But I'm a gambler like that. So do what you think makes the most sense and makes you feel most comfortable.
For the actual switch, try to keep the routine as identical as possible to the old routine. You may have to rock to sleep after nursing instead of nursing in the bed, or change some other element, but you'll have the most success if you can keep your routine as similar to the old one as possible. Do what you need to to get your baby to sleep in the crib. Then come up with a plan of what to do for wake-ups. Lots of couples send in the non-nursing parent (assuming one of you is nursing) for the first wake-up, and find that the baby gets angry, but after a couple of nights stops waking up then (because there's no milk payoff).
You should also decide how long the baby is going to be expected to stay in the crib. Obviously it would be excellent if your baby would sleep all night, But that probably won't happen right away. So what do you do when s/he wakes up? You can try to get the baby back down in the crib (designate whose job this is ahead of time), or you can bring the baby in with you. We chose the second route and it worked out really well. Gradually he slept later and later, until one day he didn't wake up until 6:30 am, and was sleeping all night in hs crib. It was kind of shocking. But you might want your baby to sleep all night in the crib sooner and be willing to go through more struggle to make it happen. Just pick a way that will work for you all. Then give it 4-5 days and reassess to see if you're making progress, and decide what to do from there.
I'd try just switching into the crib first, to see if that cures the nightweaning problem. It's possible that your baby will sleep all the way through, or only wake up once, in which case your problem is basically solved. Just start sending in the non-nursing parent for that wake-up, and see if the wake-up stops after a week or so.
If you do have to nightwean, cut out one feed at a time, starting with the earliest one. Send in the non-nursing partner to get the baby back to sleep. The baby will be angry, so it might be tough to calm him or her down. If the baby seems truly hungry, feed the baby. This process could go smoothly, or it could really suck. Remember to pay attention to yoru baby's messages and go only as far as your baby can. Some kids do truly need to eat at night even past a year, so if your child seems really hungry, don't pay attention to when the baby "should" eat, just feed your child.
About naps? You got me. Usually once the nighttime sleep is straightened out, the naps fall into place. And if you're going to want to be out and about in the warm weather, don't get your child used to only taking naps in the crib, or you won't be able to let him or her nap in the stroller while you run errands.
Anyone else? What did I forget in this strange potluck of a post?
Oh, man. How about a 19-month-old who has never slept in a crib, not even for a nap? Who won't go down for a nap without his mom in bed?
That's my nephew, sweetest kid ever.
His mom really still seems to want him with her, so that's cool. I know he won't be sleeping in his parents' bed when he's in high school, so I know the transition will happen sometime. :-)
It's just tough on everyone when I'd be happy to babysit for them just about anytime, for instance, but the poor sweetie just isn't used to sleeping in any way but for his mom in their bed. When he was an infant I could get him to fall asleep on my shoulder after an hour or two of abject sobbing, but that's not an approach I'd wish on the little guy!
Posted by: Maura | January 31, 2007 at 07:50 AM
Introducing a lovey at any point can help too because that's a portable familiar object.
I also for our transitions (many - from sleeping on us/carseat, to basket, to bigger basket, to sidecar cosleeper, to crib, plus playpen) always dropped the shirt I'd been wearing during the day over his blankets/sleeper so that he had the scent/texture he'd nursed with that day. I have no idea if it helped but it made me feel better about it.
Posted by: Shandra | January 31, 2007 at 08:04 AM
Maura, he won't go to bed any other way? I know plenty of toddlers who cosleep but can still be put down for the night by other people. Wow. So she has to be there with him every single night? What about drinking wine club, er, I mean book club?
Shandra, great ideas both about the lovey and about the shirt.
Posted by: Moxie | January 31, 2007 at 09:10 AM
DISCLAIMER: I didn't have this particular problem myself, so this is just my opinion, not experience.
I'd take the process of moving her to her crib very slowly. I'd start by having her play in the crib while mom's in the room. Either folding laundry or just hanging out. But make the crib a fun place to spend time (this will serve well once the transition is complete).
Once she's comfortable with the crib as a place to spend time, work on having her spend time in the crib without mom in the room (small periods of time first, gradually increase). Then you can work on naps, and nighttime sleeping. There's a good chance that once she's comfortable napping in the crib, she'll be ready to spend the night there almost immediately.
