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Tell me it gets better
I'm exhausted. Like to the point of almost crying at my desk right now because I'm so tired.
DS used to be a great sleeper - slept from 8pm to 6 am from 5-8 1/2 months. Now...not so much. He's been up almost every two hours, if not more, every flucking night. And I seem to be the only one that he'll stop crying for. DH has tried to go in and calm him down, but he just wails. I take him and he stops. I put him back in his crib and he wails. So we rock, he falls asleep, but will only go back in his crib if he's in a deep sleep. Wash, rinse, and repeat every 2 hours. I've been falling asleep with him in the chair lately too because I have to get some sleep in somewhere, so I'm not like I am today everyday.
I know I've created a bad habit of rocking to sleep. I know I need to do something to stop this vicious cycle, but I don't know what. We did CIO when he was about 5 months and just not going to sleep initially, which worked ok. But now that he's older and pulling himself up in the crib, I don't know why but i'm less ok with doing CIO again. I know he's going through major seperation anxiety right now too, which is why I think I'm not as inclined to do it too.
We use a sound machine. We've tried teething tablets. We've changed his diaper. Nothing works unless I'm staying with him.
So my question - what do we do? Do I do CIO again in the middle of the night? How do I know when he's actually in pain b/c of teething or a growth spurt and should go in and comfort him?
Good greif I'm a freaking wreck. Momma needs a nap. Vent over.
Re: Tell me it gets better
How old is he?
When I get change like this, I usually take the kids to the dr just in case.... This happened to me 2 weeks ago and it was an ear infection. Meds and she is sleeping better now.
Sounds like our house when DD#2 was 8 months old. I tried everything else and finally I finally got strong enough to CIO. The first night she cried for 15 min and that was it. It took me longer to feed her, change her and lay her down then I was up CIO. After that she started sleeping longer and was a happier baby.
Have you tried a little bit of tylenol at bedtime? When my kids are truly teething and uncomfortable I know this helps drastically. Teething tablets never worked for us.
The idea of CIO was way more painful then actually doing it. I wish I would have done it sooner! GL, I hope you get some sleep.
It gets better!! I feel your pain. Around 9months-10.5 months S did the same thing. He just started waking up constantly in the middle of the night and would really only sleep if we put him in his car seat or I slept with him.
We realized he kept waking himself up because he was able to move around and stand up versus when he was stuck in his car seat, he realized "I'm stuck, so I guess I will go back to sleep"
I even went back to giving him a bottle during the night just to get him back to sleep quicker. Some nights, DH would just lay next to his bed (near the 10.5 month mark) and pretend to sleep and S would go back to sleep. And one night DH just took S downstairs and they slept on the couch.
Now, S lays down at 8pm and sleeps until 7 and has been like that for the past 2 weeks.
Yea...I probably shouldn't tell you that at age 2 my kid is still doing this!
I keep learning over and over that all of it is pretty much a phase. CIO "worked" once for us around 10 months for just a couple weeks, then he got sick or something and it all went to shiiit. But he was STTN on his own, without CIO, for a good 3 months around 1 year, then he started waking again, then slept good for a while, and then the last two months he was waking up 4-5x per night pulling the same crap that you are talking about. But for the last week, even with being sick, he's sleeping better than he has in months. Who the eff knows. What works for one, doesn't work for others. I read something the other day about kids and sleep that said it's not your fault if your kid is a crappy sleeper and that every kid has a different temperament and different needs. Made me feel better about it. A couple weeks ago, around 3am after about the 4th wake up, my husband started screaming "This is all your fault!!! You've always catered to him during the night!!!" WTF? Catered to him? No! I comforted him, I fed him, I rocked him, I loved him. GAH! Yea it sucks, and it's hard, and it's exhausting, but unfortunately, it is what it is.
All of this applies to both my kids. And my DH. Seriously. It gets easier for some, not so much for others. The CIO does get easier as they get older at least. You don't feel like you're abandoning a tiny helpless baby, but a 2+ yr old that should know better.
thanks to jennied