2-3 times a NW 7 mnth old - I feel we are at a new "low"point

[EloysH]

We decided to cut him a break before sleep training as we are pretty sure he was reacting to the food challenge  I just did. So the good news is that these issues we are having are exacerbated by the food reaction.  Its 48 hours since i stopped eating the troublesome foods and he is alot happier by day now.

We had one good night 2 wakings with straight back to sleep with a good day twice he went down without the boob!

  That day went like this:
wake 8am   (bedtime night before went bust and he wouldn't go down till 9pm!)
Sleep 12pm  (feed before sleep at 11am  - but not tired enough was playing in cot so got him up 30 mins later let him play a bit, put him back down without boob and traight to sleep!)
Wake 1:30pm
Sleep 4:15pm (this was a sling nap as it was so late we had to get him down quick)
Wake 5pm
Sleep 8pm 

Last night he went down well at 8pm (straight after bedtime feed) woke at 1am  then 4:20am  I fed both times.  Unfortuntaley after the 4am he played and played, then DH went in after he started crying a fair bit and rocked him back to lseep with lots of crying by about 6:00am    Poor DH and I have no idea what this NW was all about.  Probably the prop things again??

Not it is 8am and Kai is STILL not hungry for his first feed of the morning.  

Hopefully today his schedule will fall back on track , we was up at 7am.

If he is better today (again) then we will look at fixing the day naps, and then next Friday night doing the night settling.  DH doesn't want to do it through the week - fair enough.

I will need to ask advice on how to do the night settling too..... I fear that it will be hard core compared to the day.   

[Shiv52]

Huge {{{hugs}}}

I had a very similar problem with DD1 and weaned the feeding to sleep for naps and NWs when she about 7-8 months.  UGH!  Weaning the feeding to sleep during the day was actually fairly easy and NWs were awful for about 3 nights and after that much much easier to manage.  There was a lot of upset and crying the those 3 nights but after that it was so much better.  Think it just took her a while to realise I wasn't going to be feeding every time she woke anymore. 

I have a screaming toddler trying to wake the newborn so I'll be back but it will get better.  The idea of it is worse than doing it, I promise!

[EloysH]

aww thanks so much    you are an absolute angel to come and chat about this when you are obviously so busy with your new baby! 

I really do take comfort from what you have said about the thought of it being worse that we think.... I am very very nervous about the night stuff.

We had another nap today completely without a feed... so I am thinking that we can crack the day time stuff with a little perserverence...  I will keep this up for the next few days.  Then come Friday night I really need to hear more about how you did it in the night.

What if they wake an hour later after they are resettled?  Do you feed? Maybe they ARE too hungry to get though any more hours without the feed..  I understand it is habitual hunger but it's still hunger right?

[Shiv52]

Back!!!

We had another nap today completely without a feed... so I am thinking that we can crack the day time stuff with a little perserverence...  I will keep this up for the next few days.

This is what I did initially.  I thought it was unfair on DD to tackle the nights until I'd broken the feed to sleep association during the day.  Plus I knew I needed to make things as easy as possible for ME at nights or I'd totally crumble if DD was very unsettled.  So I think thats a great plan to woke on not sleeping before naps until you are ready to tackle the nights.  It'll also give you the confidence to know he can settle well without a feed.

What if they wake an hour later after they are resettled?  Do you feed? Maybe they ARE too hungry to get though any more hours without the feed..  I understand it is habitual hunger but it's still hunger right?

I didn't go completely cold turkey on the night feeds for this reason.  I wanted to be fair to her and me and give weaning the night feeds a fair go with less chance of me giving in.  Probably took longer in the longterm but I don't think I could have managed complete cold turkey! 

First few nights I didn't feed before 1am...from an 8pm bedtime as I assumed she could go 5 hours without needing a feed!  She woke the first night at 12.15am and I just resettled using ssh-pat. It took at hour of screaming then settling then crying and so on but I persevered and she did go back to sleep without a feed.  She slept then to 5am and I fed her then and that was her until 8am.  Next night I did the same.  Settled after 30 minutes and with much less upset.  20 minutes on night 3 so the next night I moved the goalposts and decided I wouldn't feed until 2am and on it went.  If she did waken it was easy to resettle her without feeding.  One thing I decided before I started tackling the night feeds was that if she woke and I started to resettle without feeding that i would work through it until she was back asleep even if it passed the time I had decided I was going to feed at.  Make sense?  So that first night I had decided I would feed after 1am and she woke at 12.15 and was still awake when 1am hit but i just kept going with the resettling as I didn't want her to be confused and think I would eventually give in.  I was glad I'd decided that in my head before hand because when 1am did hit I do remember thinking 'should i just feed?' and i probably would have had i not thought that through. 

I did find I had trouble resettling her if she woke after 5.30-6am in the longterm.  I found she had had enough night sleep to put up enough of a fight and stay awake and we ended up with an EW and a tired bub the next day.  So to be honest if she woke after 5.30am I did tend to feed to get us through to normal wake up.  We weaned that feed  about 2 months later with no bother at all.  Not saying you have to do that or even recommending it but just trying to point out the pitfalls as I found them!  That one NW didn't bother me as she still took a good feed and breakfast on wakening and I am rubbish at EWs so it worked here. 

Does that sound like something that could work for you and DS? 

