I am sorry for this long story, but I'm at my wits' end and have no idea what to do. So if you have time to read all this and think on it, I really appreciate it so much, thank you very much.
So I have a 9 mo. baby boy who, since about mid-September, has not been sleeping. He sleeps for less than two hours. He wakes up and never settles himself back down - if you wait, he will only whip himself into hysterics. It usually takes half an hour to get him back down, but sometimes he just won't go back down. Period. Then, he wakes up again 45 min - 2 hours later, never longer. Sometimes it's possible to get him back to sleep without nursing, but most of the time it's impossible, which is a problem since after a few rounds of this I have NOTHING LEFT IN THERE.
We've tried moving nap times and bedtime around, tried moving mealtimes around (no results),
tried getting him into a nap schedule of any kind (dismal failure),
feeding more or less at different times of day, tried cutting solids and just going back to the breast (didn't work - at this age he's constantly hungry as it is and becomes ravenous if he doesn't get some solids, even after my supply caught up),
we've tried bringing him into the bed with us and placing him in his crib - no improvement with either, but in bed with us, he will wake up if one of us so much as rolls over, coughs, sneezes, etc, and he wakes us up with his shuffling, so he sleeps a bit better in his crib.
We DON'T CIO or ferberize, but frequently he just won't stop crying as long as he even thinks we are still trying to get him to go back to sleep (the only way to stop it is to totally give up and take him out into the house and turn on lights and let him be all awake, and once you do that he's immediately happy), so eventually I do leave the room because it seems like my being there is just making it worse, and anyway I'm about to SNAP. Because of this, it seems like he winds up accidentally crying it out sometimes, and I can't necessarily tell the difference between what I'm doing and ferberizing some times - it makes me very guilty.
Most recently, I tried eliminating dairy. I didn't have ANY dairy for a week and a half, and at that point decided to try giving him a little lactaid before each nursing. That night and the next two nights he slept all night, waking up to nurse once in the middle of the night. But then... I kept giving him the lactaid but he went back to his old ways. I still hadn't had any dairy. By thanksgiving day, it had been over two weeks since I'd had dairy. On Thanksgiving we went to visit family. I didn't bring the lactaid. I ate copious amounts of dairy all weekend. My sister took his Pack'n'Play in her room and took night duty for us so we could finally get some sleep. He slept like a log in there all weekend, waking up only twice each night to eat and then going right back to sleep. The minute we took him home, he resumed his grueling nighttime schedule. He has also slept in a moses basket in the middle of the bed with our friends downstairs, and slept all night then, regardless of how he was sleeping for us at that time.
So there's no way it's something he's eating, right? He sleeps just fine with other people regardless of diet, location or who they are and keeps US up all night regardless of diet or location... It seems like that must rule out diet or any type of discomfort or pain, mustn't it? And if it was any of those things, surely a small distraction wouldn't instantly calm him?
I've got to figure out something to do that works. I can't function on a few 45 minute naps per night. Exhaustion is making me a bad, angry, lazy parent and also lowers my milk supply drastically. It's been three months of this and I'm a wreck. I even notice a big difference in the baby when he gets sleep at night - he's a happier, less clingy baby who makes advances with all of the things he's working on (crawling, standing, playing, going to the potty) when he's slept the night before. So I feel like this sleep situation is really detrimental to him on many different levels and can't be allowed to continue.
So I have a 9 mo. baby boy who, since about mid-September, has not been sleeping. He sleeps for less than two hours. He wakes up and never settles himself back down - if you wait, he will only whip himself into hysterics. It usually takes half an hour to get him back down, but sometimes he just won't go back down. Period. Then, he wakes up again 45 min - 2 hours later, never longer. Sometimes it's possible to get him back to sleep without nursing, but most of the time it's impossible, which is a problem since after a few rounds of this I have NOTHING LEFT IN THERE.
We've tried moving nap times and bedtime around, tried moving mealtimes around (no results),
tried getting him into a nap schedule of any kind (dismal failure),
feeding more or less at different times of day, tried cutting solids and just going back to the breast (didn't work - at this age he's constantly hungry as it is and becomes ravenous if he doesn't get some solids, even after my supply caught up),
we've tried bringing him into the bed with us and placing him in his crib - no improvement with either, but in bed with us, he will wake up if one of us so much as rolls over, coughs, sneezes, etc, and he wakes us up with his shuffling, so he sleeps a bit better in his crib.
We DON'T CIO or ferberize, but frequently he just won't stop crying as long as he even thinks we are still trying to get him to go back to sleep (the only way to stop it is to totally give up and take him out into the house and turn on lights and let him be all awake, and once you do that he's immediately happy), so eventually I do leave the room because it seems like my being there is just making it worse, and anyway I'm about to SNAP. Because of this, it seems like he winds up accidentally crying it out sometimes, and I can't necessarily tell the difference between what I'm doing and ferberizing some times - it makes me very guilty.
Most recently, I tried eliminating dairy. I didn't have ANY dairy for a week and a half, and at that point decided to try giving him a little lactaid before each nursing. That night and the next two nights he slept all night, waking up to nurse once in the middle of the night. But then... I kept giving him the lactaid but he went back to his old ways. I still hadn't had any dairy. By thanksgiving day, it had been over two weeks since I'd had dairy. On Thanksgiving we went to visit family. I didn't bring the lactaid. I ate copious amounts of dairy all weekend. My sister took his Pack'n'Play in her room and took night duty for us so we could finally get some sleep. He slept like a log in there all weekend, waking up only twice each night to eat and then going right back to sleep. The minute we took him home, he resumed his grueling nighttime schedule. He has also slept in a moses basket in the middle of the bed with our friends downstairs, and slept all night then, regardless of how he was sleeping for us at that time.
So there's no way it's something he's eating, right? He sleeps just fine with other people regardless of diet, location or who they are and keeps US up all night regardless of diet or location... It seems like that must rule out diet or any type of discomfort or pain, mustn't it? And if it was any of those things, surely a small distraction wouldn't instantly calm him?
I've got to figure out something to do that works. I can't function on a few 45 minute naps per night. Exhaustion is making me a bad, angry, lazy parent and also lowers my milk supply drastically. It's been three months of this and I'm a wreck. I even notice a big difference in the baby when he gets sleep at night - he's a happier, less clingy baby who makes advances with all of the things he's working on (crawling, standing, playing, going to the potty) when he's slept the night before. So I feel like this sleep situation is really detrimental to him on many different levels and can't be allowed to continue.
