I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

My DS used to be a great sleeper, like clockwork would go down at 7:30 and sleep until about 6:30 am. That was until about five-six weeks ago. He started waking up overnight more frequently and WILL NOT go down on his own. We have taken to letting him fall asleep on the couch with one of us and when he wakes up overnight bringing him into the bed from the crib. All of that changed as last night my DH brought him into the bed and fell asleep (I had moved into another room because DH wanted one of us to get some sleep) so needless to say DH fell asleep and DS fell off the bed......thank GOD h--which he has NEVER done before--DS is ok and we realize how fortunate we are that things were not worse and DH feels HORRIBLE he was terrified and was so distraught took the day off.....so here we are at night time again and I just put DS in the crib and he is hysterical....I mean how long can we leave him like that, I've heard of crying itout but it just seems mean almost.....I am sooo tired and upset, I just never have felt like this and it kills me to see and hear him like this.....what can I do

ETA:: He is eight months old

Message edited 9/2/2008 9:34:11 PM.

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

How old is DS? Honestly (In my opinion) the sooner you break the habit the better and depending on the childs age CIO might be the only way to do it. With DS I was able to go into his room every few minutes, quiet him without picking him up or talking to him and then leave again. I tried to wait longer between each time I went in....the first night it took about 45 minutes, the next 25-30, the next maybe 2 minutes and we never looked back. DS was 8 mos and we had to CIO for middle of the night wakings, not going to bed, but I send you Its hard, but in our case it worked.

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

I don't have any advice as far as the sleeping goes. Rylan is 5 months old and still doesn't go down on his own...on top of that he doesn't fall asleep until about 11:00.

I had a falling incident when he was a newborn...really new. We were sleeping on the couch and he rolled out of my arms...hit the coffee table then the floor. Luckily he was ok...only cried long enough for me to run from the livingroom to bedroom.

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

how old is he?

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

updated with age in first post. I am trying the cry it out but I don't know how much we can take of it.....I don't know how people do this

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

Could he be teething? My DS is normally a good sleeper, but when he is teething, he has trouble going down and wakes during the night. Once the teeth came through, he went back to his usual self.

One thing I did when he woke during the night and wouldn't go back to sleep was sleep on the couch with him on my chest. I refused to bring him into our bed - I just didn't want to start that - but I couldn't get him back in the crib for more than 30-45 minutes without waking up. When we slept on the couch, I got at least a few hours of sleep and napped the next day when he did.

Just re-read your post and saw you already tried the couch thing. Is he eating enough during the day? I also have had a few times when DS didn't take all his formula during the day and then woke up hungry at 3 or 4 am. Maybe try giving him a few ounces of formula and see if that helps. If so, try increasing what he is eating during the day.

Message edited 9/2/2008 9:39:13 PM.

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

We just went through a similar sleep issue! DS who NEVER woke more than 1x a night was waking 2-4x and was just very restless, couldnt get him back, etc.

Anyway, we figured out he was hungry. So we upped his dinner/bedtime meal by 1/2 jar of fruit and voila he is back to sleeping through the night! We realized he has been on the same qty of food for awhile so it makes senses that as he is more active he needs more calories during hte day.

DS is also 8 months!

GL!

ETA: Ds just broke himself of the night time rocking thing around 6 months, so I dont have any real advice, but up until 6 months we were swaddling and rocking until asleep than transfering to the bed.
Then what I started was I rock him for a few minutes 2-3, patting him on the back etc. Then I kiss him and put him in the crib and kinda roll him to his belly. And I put the mobile on (sound machine is also on) THen I leave.

If he really cries I go back in and repeat the above. It used to take up to 6 tries. Now its 1-2 at most.

Again this was at DS's cues so I cant say it will work but its what we do.

Message edited 9/2/2008 9:42:59 PM.

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

this sounds like what our life used to be...our son was a fabulous sleeper when he was little...then got sick, came into our bed, went back into his crib, got sick, and back in our bed for MONTHS...and then he fell off the bed too...We ended up moving his crib into our room....I put it right next to the side of my bed....he would stay in there for a few hours, and most of the time would end up in our bed in the middle of the night...this was our fault because we just needed our sleep (even though the sleep with him was terrible).

When we got back from vacation, we said, thats it, his crib is going back in his room, and thats it. Let me tell you, he LOVED being back in his room. I feel like we were burdening him all along...and that we really should have just let him fuss for a couple of minutes...

Re: I am desperate--will take any and all advice--sleeping!

A drop of lavender oil on his PJs can work wonders....seriously...