Sleep Problems, Help!

Sibel - posted on 04/09/2010

Room temp is very important.. They are unconfortable not only if they are cold but HOT as well..My son who is going to be 1 on the 21st use to wake up at 3am in the morning and wouldnt sleep till 7am !! we went through a stage like this for about 4-5 weeks (teething time). i am againts controlled crying.. They only cry for a reason and we should try finding that reason, room may be too cold or too warm.. he may be wet ? may be hungry.. As they are still very little they can get hungry and want to be fed. Controlled crying may cause damage and trsut issues in the future.. we are now back on our old track. i make sure he has his meals , fruits, yogurts, meat/chicken, soup and is full. when he is full he sleeps till 9 am, i keep the room temp at 18-22 which is the perfect temp for babies. i will always leave the hallway window open which has helped him in better sleeping, never over dress .. light cotton pijamas are perfect. My baby doesnt like the heat so i make sure room temp is just perfect. Having a nice warm bath always helps. He has two naps everyday. Fisrt one at 11am for 2 hours and second nap at 4pm for 30 mins to one hour...Getting the baby too tired is never good we sometimes think that if we over play with them and delay bed time they will sleep longer, i have tryed this and it does not work it WILL backfire! i put him into his cot at 9pm with a bottle and thank god he now goes to sleep on his own, however sometimes STILL wakes up at 3am, you will find that MOST babies do wakeup at 3am and cry because they get hungry..Our Pedi Doc always tells us to feed when he ask for it.

Carissa - posted on 04/07/2010

thank you for all the comments =). And as of a couple nights ago I have been kind of letting him cry at night. Only for about 5 to 10 minutes though and then I go comfort him because I do think that he needs to learn to put himself back to sleep. Hopefully we see improvements soon

Courtney - posted on 04/07/2010

My son will be a year on the 25th and is still waking up multiple times a night as well. Even when he wasnt teething or in between teething he still would get up multiple times. I can count on one hand how many times I have had a whole nights sleep since I had my son. All babies are different. I have a co-worker that his son is about 6 weeks old and already sleeping threw the night, but one of my other co-workers, her daughter woke up every 2-3 hours until she was 4 years old, no matter what she tried. I have tried letting him cry for X amount of minutes and that just made it worst and Jonathan got up more times during the night for a few weeks after that. From my experience, when he wakes up, see what kind of cry it is, sometimes he will just be sturring and make noises or a little fussy cry for a few seconds. Wait because he might fall right back asleep. If not, I would go get Jonathan and he would come and sleep on my chest, or between me and his daddy. Once he falls back asleep, I would gently, take him back to his crib.If he wont fall back asleep by just bringing him into our room, I would make him a small bottle, try making it luke warm because that helps them sleep better as well. Hope this helps you out a little bit.

Tridia - posted on 04/07/2010

First how much does he eat before he goes to bed what I do for my son Alijah is make sure his bellys full then I give him his bath then I give h his bottle and he sleeps thur the night try that and see if that helps you

LaNesha - posted on 04/07/2010

My son Alex is going to be one on April the 20th. He goes to bed at around 9 and wakes up at 12 and then again at 3. I tried feeding him right before bed and that seems to help a lil bit but other than that just know that it wont last forever. Just remember that in a few years you will be looking back and wanting to know how your baby got so big so fast. Enjoy the time you have with them when they are still small!

Natalie - posted on 04/07/2010

Every baby is different, but 4 to 5 times a night does seem like alot. My daughter will be 1 on April 11th, and has been sleeping thru the night since she was 7 weeks old. I did however have the same issue when Emily was about 6 months old, she would wake up in the middle of the night. I would give her a bottle and she would fall back asleep, when I asked my mom about it she did say that giving them a bottle isnt the best because they will become dependent on eating during the middle of the night. What you should do is let them cry because they need to learn to put themselves back to sleep. It seemed to work because she now is back to sleeping 12-14 hour nights. I would let your son try and cry, but listen to his cry. A mom always knows if their baby is hurt or scared. If he cries for more than 15 minutes I would get him up. That is what I do with my daughter.

Mandy - posted on 04/07/2010

First of all, happy birthday to your son today! =)
My son will be 1 on April 20th & he goes to bed at 8am, wakes up anywhere between midnight & 2am to feed then I wake him up at 5:30am to fed him before I go to work. Our dr. had recommended not feeding him in the middle of the night so as not to start a habit but we didn't listen & now we know why we should have. LOL. BUT if we don't feed him, he'll be awake for a longer period of time so we figure we're doing what we know best.
Every baby is different & some may take more time to get on a schedule. My opinion is let him cry for no more than 15 minutes just to see if he goes back to sleep. If he doesn't go back to sleep within that time, try rubbing his back but not picking him up if he is just fussing & still lying down. If he is standing up in his crib, crying & wanting you to pick him up, do it. Just give him lots of love & be patient with him.
Is it possible that he is teething? Or maybe gasy?

Andrea - posted on 04/06/2010

my boy has been doing the same since he figured out the whole object permanence thing (at about 6 months) then last week due to high fevers from teething we had to move him into our room at night so we could keep an eye on him. After the 3rd night in there he went to bed on his own and only woke up twice to eat as opposed to waking every hour or two to scream. He just sits up and kind of cries - it's just enough to wake me up. I know putting him on our room isn't a long term solution but it has got me 3 good nights sleep so far. I was told 9 to 12 months is the worst time for this separation anxiety stuff and he should start to grow out of it soon. He is not in the bed with us but in a pack n play.

