Baby's First Year Community

My son didn't start sleeping completely through the night (8:00-7:30), until he was almost 1 year old. It might have been even later. I had always nursed him to sleep, or given him a bottle and he fell asleep, (this was before he had teeth), then we would put him in his crib without waking him up. He would always wake up during the night and want another bottle. The doctor told us to reverse everything, give him a bottle or whatever around 7:30, then get him ready for bed so that when we put him in his crib he is awake, but sleepy. for about a week bedtime was terrible, lol, but after that he would settle down and go to sleep. That's when he started sleeping through the night. I think he just didn't know how to put himself back to sleep when he woke up during the night.
I doubt anything is wrong with her, some babies just need a little extra sleep training. It's exhausting, believe me, I know! But it will soon pass! Good luck!

I agree with Emmyl. You should do some sleep training- no more swing. I started sleep training with my son 3 weeks ago( he is just turning 5 months). The first week or 2 is the worst but it gets much better from there. They will cry but it will get less and less. The first night he cried 45 mins before going to sleep and woke up 4 times during the night. Now 3 weeks later he may cry for 5 mins or less and when he does cry, like he did last night, he had turned him self sideways in the crib and could not get turned back around and he went right back to sleep once I turned him the right way. I do recomend a book called the sleep lady. It also gives advice on feedings- be sure to get baby very full during the day so they dont need to wake and feed at night. I put my son down around 7:30 or 8 and he sleeps till 7:00 or 7:30 am. Hang in there it will be rough at first but it will get better.

I agree with pps. My dd#2 is 5 months and I tried the modified ferber method. The first night I put her to bed awake and would let her cry for 1 minute before I went into her room. When I did go in I would just talk to her and rub her belly. I would leave and then wait 1 minute after she started crying again before I went back in. On night 2 I did the same thing, but increased it to 2 minutes. Night 3 was 3 minutes and so on. It has now been about 2 weeks and we are getting better. The last 2 nights she slept thru the night and she had probably only done that maybe 3 times ever. Good luck.

THANK U ALL SOOO MUCH FOR THE REPLIES! I signed up for emails when I get responses but I haven't been getting them so I just now saw that anyone even responded. I want to thank you again! I'll keep u posted on Anya's progress at night....

How is it going? My son if 4 months old and he sleeps through the night, but we started EARLY. He was 2 weeks old when we started letting him cry himself to sleep. We would wait about 10 minutes and then go in and comfort him. They just have to be taught how to put themselves to sleep. At 4 weeks old he could put himself to sleep within about 10 mins of crying. At exactly 8 weeks-Christmas Eve-he slept 8 1/2 hrs...Merry Christmas! He has slept through the night ever since. They will still have their nights every now and then when they wake up every 3 hrs, but they are not consistent. It's hard, but the best I can tell you is BE STRONG and BE CONSISTENT! They will learn, but if you go in there and "give in" to what they have become used to (putting her in the swing), she will continue to cry. It's SO HARD! Stick with it though. It will totally pay off Hang in there mama!

hey there.. sorry your having some trouble... I dont have that problem with my newbie DS cuz hes only 5 days old.. so no sleeping through the night yet for him..lol.. however with DD. around 5-6 months she just started sleeping through the night.. like 9pm to 7am... then around 8-9 months she was upagain all the time.. I read this book called the baby whisperer and while I didnt find all the info useful I found her schedule and her dream feed VERY VERY life saving.. in your case I woudl try a dream feed.. you dont have to do it forever but to get the sleeping going. what you do is lay her down for her bedtime.. have a good routine so she gets its bedtime.. put some of her favorite things in the crib that she likes so even if she doesnt fall right asleep she knows she has her things.. so say you put her to bed around 7 or 8.. around 11 go in with the lights off.. no sound no goo goo gaga anything business.. dont wake her if that makes sense and nurse or give her a bottle.. not some huge 10 oz bottle but maybe 5-6 ozs.. as soon as she is fed lay her back down.. dont burp her or change her unless she has a messy diaper.. because she never woke up she is still in a relaxed state that burping is not nec.. then head to bed.. this seriously was my life saver. DH works like crazy hours and a lot of time is out of town during the week so I needed my sanity. I was nervous about not burping her cuz Im one of those paranoid nervous ninny moms who is afraid not burping my kid will result it bad things..
however like the doctor in the book said.. she was so relaxed it was never and issue.. within a few nights she went to bed at 7.. had a dream feed at 11 and stayed out until about 7-8am..
just a suggestion ...
also.. i do know some moms who had kids who didnt sleep through thenight till they were well into being a year old.. which to me sounds odd but every baby is very different.. so she could just not be ready which stinks for you..
maybe give the dream feed a try..if you wanna find the book to read yourself i believe its called The Baby Whisperer...

best of luck and hope you can get a full nights sleep soon

Some kids are different. DD slept through the night at 2 months and she was nursed.

