Tempted to try CIO but do not want to/ please with my 8 month old

[smiletoday]

My  8 month old still wakes every two hours or so during the night. Please help. I have tried almost everything but I am still so lost. Here are the questions answered and his routine.


Wake 6:30/ 7
BF 8
solids 9
NAP 10- 10:45 sometimes to 11:30
BF 12
soilds 12:30/ 45
NAP 2/ 2:30 to 4
BF 4:30
solids 5:45/ 6:00
Start bed routine at 6:15
Bath, massage if he lets me, Nurse, sing, rocker in crib sleepy bed at 7/ 7:15


WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?


How old is your child? 8 months

What’s his/her daily routine?       posted above

What’s nap routine?     posted above

How long are naps?             45 min to 1.5

What's bedtime routine? Time? 7

Do you bottle or breastfed?? bf

How much? or how long? 

If breastfed.. one side or both?? (at each feed)

How many wakes per night? 4 on average

What’s your LO like when waking at night? whimper and holding to crib rails

How long is he/she up?  most of  the time for 20 min sometimes an hour

When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry? I believe it is a fussing cry

What have you tried to settle?? hold, sooth in crib most every time he needs to nurse back to sleep

What do you do for A time and how long is it? play with toys, errands, read 2.5 to 3 hours is the activity time

Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones? he teeths during the day and is almost crawling.

Have you introduced cereal? Why, how much, and how many times a day? (for LO’s under 6 months) he eats 3 times during the day solids

Do they have a prop? If so what is it? no MAYBE ME

Do they have a lovie? NO how do introduce one and what would be good to use?

HE HAS NEVER SLEPT THROUGH THE  NIGHT so this is nothing new

Thanks in advance

[NikiJ]

Hi Smiletoday,

Firstly,  {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}, I really feel for you.

Have you tried pu/pd?  If so can you tell me how you did it etc.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Do you think it's possible that he has sep. anxiety? I also suspect that if he's almost crawling you're having developmental wakings as well. Does he get lots of time to practice during the day?

[smiletoday]

thanks for the hugs

I have tried PUPD but it is so tiring so I  gave up, and my husband is like a walking  zombie during the night so I am afraid he may drop our son by accident. Any hints would be nice.

I do not think it is sep anxiety...but I could be wrong. He goes down on his own when he first goes down for the night. He scoots across the floor very well and he has been trying to get to his knees with some struggle. I give him lots of time on the floor to move but most of the time he wants to stand on his play wall or I help him stand.

Also do you think I should use a lovie? thanks

[Colin Macs Mom]

Sure, introducing a lovie can't hurt. At least you would eliminate something from the list of possibilities! I would suggest that you sleep with said lovie for a night or two before giving it over so that it smells like you 

[katriona]

Hi Smiletoday,

First of all, big {{hugs}} from me too. Secondly, I have to say that the only way I reduced the nws with my DS was to remove his dependency on nursing to sleep. I see you say that you have to do this almost every time he wakes up at night. Sounds to me as if he's holding out for boobie, because he knows it's eventually coming, kwim?

We started out moving nursing forward in our bedtime routine. Although I wasn't having to nurse him to sleep, DS wanted to nurse before he went back to sleep, because that was the last thing he remembered at bedtime. He'd go down fully awake and settle himself, but cried blue murder if I didn't nurse him again first.

After that I had to grit my teeth and set myself a gradually shifting backwards time limit. First it was no feeds before midnight. Then 2am. Now it's 3am. I personally am happy with one night feeding up till a year, but that's just me. I know hardcore BW isn't quite that permissive  It was hard, and there were probably three nights of pu/pd, with me being up for 1.5 hours in all or so each night attempting to soothe him. I'd offer him some water and give him a cuddle first, then sing twinkle twinkle and tell him I was putting him back down again. The pu/pd would begin if that didn't work.

I also prepared me and DS by reducing the number of minutes he fed for during the night feedings, and noticed that he gradually increased his eating during the day. This meant that he wasn't expecting to be hungry at that time of night, so I wasn't trying to soothe a peed off, hungry baby. Talking of that, someone's just woken from their nap early, and doesn't sound too happy!

Take a trot on over to the props board. They've got some great advice over there as to how to help your LO learn to soothe himself back to sleep and not depend on boobie.

The only other thing to add is to make sure that your LO really needs you at night. If he's fussing a little, he may be trying to settle himself, or learn how to. I only go in now if it's a full on "Mom, I NEED you" cry. I noticed that half the time I was going in to feed him he hardly seemed awake, and in fact, me feeding him seemed to bring him fully awake. KWIM?

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Katy

[smiletoday]

Thanks to all/

Colin Mac Mom,
What would be the safest lovie to use if you can think of any??