The good news is that she should be able to make it through the night without nursing (except as comfort during the transition); so once she's sleeping in the crib, she'll most likely sleep through the night. HOORAY! And since she's crawling (and rolling over) she'll be able to sleep on her belly.
Posted by: Lisa | January 31, 2007 at 09:33 AM
My now 15 month old son used to refuse to sleep anywhere but with us, in a bouncy, in a swing, or in the car. Around 9 months, I started putting him down in his crib for naps - he had a particular toy that he had grown attached to and I gave him a shirt that I had previously worn. In the beginning, he would wail away and after awhile, I would go in and pick him up (each kid is different, for our kid at that time if he hadn't gone to sleep in 15-20 minutes, there was no point because he would be so worked up). Anyway, after doing this for awhile, he eventually went to sleep and then the naps became longer. THEN, with naptime going at a golden pace, I started putting him down at bedtime, which was quite easier since he was used to napping in there. For a month of so, he would wake up around midnight, and I would bring him to bed with me for the rest of the night. Then, he graduated to just having a quick nursing session around midnight, then needing to go back to his crib. Eventually, he started sleeping through the night in his crib - now, he won't sleep with us at all, but he is a champion sleeper in his crib.
Soothing techniques? After a few books, our son likes to be walked around for a few minutes with his head on our shoulders. He goes to sleep best when put down in the crib while still drowsy, but not actually asleep.
It was a painful process and we had NO ONE in our life that was supportive of this - everyone acted like we were spoiling our child because of the co-sleeping. In fact, I didn't even blog much about this because I didn't want the criticisms THERE, either (I regret this, because I don't have the specific timelines down pat now). I've learned that babies do grow, mature, and change - who knew? A baby that won't sleep on his own at 6 months, may very well at 9 months. A baby can't be "ruined" and they are very good at telling you what they need. I can see now, my son was just telling us that he wanted to be near us and wasn't ready to be on his own yet. I'm glad I listened to him and not to all the well-meaning friends and family members who insisted that I was spoiling him.
As Maura did, I used one of my previously worn shirts, I did not switch out the shirt, though and he is still sleeping with it - it's even been washed since. I will be mentally filing away Maura's version for my next kid forthcoming in July.
My recommendation for all parents is to read these tips and tricks, then mix n' match according to your child's needs and personalities. For sure, I still read all these posts because I suspect my newest kid forthcoming will be different and I'll be back at Square One. And I'll definitely be stalking THIS post for awhile so that I can read all the comments!
Posted by: cagey | January 31, 2007 at 10:00 AM
We did the crib transition early, just because we were lucky enough to have a baby that was sleeping well at 3 months (not gloating--there were plenty of regressions/illnesses/rough teething later, when she outright refused to come to bed with us and let me lie down). Mouse was also exceedingly boob-oriented, a daycare baby (lots o colds), and a rough teether, so not much besides nursing would work for her if she was sick or getting a tooth. Every time one of those events happened she'd get used to nursing all the way to deep sleep whenever she woke up...and every time that happened we'd use the "gentle removal plan" from the "No-Cry Sleep Solution" to gradually move her back to normal. It's a good book (well, at least the advice from Pantley always seems to fit my particular kid) :) and worth checking out for really specific ideas on how to handle a gentle transition for a nursing child.
Posted by: Charisse | January 31, 2007 at 10:23 AM
We are in the process of transitioning our almost-seven-month old out of our bed/co-sleeper and into his own crib right now, and we've taken the approach that Moxie describes above: We put him to bed at night in the crib, then whenever he wakes up (could be 1am, could be 3am, could be 5am, it varies a lot) I get him up, change his "pants" (diaper) and bring him into "the big bed" with us, where he nurses and sleeps until we have to get up to get ready for the day at 6am.
As a bonus, from time to time his father will still be up when The Little Boy wakes up (last night, for instance, daddy was up at 1am when boy woke up, so he got to attend to him), in which case daddy will almost always change his pants, feed him from a bottle, then put him back in his crib where he will happily go to sleep (for daddy). This plan doesn't work for us every night because of our wildly varied work schedules, but it was a treat to wake up this morning and be able to snuggle with his dad with no baby in the bed.
