Trouble getting DD to sleep

[Hannah'sMommy]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get a baby to bed at night? Our DD, who is about four and a half months old, is having trouble falling asleep for the night. Sometimes it will take one to two hours to finally get her to really fall asleep. Once she does get to sleep though, she'll sleep for 2-3 hour stretches.

Her bedtime is 6:30-7:00pm (and she is really tired at this time, so it's not too early). She sleeps in her own crib now, and what I usually do is nurse her to sleep, hold her/rock her in the chair for a little while after that, then lay her down in her crib. She'll sleep for 20-30 minutes, then wake up and need to be held or rocked or nursed again, but then it will sometimes take up to an hour or more later when she finally falls asleep (after a lot of holding, walking around, etc.) Or if we put her down, she'll wake up a few minutes later and need to be held or comforted again. I don't mind helping her get to sleep, but we still need to eat dinner and get things done for the night since we both work. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Alisse]

My ds is almost 4months. His bedtime is at 11pm so after ~6 or 7pm he's not allowed to nap. We do that by stimulating him (i.e. playing with him, talking to him while we make dinner, etc). If he doesn't show signs of getting sleepy by 10pm or if we absolutely need him to sleep by 11pm, he gets a 10pm bath and massage that knocks him out completely. The more important part, we've found, is to keep him stimulated/awake for a good 4-5hour stretch. Prior to this it took us anywhere from 1-3 hours to get him to sleep by rocking+feeding, etc and so bedtime could be anywhere from 11pm - 2pm.

[nwatt]

Have you tried reading the No Cry Sleep Solution? She has a theory about nursing your baby to sleep, but not actually letting her fall asleep on the boob that has made all the world of difference in our sleep situation. We only started this on Thursday and have gone from 6+ wakings a night to 2. All that I do is nurse her until she is about to be asleep, and then gently delatch her. If she fusses at all, I latch her back on for another 30 secs and try again. It takes a couple of tries, but eventually she falls asleep and stays asleep. According to the author, this breaks the association between nursing and sleeping and lets the baby sleep better.

[Hannah'sMommy]

Originally Posted by nwatt

Have you tried reading the No Cry Sleep Solution? She has a theory about nursing your baby to sleep, but not actually letting her fall asleep on the boob that has made all the world of difference in our sleep situation.

I have read the No Cry Sleep Solution, but maybe I'll read it again. We did try the not nursing to sleep thing for a few nights, but it got thrown aside due to other things going on (she got 2 colds in a row, a double ear infection, then we moved her to her own room). So, that sounds like a good idea because it would probably help her with her night time wakings as well (although, I probably shouldn't complain since she only wakes up every 3 hours). Even when she wakes in the middle of the night, she really doesn't eat very much, it's more for comfort.

We do make sure that she has a good 4 hour stretch from her last nap to bedtime though. Usually when we're getting her to bed, she's pretty much falling asleep and really tired, so I don't understand why she won't just stay asleep.

[kkfum]

nak...
I went through the same thing with DD#1 and agonized about sleep for 3 yrs., which I feel greatly affected my relationship with DD and did not help her sleep any better. With DD#2 (now 9 mo), I have no expectations that she will sleep. After dinner, I just set myself up on the couch and nurse her to sleep and read, chat with DH, watch TV with her on my lap, until it's time for bed. Then I take her to bed with us. If I try to put her down at night, which I've done a couple of times so DH and I could have some alone time, iykwim, the most it lasts for is 40 minutes, but usually only 20.

I figure eventually she'll sleep longer by herself, but it isn't worth the stress for us to try to put her down to sleep when she just wants to be held. If I need a break, I transfer her to DH's chest after she falls asleep. Some nights she sleeps/nurses the whole time, sometimes she wakes for an hour or two, so we just play.

Also, this time around, I have made sure that I allowed my MIL to be around the baby more, so she is used to her. So, for New Year's, DH and I went to a close-by restaurant and had my MIL get the baby to sleep on her (using a pacifier) for a couple of hours. I never would have left DD#1 with anyone at this age, but she is the grandmother, and in other societies, mothers get a break from the other women in the family.

Anyway, we are all much calmer/happier with this new approach, including the baby. I mourn the time spent trying to get DD#1 to sleep on her own because I thought that's what babies were supposed to do.

I can not recommend the book "The Vital Touch," enough.


ETA: I try to keep her up until after dinner or, I just eat dinner on the couch w/her sleeping. I've gotten much neater at one-handed eating!