Shelley - posted on 04/06/2010

I'm having alot of trouble with our son waking alot through the night too, we we're finally getting somewhere with him only waking twice and then his teeth started to come through, but now at 11mths we've just had a few nights of him only waking twice again, so trying not to get our hopes up too much but maybe its going to keep improving. I would reccomend looking to no cry sleep solutions as mentioned above, I am reading a book called Helping Your Baby To Sleep Why Gentle Techniques Work Best by Anni Gethin and Beth Macgregor, it also has alot of factual evidence based inofrmation on why controlled crying is damaging to our precious babies, its a great informative easy read. There is also a great website called dreamparenting.com which is fantastic, so good luck.

Kirsten - posted on 04/06/2010

Hi. I am not going to read what other Mums have said, just what I have experienced and believe. My son turns one on April 22nd and has had his moments with not sleeping too! First thing I would make sure that he is warm enough at night as he will definitely wake up if he is cold. You may think that you are making him too warm but at about 3am it is the coldest time of the night and that is when my son was waking. After making sure he was warmer, that has pretty much stopped. Sometimes he will wake from a bad dream or...who knows?! I don't believe in controlled crying AT ALL, but I have many friends who this has worked for. To me, the reason why it works is because they stop crying because they know that no one will come into them when they cry, so why bother? Babies in orphanages rarely cry... What I have done is bring my baby into bed with me when he wakes. He usually falls asleep immediately on my chest and then snuggles down next to me and sleeps better. If he wakes when he is in bed with me, sometimes just touching me settles him again and he goes straight back to sleep with no cry. I know that this does not work for everyone though. Sometimes, we just have to accept that they are babies and that some just do not sleep through the night! I try to tell myself that it will not last forever and that he needs me (which will also not last forever and I will miss the needing when he is grown up!). Good luck with whatever way you choose.

Kerrie - posted on 04/06/2010

my daughter will be one on 24th , she wakes once some times twice a night . she has her tea at 6ish , supper at 7.30ish , bath and bottle of full fat cows milk an straight down for bed an she wakes at around 5ish for a bottle an then goes back off to 7 8 ish . i find she sleeps better when she has eaten alot , an when she picks she wakes more an needs more than one bottle to get her to sleep x

Katie - posted on 04/06/2010

My son is going to be 1 on the 13th and he only wakes up about once a night now. And what we do is have a somewhat specific night time routine. He eats some of the gerber 3rd stage foods usually the whole jar about 30 minutes before his bath time. He gets his bath around 7:30, we get him ready for bed around 8 and he gets his bottle with half formula half whole milk and he goes to bed immediately after getting his bottle. He wakes up at 12 eats a smaller bottle and goes back to bed and sleeps til 6 or 7. We just kinda let him do his own schedule as far as waking up at night and he has figured it out for himself. And I would say that if he is crying listen to what kind of cry it is. But try and comfort him it has worked for us. Tristan will wake up and cry usually its because he had a bad dream and usually what works is holding him and rocking telling him its ok and then once he stops crying put him back to bed and he will go back to sleep. I hope this helps. Good Luck!

Rachel - posted on 04/06/2010

Elizabeth Pantley's "The No Cry Sleep Solution" is a great book. It is recommended by Dr Sears to all his patients experiencing sleep issues. I just finished reading it a few weeks ago because I have a similar problem with Jethro (who will be 1 on April 11). He is my second baby, but threw us a major curved ball when he decided to stop sleeping at the age of 4 months. Since then the longest stretch of nighttime sleep he has given me is 3 hours and getting him to nap in the day is a nightmare.

The No cry sleep solution is a really gentle way to teach long-term sleep skills as well as solve sleep issues. We tried crying it out as a last ditch attempt, (before getting our hands on this book), and I must say that I totally regret doing it as it took weeks to get Jet back to not being totally traumatised by his cot.:( Major backfire!

Good luck with whatever you choose to do - and happy 1st birthday to Elijah for tomorrow!

Lisa - posted on 04/06/2010

He could be going through seperation anxiety, which means he needs a little bit of reassurance to know that you are still around and have not left him. Does he have a comforter ie a teddy or muslin or dummy? You could always try giving him an old t-shirt of yours that smells of you as this will comfort him. I would also suggest doing a bit of controlled crying. So when he wakes up go in comfort him but try not to spend ages in there and talk to much. When he is quite put him down and leave. He may start to cry straight away, do not return leave him for 5 mins or just before he cries so much it will take ages to calm him down, return and repeat the comforting and then leave again. You should increase the time to 10 then 15. I tried this but could only cope with leaving my little one for 3,6 then 12 mins. It did work we had a few bad nights but he is now only waking once which is much better than the 5 times he was!!! I hope that this helps.

Victoria - posted on 04/04/2010

My son kevin was doing the same thing waking up every 3 to 4 hrs but one day in played n played with him till he got so cranky n tired then I feed him (breast) n let him sleep at 8 n when he woke up he didn't cry so much because he was to tired n when I got out of bed to grab him he was asleep so now he is sleeping allmost durning the whole night but soon I will make him sleep all through the night by crying mommies need there sleep too hope that helps :)

Melissa - posted on 04/04/2010

My kids have all been big dreamers and wake up crying for periods of time (a week or so before it tapers off i mean). Is he scared or hungry/dirty? If he's scared give him the comfort he needs from a bad dream. If he's hungry, make sure he has lots of food (rice is good for helping them last the night) an hour or so before he goes to bed. Hope this helps! Good Luck! :)