Posted by: anastasiav | January 31, 2007 at 10:30 AM
I don't have time to read the other comments this morning, so apologies for any repetition, but here's my advice:
On the nap thing -- bad sleep begets bad sleep, so it might be that the naps are going wonky because of the bad night-time sleep. I agree with Moxie, though, that it will probably get better. This, too, shall pass. :)
On switching to the crib -- I'd start with naps in the crib. Most kids have napped a variety of places (the swing, the car, dad's shoulder, etc), so their not too emotionally attached to their nap spot. I'd do nap in the crib until it seems like the normal thing, then try doing bed in the crib. You have to do what will work for you, but once we did moving to the crib, we didn't move back to our room or bed. If the baby woke up, I (I'm the night-time person at our house) went to his/her room and rocked, sang, fed, whatever, until he/she was settled (not necessarily sleeping).
On night-waking in general -- at 9 months, I think your baby knows how to play independently for awhile, right? Let him do that in his crib if he's not ready to sleep. Put some board books in there, or a couple of favorite toys, or whatever. My younger one would sometimes be awake for 45+ minutes before he would go back to sleep (sometimes with my help, but as often without) and I saw no need to supervise that time -- I went back to bed (if not always to sleep). I'm not talking about leaving him to cry for all that time, just leaving him be, to get bored and tired again. He might sometimes complain a little about being left alone, but if he got very upset, I went to him and he was usually ready, then, to be rocked go back to sleep.
Good luck. Sleep is so hard not to stress out about!
Posted by: Jan | January 31, 2007 at 10:51 AM
Two things that have helped us, but may not apply to a 9-month old:
1) Dr. Sear's advice about waiting for a while after baby falls asleep in your arms before you attempt to put her in the crib helped a lot--it gets them over the hump of the light sleep that happens at the start of the sleep cycle so they are somewhat less likely to pop open their eyes and give you the "are you kidding me?" look when you start to ease them onto the mattress. I don't know if light sleep starting the cycle is still an issue at 9 months--anyone?
2) My baby is older (now 18 months), but some months ago we discovered that after bringing her into our bed to nurse after a night-waking, if my husband is the one to pick her up and carry her back to her room, she accepts it. If I try to do that, no way. It's a very dramatic difference and we felt like we'd discovered the key to the universe the night we figured it out! When I feel her start to slow down, I poke him in the back and he picks her up (she is still awake). Sometimes she'll start to whimper but he just keeps moving and I play dead.
Posted by: arb | January 31, 2007 at 11:11 AM
Maura, my son, now almost three, was the same as your nephew. We coslept until he was over two, then just moved him into his big-boy bed. I think it was easy since he was so old, he never had to transition twice (our bed to crib to bed) and he was actually excited about having his own bed with fun sheets (with trucks!).
He also napped in our bed, with me nursing him down, until a few months ago. He would also nap in the car but rarely any other way.
It all used to cause me so much angst and now I look back and it's no big deal, because with patience and time, he grew out of it and we're all fine. Now he goes to bed in his own room/bed, sleeps there all night by himself, is done with naps and all is well. I really recommend The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Babies and then the one for Toddlers and Preschoolers as well, by Elizabeth Pantley. I didn't use any of her methods to a T, but I found it useful to adopt some practices and also found it reassuring that I wasn't alone in my son being so dependent on me.
Hey, will your nephew sleep in the car? If his parents trust you to drive with him, you could take him on an outing that either starts or ends with a car nap - that would give them a nice break. Just a thought. Good luck!
Posted by: Jen H. | January 31, 2007 at 02:30 PM
Having JUST gone through this--like a week ago--I think the naps in the crib first is the best way to go. We did that for a couple days than put her in the crib when she fell asleep, bringing her back to bed to nurse when she woke up and then putting her in the co-sleeper. But then she was waking up a lot in the co-sleeper and we moved her back into her crib and it's been smooth sailing for a couple weeks now. It's rough when she wakes up a bunch, but what can you do?
Posted by: Cecily | January 31, 2007 at 03:29 PM
We did the transition pretty early, and nowadays, co-sleeping with us happens only when we think he needs the reassurance (a particularly difficult day, etc).
When we did the transition, we first put the crib in our room. And then during naptime, we would do our whole nap routine as normal, but instead of getting in bed, we would put him down in the crib. It took a while, but he eventually got used to napping in the crib. It took about a week to nine days.
Once he associated sleep and crib, nighttime transition was much easier. Took only three or four days.