[wombatclay]

For the first "chunk o' sleep" could you keep her in a sling or ergo? So you could eat dinner and do that sort of thing?

I'm on babe #3 and this one is a pretty easy sleeper, but dd1 and dd2 would only sleep while being held/touching someone until about a year of age. So I would generally nurse dd1 out and hand her off to dh, and then when dd2 came along I'd nurse her out in the ergo. Just for that first chunk of sleep (so, 7pm-about 10pm when dh and I went up to bed).

[Icehockey18]

we have a similiar outlook as a PP... We just accept that ds can't be put down by himself. I nurse him to sleep and eat/chat/ watch tv with dh and ds asleep on my lap. He goes down about 7:45, but starts nursing around 7 and sort of nurse/ naps unil he is finally out.... Then when I'm ready for bed I take him with me, and dh usually joins us a bit later.
I know eventually he'll sleep on his own, and this works for us!

[Hannah'sMommy]

I could wear her, but she would probably think it's just a nap and then wake up and want to play a little later. She gets too excited with what is going on around and needs a dark, quieter place to actually sleep. We also can't keep her up too late because we both work full time and need to get to sleep at a decent hour.

I'm more than willing to take extra time to let her comfort nurse to sleep at night if she would just stay asleep for a while after that. But having her wake up after a short bit and being difficult to get back to sleep is getting tiring, especially when DH and I both work full time and have to get ourselves and baby stuff ready for the next day. Not to mention needing some down time to relax.

Maybe it's just a phase and she'll get over it soon? We'll continue with the routine, maybe keep her up slightly later to wear her out more (although she is obviously ready for bed at the time we start trying to get her to bed). Eventually I do want to stop associating nursing and sleep so DH can help with bedtime.

[JMJ]

I had a hard time with this with DD when she was that age. I finally just started to go to bed early with her. I would go to bed around 8:30 with her (as early as I could handle going to bed), and we didn't let her nap after 6:30. Getting ready for the next day could happen earlier in the evening or the next morning. I find that a lot of mornings, I wake up well rested while DD is still sleeping. Also, I learned that when she wakes up for an hour, I can fight with her for an hour or I can let her play for an hour, but no matter what I do, she's ready to go back to sleep after an hour.

[annekh23]

I would definitely try wearing her in the early evening, what you are doing now doesn't seem to be working for you, so you need to try something else!

She's 4.5mths, which means she's not far off, or even at the point of being able to take part in the social aspects of meals, so to me it would seem worth working on getting her to bed before dinner, when it won't be long before you may not want to be doing that.

I don't know what time you get home, or if you nurse her before you come home, but I'd try having getting dinner ready as your first task when you get home, nurse first if needed, but then get dinner ready, have dinner, clear up if there is time, before beginning bedtime.

Obviously this assumes this is roughly what you want to do in future! My theory is that even if right now she needs to be worn to get dinner made that making dinner can actually be a fun social time for you and your partner (again, that assumes you are both home at similar times), then you all get to sit down and have dinner together, even if for now she gets plastic spoons and bowls to bang around rather than actually eating with you.

If she's tired at that time, it may be that an adjustment in daytime is what is needed.

[wombatclay]

You might also want to post over in the Working and Student Parent forum to see if anyone has ideas for how to organize the rest of your time... I know when I was working outside the home I had a bunch of tricks and techniques for getting enough sleep and getting out of the house on time each morning!

Like, I prepped all of my clothing for the week on the weekend. Each morning I just grabbed a stack without having to think about it (or hunt for a matching sock). I used the crock pot so there would be hot cereal waiting, and the timer on the coffee pot so the coffee was ready when I came down the stairs. Things like that might relieve some of your time pressure and make the early evening sleep/wake/sleep/wake cycle less frustrating.

I agree that you may want to look a month or three ahead and see where you want to be, what routines you hope to have. Kiddos change so much at this stage, you may find that spending a lot of time/energy on this particular part of the day just frustrates you more than simply responding to it for a few more weeks will.

Whatever happens, hang in there!

[Hannah'sMommy]

Thanks for the suggestions and support!
We kept DD up later last night, and she fell asleep really easily and slept for her normal 3 hours, but then she woke up at 11pm and we couldn't get her back to sleep for an hour! She did the same thing at 3am, so now I'm wondering if there is something else going on... fortunately this is just a stage and we'll get through it one way or another!