Waking at night??

Rhonda - posted on 12/02/2008

I have two words for you, that will work wonders...Ferber Method...It works great, I have done this for all my kids, by the what I have read, you almost have it figured out...just don't pick him up at night...Avery had been sleeping the night, then teeth happened and threw her routine off, so it took a few days to get her back on track, and she is now sleeping 12 hours...



What exactly is the Ferber method?

In a nutshell, Ferber says you can teach your baby to soothe himself to sleep when he's physically and emotionally ready, usually sometime between 4 and 6 months of age. He recommends following a warm, loving bedtime routine and then putting your baby in bed awake and leaving him (even if he cries) for gradually longer periods of time. Putting a child to bed awake, says Ferber, is crucial to successfully teaching him to go to sleep on his own.



Parents are instructed to pat and comfort their baby after each predetermined period of time, but not to pick up or feed their baby. This routine is called "progressive waiting." The suggested waiting time, which Ferber charts in his book, is based on how comfortable you are with the technique, how many days you've been using it, and how many times you've already checked on your child that night.



After a few days to a week of gradually increasing the waiting time, the theory goes, most babies learn to fall asleep on their own, having discovered that crying earns nothing more than a brief check from you.



Good Luck

Amanda - posted on 11/27/2008

My son is also a terrible sleeper both during the day & night - just doesn't know the meaning of the word. He wakes up between 2 - 15 times a night and only naps 30 mins in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. A good night is he wakes up only 2 times and a good day is he naps 2 and half hours.

It's taken months of patient training to get him to sleep most of the night through. I can now on a good night get 5 - 6 hours straight without him waking up. There's a couple of first things you have to do though: first get rid of the late night feeds (he will automactically wake up even when he isn't hungry) - I would slowly cut back the milk by 10-20 ml every couple of days or so first and then go cold turkey by waiting for the crying and then going in and giving the nuk/dummy to calm him down (have you tried attaching it to a cloth nappy so that's easier for him to self comfort with it) - don't pick him up unless he's hysterical. Second try feeding him really well during the day and putting him to bed earlier at around 1830-1900 - sometimes that half hour helps alot.

When you have gotten him use to getting his blanky/nuk as comfort, trying waiting it out for a minute or two when he wakes up to hear if he self comforts - if not go in and say shhhh and give him the dummy (no eye contact and no talking) and then go out again - sometimes it's just a little dream or change in position that wakes him and sometimes it's the 45 minute period that does it, he just has to learn to self comfort and go back to sleep. Keywords are patience and resolution it will not happen overnight and it will take 1 - 2 months to see improvements.

I get 3-4 nights a week with only a couple of insidents a night (5-6 hours of glorious sleep) and then the rest of the week is up 5-15 times a night. It's a huge improvement from 7 nights a week with no sleep at all.

So I hope my own experience helps and I wish you patience and awhole lot of good luck. :)

Angela - posted on 11/26/2008

Hmm... wish I could make suggestions, but my son is a nut-case... If I leave him in his cot he just starts playing. I woke up at 2:15 this morning and heard him playing quite happily in his cot! There aren't even any toys in there! He will squish his face into the netting on the side (he sleeps in a camp cot) and then laugh like mad, he talks to the ceiling, the talks to his dummy and his toes. And has even learnt how to take his pants and nappy off! But I am a very light sleeper, and I find that if I give him a bottle when he starts waking, before he's properly awake, then he goes straight back to sleep... otherwise he's wide awake and thinks it's time to play. So I'd rather get up once or twice for about 10minutes, than be awake for an hour or two... especially since I am 6 months pregnant and get up at 5am to get ready for work!

Victoria - posted on 11/26/2008

Maybe he is hungry. Once I started giving my daughter a really good dinner and a bedtime snack she wakes up, whines, then goes right back to sleep on her own

Sarah - posted on 11/25/2008

It does take sometime for them to figure out how to fall asleep at night. I ran into the same thing with my daughter. I did almost the same thing you are doing, laying her down and patting her butt for a bit then walking away with my fingers crossed. Are you feeding him at night? I gave her just water instead of a bottle after a few nights she decided water wasn't worth waking up for.

Another thing that workes for me is she goes to bed with a nuk and I put the extas in the crib with her, so when she throws them on the floor in a fit of rage she still has one available to calm down with.

I also put her down at 7:00, she use to wake at 5:30-6:00. I would go in there and give her her nuk, lovey, blanket and flip on her mobile and she usually fell asleep again.

It took me all in all probaly about 2-3 weeks to get her to sleep through the night. Some nights were better than others, So hang in there. I know it is extremely tough. Good luck. Hope i helped a bit.