When we moved him in the crib but it was still in our room, he still wanted to wake up and play, but it was less painful since he was't kicking us.
After he got used to the crib, we then moved it into another room. Took about another three days before he accepted not being able to see us.
Posted by: Fahmi | January 31, 2007 at 04:48 PM
Hmmm. Moxie (or anyone), do you know of anything besides sleep regressions, growth spurts, developmental phases, teething, etc. that would cause a baby to just not sleep?
My 11 month old is, quite possibly, the world's worst sleeper. She slept with us until 7 months, when I weaned her and put her in her crib. That wasn't such a big deal, but for the last two months or so she has been such a restless sleeper. She wakes anywhere from 3 to 17 times a night, and will ONLY go back to sleep with a bottle, which is the worst possible thing, I've heard. Some nights, she's still up at midnight, wanting to play! Her naps are brief and sporadic. We won't cry it out because she's a tension increaser, and also because she shares a room with her 2 1/2 year old sister. Cutting teeth is horrible for her - it takes her weeks and weeks to pop one out, and not without chewing through wood, leather, velcro, etc. first! She's just a light, fickle, restless sleeper and *nothing* works with her. We've tried everything everyone has ever suggested, and haven't found a suggestion that lets anyone get any sleep.
Sorry to hijack, Moxie, but if you or anyone has any more drastic advice, I'd kill to hear it. We're on the verge of complete breakdown around here.
Posted by: Erin | January 31, 2007 at 05:31 PM
Erin, I've posted here about this before, but just in case: Has your kid been checked for anemia? T. was a truly difficult sleeper until 10 months, when he was found to be severely anemic. A week of iron drops and his sleep was into the range of normal (two 1-hr. naps, 2 or 3 night wakings), where it hadn't been since 6 months - probably when his iron levels started to plummet.
But teething will still scramble things - he's cutting the top 4 right now and it's been a really rough week, even with 3 doses of Motrin a day, teething tablets, wet cloths, et al. 15-minute naps, up screaming at 2 AM with fever, etc. This too will pass.
And to the PP who asked about Dr. Sears' thing on waiting for deep sleep before putting the baby down: In my experience, that was true for several months, but somewhere along the way it became possible to put T. down when very drowsy post-nursing. We did try a lot of the Pantley techniques, and this ability was one result, which really paid off once the iron problem was solved. I think the down-drowsy transition happened when he was maybe 8 months and could easily roll both ways (and thus, I felt, safely go down to sleep on his stomach, which he greatly prefers when in the crib).
Posted by: Lisa | January 31, 2007 at 07:42 PM
Moxie, I really appreciate you're acknowledging the single parents among us, with no partner to help with nighttime duty.
Posted by: Maria | January 31, 2007 at 09:07 PM
Erin, it may be that her sister's sleep noises are waking her. Have you tried a humidifier or white noise machine in their room? Also, try putting up black-out curtains for naptime, if you haven't already.
Posted by: liz | January 31, 2007 at 09:40 PM
ditto the blackout curtains for naptime- you can buy a few yards of "blackout lining" at a fabric store and cut to length of the regular curtains on your windows and just sew them (or hot glue/safety pin if you are desperate) right along the top for a quick fix. ugly? a little, but wow did it make a huge difference for pnut- quiet and dark is a huge indicator that it truly is "night night" time. or you could look into blackout blinds or shades.
so much of what got us through this has already been mentioned, and we got a great deal from elizabeth pantley's no cry sleep solution- she may be a good resource for you as she is totally pro-breastfeeding and family bed/cosleeping. loveys, routines, nursing down, wrapping in a warm shirt, all great advice!
the only thing i think i can add here is the idea of one of those crib attached music soothers- we have a lullaby birdie one from fisherprice that has birds that went around, plays songs and projects a 'movie' on the ceiling. i think they have a rainforest version now, i've also seen an aquarium version. although i hate to encourage the barrage of plastic into your kids lives, that thing was a lifesaver. everytime pnut would wake up in the middle of the night we would soothe her (she sleeps in a crib in our room), give her back the paci, and hit the birdie button. eventually she learned to turn it on herself when she would wake up, and if i woke up enough i would shh-shh-shh her and more often than not she would drift back off eventually.
good luck all of you- sleep is so hard!!
