We are in tears, need help more than you can imagine

[Kb725]

Hello.
This post comes officially from the end of my rope, tears in my eyes....literally not sure if I can make it one more day.
Ok, so I'm being a little dramatic, but you get the picture.

Our sweet baby boy is 9 months old and wakes up all night long, especially between the hours of 12-6am. I'm unfamiliar with the terms used in this site, but I'll try to explain our situation.
First off, his night wakings started at about about 4 months old, coincidentally right around when he got his first group of immunizations, but I don't think that's the reason. Prior to that, he had been sleeping all night since 4 weeks old.
He wakes about every 45 minutes. We always go into his room, pat & shhh him, hold him & bounce him, and soothe him back to sleep. We offer a bottle, but he sometimes refuses. We always check and or change his diaper several times to make sure he's comfortable. We use a white noise machine, and have tried soothing music. We've tried all different types of pajamas, and adjusted his bedroom temperature. It takes about 5 min - 40 min to get him back to sleep, and then he's normally waking again in 45 mins to an hour.

I'm 9 weeks pregnant, so this is wearing on my body, mind, and my health. I've started to develop insomnia which has robbed me of the rare occasions that I do get to sleep/nap. Thank God for my husband, who helps a lot with night wakings.

Our day time routine is usually GREAT, so I don't know why the night time is so terrible. However, the worst nights of waking up do throw a wrench into our good days, too. Normal day:
Wake up 7:30am
Play
8am baby food
Play
9:30 am bottle (if he will take it) while rocking to sleep
Nap 9:30am - 10:30 or 11am
12noon baby food
Play
1:15 bottle (if he will take it) while rocking to sleep
Nap 1:15 - 2:30pm
Wake 2:30
Play
4pm small baby food snack
Play
5pm short cat nap, wake 5:30
Play
6:30 baby food
Play
7:30 bath
8:00 story, cuddle time, unwind
Sometime between 8:30-9:30 have a bottle & rock to sleep
Then around midnight the wakings begin, and we start all over again.

He has stopped taking bottles well, also, around the same time as the sleep issues. We've talked to doctors about this, too, changed his formula, taken him off dairy, and tried everything. Nothing has helped.
We feel that we have tried everything. We've taken him to the dr several times and they never find anything wrong. Their only advice is to let him cry it out, which is ridiculous to me.

I am exhausted, sad, and feel hopeless. Please help. :-(

[anna*]

(((hugs))) and welcome to the boards.

OK I don't know if this is the whole problem, but one thing you can definitely try is extending his awake times during the day. He is awake for shorter periods of time than most babies his age, so maybe he is just not tired enough at night. At 9 months old I'd expect him to be able to manage at least 3, probably 3.5 and maybe even 4hrs awake between naps. So he'll only be having two naps per day, not 3.

The other big thing that jumps out is he's having a bottle and being rocked to go to sleep. So I'm guessing he doesn't know how to go to sleep independently? If he falls asleep in your arms and with a nice warm bottle of milk, every time, he's not going to know how to put himself back to sleep when he wakes in the night - he's going to need the rocking and the bottle, but of course he's not hungry because he just had a bottle... that's hard for him!

So I think you need to do some sleep training so that he becomes an independent sleeper. There will be a lot of crying but it is NOT cry-it-out -you'll stay with him and reassure him and comfort him every minute that he is upset.

So, what you'll do is, start by moving his bottles so he's not having them right at nap time. Make sure he is awake at least say 15 mins after his bottle. Set up a little wind-down routine that you can do before each nap and at bedtime... just 10 mins, like, look at a story downstairs, then go upstairs, change nappy, close curtains, cuddles and lullaby, kiss goodnight and into cot. By all means include rocking in your wind-down, but put him in his cot when he is still awake. Yes he will start to cry.

Remember he's not in pain or afraid, he's just confused and frustrated because he's tired and doesn't know why you won't rock and feed him to sleep! Just stay with him. Stroke his head, pat his back, jiggle the cot mattress... anything you can find to calm him down. If you can't calm him down, just reassure him with your voice. Sit on the floor by the cot. If after 45mins to an hour he's not settling at all, get him up, come downstairs, take a break for an hour or so, then try again, right from the wind-down. He might skip both his naps the first couple of days. It might feel like he's going to cry forever, but he will sleep. You can't teach him, you can't make him sleep, all you can do is be there and reassure him while he figures it out for himself.

At bedtime you do the same routine but this time you don't take a break after 45-60, you keep going until he sleeps. Overnight, pick a time that you think is reasonable for him to have a feed (my daughter I did 10.30pm and 5am) and all other times, settle him in his cot without rocking him and without a bottle.

Oh, also looking at your routine again - bedtime is too late. 12 hour days, 12.5hrs max. If your day starts at 7.30am, he needs to be asleep by 8pm latest.

What do you think?

[weaver]

Big hugs, poor tired mama. 

The cat nap needs to go - that's one reason why he's getting so much sleep in the day time and is not tired.  In BW world, a baby that age would be taking two naps during the day.  Maybe two 1.5 hours ones, as Anna said.

