No pattern, constant night wakings, tips and advice sought

[bombedier]

Hi -I am new.  We have a 7 month old (second child - first child ended up CIO at 8 months which I would like to avoid with this one).  He is breastfed and in daycare (expressed BM) during the day.  When I get home, I usually start bath-time around 7pm depending on tiredness/traffic.  I usually read one book if he is not too tired, then nurse/rock.  I am guilty of letting him nurse to sleep and had begun putting him to bed (he's in a pack and play in our room till his room is available - 2 more weeks till that happening) drowsy.  However, illness hit and of course, he again is ill, so I have not gotten back to that.

He was swaddled fully till 5 months old when I started to swaddle with one arm out (a la Tracy) and then last month removed the swaddle.  Not sure if everything conincided, but he is now a TERRIBLE sleeper at night.  At one stage he was awake every 45 mins, obviously unable to transition from one sleep cycle to the next.

Until he was 4 months old, he slept wonderfully - 7/8pm till 3/4am then up every hour or so to nurse.  The first waking moved back and back.  I tried the dream feed for a few weeks at 10pm, but it didn't seem to lengthen his sleep at all - just bring forward when he would begin waking.

Three months later and my husband and I are at our wits end.  Some things we do to try to get him back to sleep in the night:

Gently shake the pack and play - this sometimes works, but he'll be up soon later.
Nursing
Rocking

I am sure this is textbook that he can't fall asleep on his own.  What has happened over the last week is that he is now crying out and is sometimes putting himself back to sleep without our intervention - i.e. by the time I get upstairs to the room (less than a minute later), he is asleep.  I saw this as progress.

Two nights ago, I put him back into a full swaddle thinking maybe that is what he needs.  That night's sleep was better.  The next night, he came down with a cough and a fever, so all bets are off.

I just can't seem to get any kind of pattern from him - it is constantly changing. 

Do I need to wait till he is in his own room before I even try to begin any type of plan?  He will be approx 8 months by the time he is moved (room being used as guest room for grandmother at moment).  Is that too late?  I know I need to wait till he is better to begin things, but does that include not nursing to sleep?  He only nurses to sleep about 50% of the time and the other I am rocking him to sleep.  Should I stop this now or wait till he is better?

The other lovely thing is that for the past three nights, he is waking around 2am and wanting to be awake!  Nursing is not putting him back to sleep and my husband has to get up and is rocking him.

Please help and let me know if there is other information I can provide. 

[sherip]

Hi there, I have a 6 month old girl (second child). With my first child I nursed to sleep until he was about 5 months old. Then I discovered the baby whispered and used her pu/pd method to get him to sleep on his own. It was not fun, but it did eventually work.
Needless to say, I made sure with baby #2 I did not nurse to sleep. However, we have run into many other problems and she is still not a great sleeper!
I think what would help the best is getting him to fall asleep on his own. That will help with nightwakings because if he wakes up, he'll be able to soothe himself back to sleep on his own. Its up to you whether you want to do it now or wait. Regardless, it will take some time anyway, so I think why prolong it??
If it were me, I would start off slowly, but others may not agree. For example, you said you sometimes rock him to sleep. Well, try rocking him until he is almost asleep (eyes closing) then lay him down. If he wakes up sit by his bed and pat his back or whatever to help shush him to sleep. If he fully wakes up and sits up or crys or climbs up or whatver he is doing at this stage, pick him up again, rock him gently until he is almost asleep again and so on until he is asleep. Then gradually remove the rocking sensation into just holding him before he goes to sleep. Eventually you should be able to put him down when he is just tired and he will go to sleep on his own. It will take time, though, don't expect it to happen right away. Also, it will take awhile for him to fall asleep on his own in his bed (20-30 min maybe). But once you get to that point, you should be able to use the pu/pd when he cries out rather than just letting him cry.
Does this make sense at all?

[jess, lukeys_mom]

Hi there and welcome to BW!! I hope you find a lot of good advice within the community here.

Personally I think that if you can handle waiting until he is in his own room, it might be easier to tackle the whole transition together through sleep training (The PU/PD method might indeed be very helpful here, or Gradual Withdrawal). In any case I would definitely wait until he is no longer sick. Perhaps you and your DH can take turns one sleeping upstairs one sleeping downstairs to ensure one of you gets a full nights' sleep until then?

In the meantime I am going to move this post over to the Night Wakings board in case there are people there who might have insight or can offer support.

[bombedier]

He does not stand up yet nor does he sit up when he wakes.  He has not mastered sitting up from laying down yet, so there's some mercy there to tackle this sleep issue.

Last night I put him in the swaddle and nursed him.  He did not fall sleep, so I put him on my shoulder for a bit to make sure he was all burped and I did not rock.  I walked over to the PnP and told him it was time to sleep and put him down.  He began to fuss and cry so I picked him up.  He immediately stopped and so I put him down again.  This time he was quiet so I left the room.  I lingered outside the door for a couple of minutes to listen for any crying.  It was quiet so I went to my older son's room where Daddy was reading a book and said goodnight.  I checked on him then and he was fast asleep.  This was not more than 10 minutes later and I think he probably was asleep before I had previously left the room.