Katriona
 , What you said made a light go off in my head. I was not nursing to sleep at night but that was the last thing he did before he went to bed.  That makes so much sense. I have a question, so when you started to cut back the feedings none before 12 and so on, when was your last feeding of the night. Did you do it before bath or did lo stay up 30 more minutes. Thanks for your advice.

thanks

[katriona]

I do the last feed about 20 minutes before bed now, after the bath, but before he has his massage, pjs etc. Then daddy comes in and he sits with him and reads a story, before I leave the room, and DH gives him kisses and lays him in the crib. So our last feed is currently 6.15pm or so. I was happy with him going six hours till midnight without a feed from about 8 months; I think we had a stretch of going through till 3am or so before that, but I felt awful with him teething so much, and was nursing him for comfort, so started nursing when he woke earlier in discomfort too. And I can't deny it, it was a quick fix 

It's good having DH join the bedtime routine and take over the end of it, because there really is no connection with me, kwim? As DS is gradually weaned, I'd really like to do the b/f completely before the bath, then have his massage and jammies in the bathroom, before trotting into read stories with daddy in the nursery. It would only add another 15 minutes or so to the wait for the next feed, but would totally disassociate nursing from anything to do with sleeping. {sigh} it will only have taken a year! But I must say, I love the snuggliness of the night-time feeds. Especially once they're not too frequent!

Does that help?

[Colin Macs Mom]

You might try a couple different things and see what he attaches to. A teddy bear or other stuff thing is good, or a blanket, something like that. My DS is attached to burp cloths now      as lovies because when he was tiny we used them to cover his eyes so he could sleep. Never did I think those would become the lovie! LOL!

[smiletoday]

Katriona,,

Thanks so much. I have moved up the feeding and already I see a difference in his wakings. You have  been a tremendous help.

Colin mac,

I am looking into a lovie, I appreciate your help.

[katriona]

i'm SO glad! i know, the difference is almost instantaneous, isn't it? DS thought it was a big game when i first moved up the feeding; he didn't mind at all, just thought it was kind of odd to be doing it while he was only in his towel. but now it's as if it were always this way. now it's a lot easier to settle him at night without b/f. i'd say 9 nights out of 10 he only wakes after 3am or 4am now. sometimes even 5.30am, but then it's so hard to get him back to sleep 

good luck! keep us posterd 

[CLJK]

I just wanted to chime in that I moved my son's last feeding up last night and he went all the way until 4am!  He was pretty hungry when I got to him, but then went right back to sleep until 7am.  I nursed, DH put to bed, and we didn't have any issues (I thought he might protest).  I am hoping it will go as well tonight. 

By the way, I got Ferber's new book as I have been pretty desparate to get rid of these multiple wakings/night feeds and I must say that it is a really interesting book, whether or not you choose to do CIO.  He gives a lot of great information on how to pinpoint what the cause of the wakings might be as well as advice for kids as they get older and may encounter problems.  He explains all about sleep cycles, possible medical problems leading to sleeping disorders, etc.  I read just about the entire book in 3 sittings.  I think he is the head of the sleep disorders clinic at Children's Hospital in Boston and teaches at Harvard, so he's no slouch.  So even if you don't want to do his method, I think it's reading every parent do so as to learn how to better address your child's sleeping needs.

Incidentally, we usually do PU/PD for my 6.5 month old when he wakes around 10pm and is not hungry but looking for some comfort.  Well, it had stopped working a few nights ago (he would be up for an hour or so - ugh!), so I let him go 5 minutes, checked on him (patted him, shushed him, etc. - he's quiet as soon as I walk in), he went another 5 minutes and then I checked on him again for a few minutes, he cried again for about 5 minutes and then went to sleep on his own.  It was not one of those off the charts, hysterical cries - it was more of a loud complaining, so I knew he was okay.  Last night he was up again and I first did PU/PD and it worked very quickly.  I would definitely not be adverse to do the modified CIO again.  It just has to be the "right" kind of crying so that I know he is okay and not really needing me.

Good luck and I hope it continues to get better for you!

[Colin Macs Mom]

I would like to point out that we do not support CIO or Ferber's controlled crying in any form on this board. Tracy believed that those methods break the trust between parent and child, and this board is here to support Tracy's methods. We believe that there are other solutions that are more gentle and teach independence as well as trust. While Ferber does offer some information about sleep cycles and such that is certainly correct, his actual methods are not supported here.

[CLJK]

I think you misunderstood the point of my post.  Also, isn't this a place for moms to trade information?  If I had known how interesting and informative Ferber's book was, I would have read it three years ago with DS #1, and I would have appreciated that information.  I personally think it's best to get all the information out there and use what best fits your child.  Isn't that, after all, being your child's own babywhisperer?

[Colin Macs Mom]

I did understand the point of your post, and you're absolutely right that Ferber does offer some wonderful information. As you say getting lots of info and doing what's best for LO is a big part of BW. But please understand that as a moderator I have a responsibility to keep things on the BW track since that's the purpose of this board, and like I said CIO or CC does not fit in with BW and all and we do not support those methods here. The BW concept is against those methods and therefore does not believe that either CIO or CC is in any way best for a LO.

Please don't take that personally or feel that I'm attacking you.    Just doing my job.