DS isn't at 4 months. 99% of the time when he wakes up he is wet and then he's ravenous as in he starts rooting feverishly the second I pick him up. There are times mostly during the day when he just fusses because of a lost binky, but at night i really need to change him. I'm hoping this will change soon, but I'm just rolling with it. He is much needier than DD was so I take it as part of who he is.

Ok here's alittle update....kinda. Being that i work midnights I am not home with her to be consistantly doing the same thing. Now if my husband would it would make things alot easier but that's awhole idfferent ballgame!

So on my nights off I do the sleep training.....I know incionsistancy will most likely NOT work but I have hope. If I can get her to fall asleep in her her crib my husband may be more inclined to follow thru overnight.

She unfortunately is sick at the moment. Strangle enough she sleeps MUCH better when she';s sick! The Dr. prescribed a nantihistimine that causes some grogginess so I'm hoping that will help things along......

My last night off I decided to put her to bed in her crib and she woke up just about every 30-90 minutes......I stuck with it tho. I'm going to try again this thursday and i'll let you know if the antihistimine made a difference!

WIsh me luck!!

Well I hope it works! Maybe if you try to involve your husband in the decision about how to sleep train her. You could show him some research on different things to try and let him know it will be hard work up front, but it will make your lives easier in the long run. Really that is what parenting is about. If you take the easy road now and don't discipline or teach your children thru consistancy then your future is going to be way more difficult. Hopefully if you try to involve him and ask his opinion he may be more likely to continue the training when you are gone. I'm sending the sleep vibes!!!

Yes I know we need to practice consistency. We made that mistake with our son and he is still a pain in my rear! He's 7 now.....Anyway, she did only wake up twice last night after being given the Atarax (antihistimine) before bed. THis is a GREAT improvement on her normal night wakings! Altho as I said before she does sleep better when she's not feeling well.

TOnight (Thursday night) I am going to try putting her to bed in her crib again. This time after giving her some Atarax. She is so congested and it does help her sleep as well. So we'll see how it goes.

I have a REALLY hard time putting her to sleep without nursing her. She will cry and cry and cry. If I don't go in to comfort her I end upcrying myself and that's when I say THIS IS ENOUGH! And I go in.....How can I stay strong when I'm just so weak when I hear her cries????? ugh.....guess this shows my parenting skills need a kick in the rear!

I nursed my DD to sleep at night until 6 months. At about 4 1/2 months I could put the binkie in at nap time and lay with her until she fell asleep. That meant that naps were not in her crib.

At 6 months she's rolling everywhere, bum shuffling and pulling herself to standing (I'm ripping my hair out already). I can't lay her down for naps on our bed anymore.

So I started the modified Ferber method. We're on day 13 now. I started a bedtime routine, shower/bath, nurse, brush teeth, change diaper, two books, snuggles, binky and lay down in the crib. I've been doing this consistently every night since we started. The first night I went in at 2,4,6,8,10,10,10. She fell alseep after about 35 minutes. There were short bursts of cries, waiting to see if I'd come back in, and some all out screaming. I did the same timing for overnight wake ups. By night three she fell asleep in a few minutes.

We've all been sleeping sooooooooooooooo much better now. I'm very glad that I did this. My husband doesn't like to hear her cry, and the first three nights I made him sit in the computer room with the door closed so I didn't bother him so much. He understood what needed to be done but still didn't like the process. It was less crying and stress than I thought it would be.

In your case, you are right that it won't work if you both don't get on board. She'll keep relapsing and there will be more crying. =( I hope that you guys get her sleeping soon! I was losing my marbles having to nurse her in the wee hours, then I couldn't get her back into the crib without waking her, and sometimes we were up playing at 3am cause she couldn't go to sleep on her own in the crib.

I don't regret doing the sleep training. It worked for us!

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Now my DD is awake. I'll have to try again later. =(

Oh it's there.