Only other thing we found was resettling at night was easier when I did it even if I wasn't feeding.  If DH went to settle the NWs were much longer and unsettled.  I had thought it would be easier if DH went to her as she would be expecting milk if she saw me but in reality she was so used to seeing me when she woke, that she was not impressed to see DH.  I think because I had also worked on the naps when DH was at work we'd half broken the feed to sleep association already so nights were just an extension of what we'd been doing during the day. 


HTH.  Longterm NWs are so hard and so exhausting longterm especially when you're the one dealing with them.  I honestly dreaded tackling them but after that initial week it was so much better here.    Starting at the weekends is great and really helped here.  DH was able to get up with DD1 and I got a lie in!!

{{{hugs}}}

[sherry lynn]

How's it going?

[EloysH]

thanks again for your help!~ 

I think I will use that method.  Looking back witrh Ds1, that's what we did... resettled the first feed and let the other waking get naturally later and later.


Yesterday naps were a bit of failure... he was cranky and OT all day... and screamed the house down at nap time so I ended up feeding to sleep for both. 

Sigh..

[Gypsymom]

Don't feel bad, Elo. We all know how it goes. But, hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.

FWIW, the other thing that helped me was to realize that even though J was genuinely hungry (he took a full feed at every NW!!) he wasn't going to be motivated to move those calories to the daytime if I continued to let him feed at night. But, remember, by this point, these babes have enough heft on them to miss a meal or two here and there. Yes, it's tough to get a hungry baby back to sleep, but it can happen and we found that it was a matter of days before he started to get the message that night time eating was no longer an option. Mind you, we didn't get tough on this until he was almost 11 months!!

Hugs, sweets.

[hrk]

Things just sound so unpredictable.  Hugs Eloys.  XXXXXXXXXXXX  You know our story probably inside and out.  We had so many night wakings.  The long ones only ended after night feedings ended, but he was up all the time.  If you think it is a prop issue, perhaps try to work on that (maybe put off the food trials for a bit while you do this to reduce confusion; although teething is probably going to be in there regardless).  If reducing the props does not fix the problem, then you know it is something else.  And imho if you are giving it good effort and it is not cracking it, I think there is something else driving the behavior.  

Ending the props (paci and feedings) did not improve things over the long term.  And it was SUPER hard to end the use of feedings and paci (because there was a medical issue driving the need for him to soothe).  Slow withdrawl of reducing milk and replacing it with water took a MONTH.  I totally regret to this very day weaning those things on the advice of our pedi because they were not the source of the problem.  They were a byproduct of the problem.  Until we did it, we didn't know.  

[EloysH]

thanks Jean     I do have these points you raised in my mind. If after a good go of trying to drop one feed, we don't see progress over a few days, I will know to look at his relfux or food related issues and meds again.

Shannon: you read my mind.  Today I was just contemplating how hard it is acutally going to be getting hungry baby back to sleep.  Last night he woke at 9:30pm and woke 5 mins after putting him back to sleep and then did this 4 times... before I relented and fed at around 10:15pm.  We are going to need  steely resolve to do this properly.  I really want my sleep back so I am working up the resolve!

I had a lovely day with him today, he was an angel, no hint of tiredness no hint of reflux.  Going for his naps like a dream one with boob one without.  And bedtime was a breeze too.   Yesterday he only ahad a 45 min nap for his second nap in the afternoon so maybe he was just too tired.  

[Shiv52]

{{{hugs}}}

[hrk]

Last night he woke at 9:30pm and woke 5 mins after putting him back to sleep and then did this 4 times...

I could see H do this over and over.  He was actually trying to sleep, but the discomfort kept waking him as he was dropping off.

[EloysH]

Hi  

We didn't plan to do any sleep training at night yet, since we have DS2's 3rd b'day party. (Its today) .  I am posting at 6am......

  Went to sleep midnight exhausted due to preparations.  K woke about 1am for a feed.  We got a new monitor set up last night.  I woke at 6am to it with battery died   and I raced downstairs with dread in my heart to find K in bed asleep, evidence of heavy sobbing to sleep, one arm out of wrap, face down, sideays in cot.  He has obvioulsy CIO and flallen alseep exhuasted. :-

  Our room is upstairs, sometimes I can hear him if I am in a light sleep without the monitor, however, I was probably too exhausted last night.  This is my worst worst nightmare      

The poor poor thing. I am devastated    WHo knows how long he was left to cry and how long he suffered for, crying for someone to come to him.  I really hope he is not dmamaged and we haven't broken his trust.  Now what do we do?

Do we start sleep training tonight so he has not gone thru that in vain so he doesn't have prolonged suffering?  Do we back right off and see of his trust is broken and try to gain it back, then do sleep training?

Help  

[anna*]

((((hugs)))) he is not the first and won't be the last. How has he been today? I am sure no harm will come to him from crying for one spell. If he seems fine today, personally I would be inclined to start sleep training tonight. He has gotten himself off to sleep once, and I do very much doubt that he will have lost trust in you from just one night.

[EloysH]

thanks Anna for your reply 

he hasn't woken yet, so waiting to see, its not usual for him to sleep in so late 7:15am  - he must have been awake for a while last night  :

[Buntybear]

OMG Eloise that is upsetting. Lots and lots of hugs and cuddles for him today. You will know in your heart if it right to sleep train or not x