Posted by: pnuts mama | January 31, 2007 at 10:51 PM
I think Cagey has some great advice. I found it easier and less stressful to work on some sleep issues at naptime first, because there's indeed something about the sleep issues at nighttime that inspired a bit of hysteria in me. And certainly, any transitions made during naptime first have to be easier when you make the transition at night as well.
When attempting to get my firstborn to fall asleep without me present in her room, I started with naps first, gradually moving myself out. When we tried this a night too, it went a lot smoother because of this.
And I'm a huge fan of the white noise machine. That level hum is so pleasant, and does tend to block out extraneous noise, or at least make it not so noticeable.
Posted by: Kelly | February 01, 2007 at 09:58 AM
Erin, also keep an eye out for sensory issues - those played a big role with my kids, but we didn't spot the issues until they were well into walking/running/jumping behavior (like, Brendan would stomp on lego barefoot for fun, body slam people, and literally lose consciousness when exposed to loud noises... first-year fireworks were NOT a hit, and he only survived without lab-quality hearing protection for the first time at almost 5 years old.). If they pop up at the slightest noise, temperature change, or texture change (your shirt to the sheets, etc.), then that may be a sensory processing issue. Maybe. You could always ask for an early intervention assessment if there are any other signs of sensory issues.
On the plus side, extremely bright kids also tend to be poor sleepers - their curiosity keeps them revving all the time. If she's otherwise content (not showing signs of being out of control/over-tired, etc. when in normal wake times), then the problem is mainly keeping the quiet enough that others can sleep while they play safely.
Also if this has just been going on for the past two months, it could be one fussy stage blurred into another due to teething in between. Anemia does tend to start showing up around then, too, so definitely worth checking the health angle, too. THe other thing I can think of that is really closely tied to sleep disruption for an extended time is dairy allergy. Even a low-level reaction can cause sleep disruption, and ONE exposure takes five weeks to clear for the sleep disruption aspect (according to one clinical study, anyway). UGH! So if you've tried taking her off dairy entirely before, make sure you did so for long enough. Most people will say 2 weeks is enough, but for sleep issues, that's not true.
And maybe you just haven't been given enough ideas - you've tried chiropractic, reflux treatment (not just tums, but assessment with proper meds?), allergy testing? There are a lot of dietary changes between 7 and 11 months, perhaps something she's getting is setting her off? Needing to suck/eat to go to sleep can be an indicator (to me) of discomfort (research supports that babies and small children suck/eat to reduce physical discomfort, and it works - releases endorphins).
Good luck figuring it out! Anyone who thinks their brain will turn to mush by being a mom hasn't tried to figure out why their child isn't sleeping... I feel like Sherlock some days!
Posted by: hedra | February 01, 2007 at 11:08 AM
Erin, I thought you were my partner until I read about the 2&1/2 year-old sister. Our story with our 13-month-old's sleep problems is basically identicle to yours - except we started out with her in a crib. After 9 months when the constant wakings were making us so insane that we were headed for divorce, we were told to move her TO our bed by a couples counselor.
She suggested that perhaps our child just had a personality type that required extra touch/attention/assurance from us at night. We were so against the idea of cosleeping but at that point we'd tried EVERYTHING from No Cry Sleep Solution to cry-it-out that it was our only hope.
Puting her in our bed has helped tremedously. We still have many small wakings with the occasional wants-to-play-at-2 a.m. waking all depending on the state of her teething and any colds she's developed. But as she gets older she seems to get better and better at sleeping. We are now retrying some of the No Cry Sleep Solution methods to teach her to fall asleep without us and a bottle, and they seem to be working.
I don't really have any advice except to say maybe your daughter just needs a little more time sleeping by you. Maybe she is a "high-attachment" child as our counselor called our daughter.
And if that is not the case or just doesn't work I just wanted to say you are not alone... I feel your pain.
Posted by: melissa | February 01, 2007 at 10:26 PM
I love everything in Moxie's post AND all the commnents. SO TRUE about how parents seem to be pushed to the brink and then things just change on their own.
Here are things we tried:
Water from a bottle if babe woke before 3am and that worked to reduce feedings! (but he loves drinking water) That seemed to satisfy him completely. Now he often only wakes around 5am (I'm careful not to use jinxing words).
