Thinking of leaving Felix to CIO as nothing else seems to work HELP

[midge]

Hi There,

Our baby Felix is waking at night and we can no longer do anything to get him back.

Somewhere it seems to have gone severly astray. Felix is 7 months old has just started crawling and is now eating 3 solid meals a day plus 4 bottles. We have just recently weaned him off the dream feed .

He wakes up randomly maybe once or twice through the night and it can take up to 2hrs sometimes to get him to go back to sleep. It does not seem to be hunger that is waking him. We weaned him off the dummy at 3 months and then used pu/pd and it looked like we had him self soothing back to sleep, but due to another cold and it all seems to have gone wrong. For the last 3 weeks we have ended up bending down and kissing him in the cot when he wakes( but at night if we don't catch him early enough he will wake up and nothing seems to console him) ,, we eventually resort to rocking  and pat shsh etc.. but it does not really work work and it can be 2 hours before he will calm down and sleep.

Help! should we leave him for longer?..he does sound quite upset when he wakes though. It is as if he now needs us there in order to settle but we are not much help. He used to wake up babble a bit and then go off. He does have a cold at the moment.

His routine:

Wakes :    5.30  -6.30
Eat       7.00 milk 5-8oz
            7.30 breakfast
Sleep:       8.30/9.00 for 45mins to an hour
Eat :       11.00 bottle 5-80z
Sleep:       12/12.30 for 45 mins to 1.5 hours
Eat :       1.30 solids
              3.00 milk 5-8oz
Sleep       sometimes for half an hour between 3.30 - 4.30
Eat :       solids 5.00
              bottle 6.30
Sleep: 7.00

Any help would be muchly appreciated.

[SleeplessSam]

I wonder if maybe he's not getting enough sleep?  His naps seem short...have you tried a little less A time?  I think he should be sleeping more like 3 hours total in the day at this age.  I know if my dd (also 7 mos) doesn't sleep well in the day she's up a LOT in the night.  It's a terrible circle.  I also find that at this age PU/PD makes her more crazy.  We try to just stand there with our hand on her belly until she's calm and then we leave the room again.  It might take a week or more of doing this so brace yourself.  I also never go in the room unless she's genuinely upset...wimpering and slight crying I always leave her.  I'd also try throwing an extra feeding in the late aft/early evening in case it's a hunger issue....good luck and hang in there.  These things always turn around every once in a while...it just takes every ounce of your patience as it happens (beleive me I know...).  It took about 3 weeks of training for dd to get back to sleeping through and her naps still aren't perfect but at least we're getting night sleep!

[milesmac]

We have a 12 month old who is not sleeping through the night.  We have tried it all.  CIO (Ferber method), Modified cry it out, gradual withdrawal, healthy sleeper/happy baby.  I finally picked up the abay whisperer.  This is the fourth book I am reading.  ANyway, the CIO method was torture.  It went against everything I believed I should be doing but I felt forced into it.  It took about two weeks to get him to go to sleep on his own and he still woke frequently.  He would scream for 1-2 hours when he woke up during the night.  It just didn't work for us.  However, we have friends who used it with good results.  It just didn't work for our personalities, the babies personality, and our parenting style.  I think you need to find what works for your family.

Anne

[midge]

Thankyou both for your advice. He got roughly three hours nap time yesterday. He slept through untill six(hoorah!) with a bief waking at 9 and 11. At 11 he was pushed into a corner at the top of the cot so was uncomfortable. I think he sleep crawls and always ends up in a corner. I will monitor his nap time and try the hand on belly approach. I think My husband and I need to ensure that we are doing the same thing....otherwise it invariably leads to confusion. Thanks for the input about CIO ..it's something I really do not want to resort to ..gonna hang in there and see what happens.