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Sleep!
Jan 10, 2008 22:55:16 GMT -5
Post by phxmama on Jan 10, 2008 22:55:16 GMT -5
My daughter was just like Ruby. She always slept well at night, but it often took hours to get her to sleep. She now goes to bed at night very easily and sleeps through the night most of the time (gets up once occasionally). However she has always been and continues to be a terrible napper. She takes little cat naps all day long. She also refuses to nap in her crib, only in my lap or in the car seat. But she goes in the crib at night with no problems. Go figure.
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Sleep!
Jan 11, 2008 0:32:25 GMT -5
Post by llamajenn on Jan 11, 2008 0:32:25 GMT -5
David started sleeping better around 6 weeks, around the time we started putting him on his tummy. By 8 weeks he would go 4-6 hours before waking up to eat. It was still difficult getting him back to sleep after his feeding though, so I ended up always laying down with him for the remainder of the night. He's 6.5 months now and has been sleeping about 8-10 hours straight for the past 3 months or so. I consider us very fortunate, especially when I think about how poorly he slept at the beginning. Seriously, he would go as long as 16 hours with only a catnap or two in between. I felt so bad for him. And I was a mess too.
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Sleep!
Jan 11, 2008 0:36:40 GMT -5
Post by llamajenn on Jan 11, 2008 0:36:40 GMT -5
Oh, and I should add that things aren't perfect still. Even though he sleeps well, getting him to sleep is still a challenge! Most of the time I end up nursing him to sleep for naps and at night. Otherwise, if I'm lucky, he may fall asleep after a lot of rocking and patting on the back. If I put him right down for a nap after he's eaten and when he's still awake, he ends up getting so worked up and upset that he often spits up all over. That happened last night as I tried to do a little "sleep training." Ah well.
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Sleep!
Jan 11, 2008 8:10:59 GMT -5
Post by ahoward on Jan 11, 2008 8:10:59 GMT -5
We have never used a method to get Garren to sleep but I am thinking we may need to let him start CIO over a weekend. He is 6.5 months now and still wakes up 1-3 times a night mainly just for comfort/paci replacement. Occasionally he won't settle back down and will require a bottle but only on rare instances and usually goes back to sleep after the bottle. Most nights he goes down about 9pm and will sleep until 5-6am (requiring paci replacement in between) then take a bottle and back to sleep until around 8-8:30am. This is pretty good if I don't have to get Lauryn to school because then we all get to sleep in. I am so over the getting up for paci replacement though. I am afraid if I don't go up there he will get hysterical and then we really won't get back to sleep. I guess right now I just find it easier to give him his paci and comfort a minute and know he'll go on back to sleep. Anybody have any recommendations? Should I just let him CIO and see if he'll settle on his own? Today being Friday it may be a good time to start with the CIO thing? ? Audrey
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Sleep!
Jan 11, 2008 8:22:48 GMT -5
Post by Dawn on Jan 11, 2008 8:22:48 GMT -5
I had to teach/train my post-colic baby how to sleep. It wasn't easy, and I remember that he protested quite a bit. It took a couple of weeks to get down (naps were another story), but ever since about 5 mos, my son has been a solid sleeper. I always say that this was my silver lining after months of pure screaming torture. I also recommend "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". I didn't agree with everything in the book, but it did give me some insight on sleep and babies. I felt more in control of his sleep after reading this. We also bought a white noise machine for his room around the same time that we were trying to teach him to sleep. He needed white noise to calm him during the height of colic (for a long time it was TV fuzz that did the trick), so the white noise machine helped tremendously when trying to settle him at night. I think he found the constant whirring soothing (and still does to this day). Good luck!
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Sleep!
Jan 11, 2008 8:38:52 GMT -5
Post by karime on Jan 11, 2008 8:38:52 GMT -5
Some babies simply do NOT learn to sleep better on their own; it requires intervention (I'm only talking about post-colic). I think it's fantastic that many babies do learn how to sleep better over time, and that many sleep fairly well from an early age, but that is simply not the case with all babies. I think that if you do want to sleep train, the key is CONSISTENCY. You have to go into it with a clear plan, and stick to it. If not, it probably won't work. There are several options, depending on how much patience you have and what you think will work for your baby. Some involve crying and others do not (although the ones that do not involve any crying MAY not work for kids that have real sleeping issues). I wouldn't recommend doing anything that you don't feel comfortable with, because you aren't likely to stick with it. I'm definitely no expert, but Levi had me up almost every hour at one point (his sleep got worse over time, not better), and I was crying right along with him much of the time. At this point, he's sleeping so much better-I can't even believe it. We are still working through some sleep issues, don't get me wrong!! But at least I'm getting a little more sleep at night, and he is too. Let me add that I have not done any "nap training", and it is still difficult to get him down for naps...
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Sleep!
Jan 11, 2008 9:54:23 GMT -5
Post by mel5mel on Jan 11, 2008 9:54:23 GMT -5
I started with nap training, he really had no trouble going down at night... i say this now after hours of rocking and jiggling. but i figured that if i could get him to nap then his evening sleep would be better because we all know how hard it is to get an overtired kid to go to sleep at night. I put P in the pack and play in the living room so that he would know that we were still around... before we got our white noise machine we used the exhaust fan over the stove to calm him then we got the white noise machine and kept it up in the living room, when i had two solid weeks of naps into him i put him in his crib for his morning nap and he took his afternoon nap in the living room then i decided i liked to watch tv and he needed to go... selfish i know but amazingly napping stuck, then bedtime just became about routine, I also had to learn when to limit naps as he was getting like 8 hrs of nap sleep a day and then up a million times at night, but i was just so glad that he could nap that i didnt want to rock the boat. we have just started consistantly sleeping from 8ish till 530ish bottle then back until 730 when i wake him up every day so we can keep our napping routine on schedual.... our whole lives revolve around that napping schedual, and even when we get off of it due to functions ect. i always make sure he has one proper nap at the right time in his bed so that hes not so far from it
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