What about doing the drop-the-4th-side-of-the-crib-and-attach-to-bed technique? that way your baby is still near you, but in their crib. Then you can slowly move the crib to be freestanding?
I agree with Lisa and others that letting baby play in crib is a good idea.
It'll happen. It will. there are lots of good ideas to try here.
Posted by: susan | February 02, 2007 at 12:48 PM
I vote for working on nighttime first, then naps, if (like me) you've got a kid who sleeps great at night but is a baaaaad napper. Just in case it doesn't work the other way, don't givw up hope!
We did have a bad, 7 - 10 month nighttime sleep regression, though -- nothing to do except get through it, I tried every trick in the book and nothing (except the passage of time) worked .. hang in there --
Posted by: Carla Hinkle | February 02, 2007 at 08:00 PM
First of all, forget that whole 'created a monster' thing. There seems to be a widespread belief in baby books that newborns will happily put up with being put to sleep whereever and whenever and, thus, you have a window of opportunity to train them to go to sleep in their crib, Drowsy But Awake, and can then relax and enjoy your baby's good sleep habits for the rest of his infancy. I wasted unbelievable amounts of time in the first two months of my son's life trying to persuade him to go to sleep smoothly in a cot, convinced I was doing something wrong, before it finally occurred to me that this was incredibly pointless and trying to get him to sleep in his cot at an older age couldn't possibly be more difficult than this. (And it wasn't.)
As to what we did: Firstly, we made the cot more comfortable. The trouble with the anti-SIDS measures is that a mattress can just get too uncomfortable for a child to lie on. So we put down a folded-up double duvet to pad it. We didn't do this until he was older than a year, though, so I don't know how you feel about doing the same thing (I would have thought the risk with a nine-month-old would be fairly small, but it's one of those things that you just can't say for certain).
Secondly, I broke the nurse-to-sleep link by waiting until I was sure he'd finished the actual milk-consumption bit of the nursing for the evening and got on to comfort sucking, and then giving him a dummy to suck instead. He adapted to this very quickly and easily, and it meant I didn't have to be physically right next to him for him to go to sleep.
Having done this, I then used a method I learned about from Tracey Hogg (her most recent book, *not* the spectactularly useless Secrets Of The Baby Whisperer). It works like this: Go through evening routine, get to point where baby is all drowsy & ready to drop off, and put him in the cot. When he screamed and pulled himself upright again, I gave him a hug and put him straight back down again (as in, actually lowering him to the mattress even as arms were closing around him). Repeat every single time he tried to get up. When he was just lying in the cot crying between these attempts, I stood next to him patting him and telling him softly that it was time to go to sleep and he was sleeping in the cot now. Although he was very upset at first, he wasn't left alone at all during the times when he was struggling with going to sleep in a way he wasn't used to. 47 minutes of crying the first time, 8 minutes the second time, and within a few days he was going into his cot without a murmur and settling with a few minutes of patting.
BTW, we used this only for getting him to sleep in the evenings. I didn't bother trying to keep him in his cot all night as that really wasn't an issue for us at the time - just needed him to be able to go to sleep in the cot in the evenings, when I couldn't stay with him all evening. But you could also use it each time your baby woke up throughout the night.
Posted by: Sarah V. | February 18, 2007 at 04:51 AM
OH.MY.GOSH! I cannot express enough just how much reading all of this is helping me!! I live in the UK and for so long, the fact that our 9 month old daughter shares the bed with us, has produced such an odd reaction from SO many other parents we know or have got talking to about the subject. It has felt as if no-one else in the world shared their bed with their baby (!), but I knew there was more like us!! haha!
Also the fact that I still nurse my daughter to sleep in our bed and allow her to sleep there, gets so frowned upon by health professionals that I feel that something so natural is being looked at in the wrong way and almost makes you feel like you're doing something awful, which of course is ridiculous!
Having said all of this however, I was beginning to wonder why she had all of a sudden started to wake so much more frequently and was just starting to feel at desperation point and it's time for change (still think it'll be soon), and you may be surprised that I had never even heard of sleep regressions, and now feel wonderfully enlightened!! Will definitely be referring back to ALL of these blogs during our transition period from 'muma-dada bed' to crib, and am just soooo glad to have found this (google is amazing)!! Finally don't feel alone or in the dark!