Also, try not to disrupt him too much at night: don't change his nappy if he doesn't need it (and he probably doesn't if he's wearing disposables), don't turn the light on in his room when you go in to him, keep talk and engaging with him to a minimum, be really quiet if speaking.  Try to create as sleepy an atmosphere as you can.  Get the message to him that it is definitely NOT time to be awake.

When daytime sleep is fixed, nightime sleep should improve for you. 

You *do not* need to let him cry it out, you will find no one here who thinks that's a good idea. 

[Kb725]

Anna - Thank you so much for the reply and advice. Sounds worth a try! I don't think we have any other choice at this point than to try sleep training. It sounds hard, though (emotionally)! I'm very intimidated.    My husband can handle this stuff so much better than me, maybe he will have to be in charge at night.
So, how long does it typically take to see results from this kind of sleep training? Have you seen cases where it just doesn't work? I'm just a little skeptical, only because of the severity of his wakings. But we will try it! I also have a question... My son just came down with a bit of a cold 2 days ago, congestion & runny nose. Should we wait to begin sleep training until he's well, or while he's still sick? Of course being sick has caused him to be extra irritable and has altered his napping and night sleeping much more then usual.
And one more thing, one thing I notice about him is that the nights he sleeps the very best are the nights where he has eaten well through the day AND had two LONG full naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Should I still try to keep him up more through the day? I can eliminate nap #3, though. I agree that he probably doesn't need the third nap. I think he's just always so overly tired from not sleeping well, that he has a hard time making it to bed time each night. I also agree with you that we are putting him to bed way too late. Our reasoning for doing that has been that the nights we do put him to bed early, he immediately starts waking up, and is awake every hour literally ALL night long. So, we thought that keeping him awake later made him more tired, and would help him sleep better through the night. Putting it down in writing, though, I see that it doesn't seem like a great idea.

[Kb725]

Anne- thank you. My reply above had a few other questions. I agree that cat nap #3 needs to go so that he will be ready for bed time by 7:30 or so. Oh my goodness, how wonderful our lives would be if little one was asleep by 7:30 each night and slept well!
So 2 naps per day, one in the morning & one in the afternoon, is still ok you think? That's when he seems to sleep the best at night. But, sometimes after a terrible night of keep, I can't get him to nap more than 20 minutes. Doesn't make sense to me since I know he's sooooo tired.

[anna*]

Two good long naps will be perfect, with an awake time of somewhere around 3.5hrs between. You should start to see a big improvement within a week. If you find the crying really hard to listen to, earplugs can help. Or play some music on your mp3 player and put earbuds in. Of course you will still hear the crying but it will take the edge off. It works. If it doesn't work, there's something else going on like discomfort or something, but this sounds like a pretty straightforward prop issue - he doesn't know how to go to sleep independently, so he can't settle himself at night. Stands to reason, right? If he can't go to sleep by himself in the day or at bedtime, he can't do it at 12-1-2am? You'd see the exact same pattern of wakings if he had a dummy/paci addiction - except that by this age he would have learned to replug the dummy/paci himself

With regard to the cold... well you have to decide. Me, I would just go ahead because I'm tough like that. Also, with little ones there is never a 'good' time. They've either got a cold, or they recover from the cold and teething starts. Sometimes, you just have to go for it. Of course if he was properly ill, ie a fever and lethargic/dehydrated or whatever, then of course you can't sleep train, but just a sniffle? I'd do it. If you're waiting for a good time, you'll wait forever.

[weaver]

So 2 naps per day, one in the morning & one in the afternoon, is still ok you think? That's when he seems to sleep the best at night. But, sometimes after a terrible night of keep, I can't get him to nap more than 20 minutes. Doesn't make sense to me since I know he's sooooo tired.

Hi again, KB. 

In fact that makes perfect sense - 20 minutes is a classic for an overtired baby!  Often babies will fall asleep and about 20 minutes in they jump or jolt and wake up, especially when overtired.  So if you get him to sleep and sit with him for a while, you may see him jump around the 20 minute mark and your hand on his back (or bottom, sometimes) may be all he needs to get back to sleep again.

Yes to two naps, one morning, one afternoon, with an awake time of probably at least 3 hours if not longer in between.  The good days you describe sound just right for his age: so you already know he can do it!   That's very hopeful! Just a question of encouraging him in the right direction. 

Hopefully fixing daytime sleep will help a lot with the night wakings.

[Kb725]

Thanks, girls! We will get started TODAY! Praying that this is the answer we've been hoping for. I will post an update.

[weaver]

And when he's napping in the day, put your feet up!  Best of luck.

[Kb725]

First night, and it's still early, but this is already difficult. We eliminated his 3rd nap, so he was exhausted and ready to sleep by 7pm. We had our nice bedtime routine, he fell asleep the second we laid him in his crib...and was awake within 30 minutes. It is impossible to soothe this child back to sleep while in his crib, even when speaking to him with a soothing voice, patting his back, holding his hand, etc. He screams so hard he gags himself. He is inconsolable. He wants to be held, or rocked, or up playing....anything but laying in his crib for sleep. This feels basically the same as C.I.O. to me, because he is still crying inconsolably and we are not comforting him the way he wants us to. Praying that this works, but I'm still a skeptic. :'-(  We will stay with it, though, and hope to make some progress.

[anna*]

(((Hugs))) I'll post more later when not on my phone, but how did the rest o the night go?