What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

At almost exactly 3 months DS was sleeping through the night - he'd go down at 8:00 and wake at 7:00.

Then at 7 months he got the croup. Followed by an ear infection, then a stomach flu and then the croup again. Not to mention the teething nights.

So there were a lot of "sick nights" where one of us was having to hold him. He's well again now.

Now (at 9 months) he goes down okay at 8:00 everynight, but he's waking up at 11:30 screaming. Then he won't go back down.

Two nights ago we wrestled with him until 2:30 when we finally gave in and brought him into bed with us.

He will NOT go down awake. He stands, he screams, he hits his head on the crib, he makes himself gag. Same thing if we let him CIO in the middle of the night.

HELP!!!

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

Kerri did this when her molars were really coming in....I made the mistake of picking her up and interacting with her..... So I decided enough was enough. I felt she was getting used to me being there every night....so

I would go in, lay her back down, rub her back, sit by her crib but did not pick her up. I would leave after a few minutes, she would cry, I waited 5 minutes and repeated. Then left, she would cry, I would wait 8 minutes and repeat, etc.

This went on for three nights and after that no more crying and a good nights sleep for all

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

I went through the same thing with my DD at 9 months old. I totally know how awful and hard it is, my DH even failed one of his MBA midterms cause DD wasn't sleeping.

We can't use CIO, so i used the pick/put down method from Baby whisperer. You basically stay by the crib and repeat your mantra ours was "It's okay, it's sleepy time", then you wait until they stand all the way up, then lay them back down, repeat your mantra, wait til they stand all the way back up, then lay em down again and say it again. This way you aren't touching him to sleep or having a conversation with him, so he will fall asleep on his own. It can take anywhere from 20 mins to 2 hours, but it works.

here is the website i learned alot from, just so you don't have to buy the book if you don't have it already.

Baby Whisperer


GL

The key is to be consistent

Also it helped to have a consistent bedtime routine every night.

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

Posted by leighla

Posted by sweetness

Also it helped to have a consistent bedtime routine every night.

Thanks! I'm headed to that site right now!

We do have a consistant bedtime routine.

7:00 - bathtime every night followed by massage, bottle, book/song.

He gets rocked to sleep then put down (he will not go down awake no matter how tired he is).

So he's asleep every night by 8:00.

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

I'm willing to try putting him down awake, but when we have tried it's been 2 hours of him screaming and we give in.

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

Lauren,
I too used to put DS down mostly asleep. For a few months now, I still give him his last bottle then put him in his crib sleepy but not asleep. It really just happened overnight as my DS was exactly like yours (I used to nurse him to sleep). I started off by putting him in his crib and patting and rubbing his back as he stood there screaming and crying. I would pick him up, say I love you and kiss and hug him for a while (to comfort him), then put him back down. This seemed to work for DS since he knew that I was right there but he needed to go night night on his own. I HATED letting him CIO and even still will only let him cry for 3 - 5 minutes.
He might be cutting a tooth right now which will mess up anyone's sleep patterns. It took us a few nights to get this way but now he rolls over and puts himself to sleep. Some nights he even talks to himself for up to an hour before finally falling asleep!

Re: What has happened to my good sleeper??? Any advice welcome.

I dont think its a permenant change. From all I have read ( and thats been a lot these days ) it seems like they go through stages. He may be having soo much fun learning and experiencing these days that when he wakes up he wants to stay awake and fights it.

I have had those periods and posted about it and boom, it seems like a day or two later we are back to normal.

I hope its just a phase for you guys!