Posted by: Lucianne | March 01, 2007 at 01:22 PM
HI EVERYBODY THIS IS MY FIRST POST AS I HAVE JUST FOUND THIS SITE BUT I FEEL LIKE IVE DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN READING THESE POSTS! MY 11MONTH OLD SON IS DRIVING US TO DISTRACTION. HE JUST WILL NOT GO DOWN IN HIS COT UNTILL HE IS SOUND ASLEEPTHIS INVOLVES LOTS OF WALKING THE FLOOR OR PUSHING HIM IN HIS PRAM AND THEN HE STILL WAKES UP TO FEED TWICE A NIGHT LIKE HE DID WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER IM NOT SURE IF HE IS SUCKING FOR COMFORT BECAUSE HE FINISHES BOTH THE BOTTLES. WE HAVE BEEN FEEDING HIM ALL THROUGH THE DAY IN THE HOPE HE WONT BE HUNGERYAT NIGHT HE HAS ONLY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT FOR A BRIEF PERIOD OF ABOUT A MONTH WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER BUT NEVER AT ALL NOW. WE JUST CANT GET HIM TO FALL ASLEEP IN THE COT AND THEN HE HAS TO BE TAKEN IN TO OUR BED EVERY NIGHT WHEN HE WAKES UP. THE CRYING
IS UNCONTROLLABLE WHEN WE TRY AND LEAVE HIM. WE TRIED LEAVING HIM TO CRY BEFOR WE FOUND OUT ABOUT TENSION INCREASER ETC.. WE JUST DONT NO WHAT TO DO. MY PARTNER WANTS TO STOP BRINGIMG HIM INTO OUR BED WHEN HE WAKES AND WE JUST DONT NO HOW TO DO IT SOMEONE PLEASE HELP US WE REALLY ARE AT BREAKING POINT!!!!!
Posted by: laura | May 08, 2007 at 06:48 AM
My 11-month old used to sleep great in his own crib, all night most of the time, until lately. He got an ear infection, his first, and it seemed to start with that. He would wake up screaming in his crib. Usually we could just give him his pacifier and he would be fine, but now he just stands up in his bed screaming until we pick him up and then it's like a switch, he's fine. If we take him in our bed he will lie down and fall asleep just fine after he wakes up, but we don't want to get in the habit of him sleeping with us. He's only slept in our bed 3 times in his whole life, but it seems to be the only way this past week that we could get any sleep. Could this be related to his ear infection? HELP!! Before this week, we could just put him in his crib awake and he wouldn't fuss or anything, just roll over and go to sleep, all night. Anybody......anything!!???
Posted by: jla | August 11, 2007 at 03:33 PM
My son who is 11 months old had to go in for a hearing test at a local hospital on Wensday. They had to sedate him to do the test. They hooked up the wires for his vidals and to his ear lobes and forehead. they ran the test (which took about a hour) and then he was fine. later that night we went to put him down for bed. as soon as he touched his crib he started screaming on top of his lungs. it sounded like a hurt cry (if that makes any sense). we would pick him up and and hold him till he falls back to sleep. a hour or two would go by then he would wake up and we would go threw the same thing. would anyone know what would have caused this? please help
Posted by: Eric | November 07, 2008 at 09:52 PM
I went to check out that post after I'd read these comments--Finn's room is too perfect because he hadn't arrived yet! But still, agreed. ;p
Posted by: Baby Nursery Furniture | December 20, 2011 at 07:07 AM
I needed to thank you for this great read!! I certainly enjoyed every little bit of it. I have got you saved as a favorite to look at new things you post…
Posted by: Albertine Gastelum | February 03, 2013 at 07:21 PM
You are so awesome! I don't suppose I have read through anything like that before. So good to discover someone with some genuine thoughts on this subject. Really.. thank you for starting this up. This website is something that's needed on the internet, someone with a bit of originality!
Posted by: Dortha Hoes | February 04, 2013 at 04:48 AM
This site definitely has all of the information and facts I needed about this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
Posted by: Epifania Mainer | February 05, 2013 at 01:37 PM
I love it when folks get together and share thoughts. Great blog, continue the good work!
Posted by: Ma Rudo | February 12, 2013 at 02:01 AM
Excellent article! We will be linking to this great post on our website. Keep up the great writing.
Posted by: Daina Trabert | February 12, 2013 at 11:44 AM