He slept about 3.5 hours solidly with one cry out, but was asleep when we checked.  After that, I nursed him but he was fussy afterwards and did not go to sleep.  The rest of the night, we had to rock him to get him to settle - I think he was feeling really lousy, so I was not pushing it.

So I think my plan will be to continue to put him to bed drowsy at the beginning of the night and work through the rest of the night while he is sick.  Once he is in his room, I think I can focus on the pu/pd method for the rest of the night wakings as we won't also be in the same room as him at that time.

Does this sound like a good plan or should there be other things I should be considering?

My husband wants to take him out of the swaddle, as I guess he sees it as a step backwards, but would I be right to continue to swaddle him right now while we are working on the sleep and then tackle that later?

[natashacs]

Hi there - is he hungry at night? Is he having any solids yet? Do you know how many ounces of milk he is getting a day versus how many he's getting at night? Have you tried upping day feeds?

(sorry to ask so many questions!!!)

[bombedier]

He is not taking to solids yet, so he is still 99.5% exclusively BF.  He takes on average 15oz at daycare and is nursed in the morning and again at bedtime...then as necessary through the night to get him to sleep.  I have asked daycare to try to get 4 bottles into him during the day, but with naps, it doesn't usually work out.

I guess he should be getting approx 24oz in day so I think he would still need at least one feeding in the night.

[natashacs]

Wow well done on the breastfeeding. That is amazing! (to me anyway, having not particularly been great at breast feeding)

One thing I'm thinking though is there a possibility your supply is low in the evenings (are you now back at work, perhaps that has interfered with supply?) and that's why he's so unsettled at night? I'm just thinking this because you say he used to sleep well and I've found with my LO that hunger is usually the cause of all his problems, like when I've thought perhaps he's becomign dependent on the dummy, perhaps he's addicted to the swaddling, as long as he's full he seems to sleep anywhere without any prob etc. 

Re the swaddling, I have posted somewhere else about this but I was in a similar situation (although my LO is younger)keeping him in the swaddling because he slept better in it, but then he'd fight his way out of it and we had a lot of night wakings which were due to having to reswaddle him. We went cold turkey on it and although for a few nights he found it harder to fall asleep, overall night wakings have reduced, and he's find his fingers and sucks on his wrist to soothe himself. I'm really glad we have stopped using it as although I think swaddling is amazing it had reached the stage where the downsides were outweighing the good.

I think you should deifnitely wait until your LO is better though before making any drastic moves to change things.

[bombedier]

Oh yes - supply is definitely low in the evenings as is always the case as your supply is in contrast highest in the morning.  But, last night, I was late home so he got a bottle from Daddy at 6:30 and then I nursed him both side at bedtime too, so I don't think he was hungry when he woke....but I could be wrong.

Interesting about your experience with the swaddling - thanks for sharing about that.

Thanks also for weighing in about when we should tackle things.  I feel in limbo right now and of course exhausted with this going on night after night.  Doing nothing to get towards a solution is a little frustrating too.

[Karen:)]

Hi,

My 6 months old daughter just went through a period of night waking and is now sleeping through the night again.  I hope my solution will help you as well. 

My daughter has always been a good sleeper.  For the past 2 weeks, she has been waking at 4:30-5:30 am crying and refuses to go back to sleep.  It's a long story and took a while for me figure it out.  In short, she was waking up due to the coldness in early morning.  I had thought she was warm enough with fleece onesie, fleece swaddle, and 2 thick blankets, but apparently she was still cold.  I added a thick sleeping bag for her three days ago, and she had been sleeping through the night again since.  Hindsight, her little body cannot hold a whole lot of heat to keep her warm through the night.  I suspect, the night you swaddled your son and he had a better night sleep could be that he was a bit warmer that night.  Hope this is the case  with your son.  Good luck.

[sherip]

I think that is a good plan to put him down when he is drowsy and then do the pu/pd. As for the swaddle, the older he gets the harder it will be to swaddle anyway. Have you tried swaddling from the chest down (leaving arms out). That might be a way to transition. I use a sleepbag at night for my little girl now (that way she can't kick blankets off and get cold) and loosely swaddle her from her chest down for naps.
If it was me, I wouldn't want to wait a couple of weeks. I would start doing something now, but do it slowly, such as putting him down when he is close to sleeping instead of waiting until he is asleep and then gradually put him down when he is more awake (if that makes sense). But, obviously it is up to you to decide what you are comfortable with.
My daughter used to wake up every 1-2 hours in the night, too. I didn't nurse her to sleep, but we would hold her until she was sleeping. Now I put her down when she is tired, but awake. It does take her 20 min (sometimes more, sometimes less) to fall asleep on her own. But I still stay with her by her crib and if she cries out I pat or rub her back and shush her (if I pick her up she freaks out). She sleeps much better now, with 5-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a row (she still wakes up to eat in the night). I also started supplimenting her with formula, as I think my milk supply was a little low and she was waking up hungry at times.