Spending 3 hours putting my 8 month old to bed every night. Had enough. - Page 2

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by justKate

So I gave up the expectation that my child should have a reasonable bedtime. It's just not for her. All the negativity and frustration in getting her to bed just wasn't worth it.

[Dandelionkid]

I second letting your baby get a little more tired before trying. Try not to compare to your friends. Also, my babies got used to my DH putting them to sleep by jiggling etc and that really helped me out. They then sleep on him until bed-time and then I go to bed and nurse to help settle. Just making the point that we have done things "all wrong" too and everyone of them so far has started settling in their own bed and sleeping through the night (mostly) just after 2 years of age. It all comes out the same in the end (except in cases where CIO is used in an extreme manner- then I think kids can develop problems)

[paxye]

I am a big believer in no set bedtime, especially for babies... but instead watching the baby (who coincidently often fall asleep around the same time every night)... for us that meant that there was no stress about when my kids "should" be sleeping, no tears for them and enough sleep for every one.

3 hours of trying to get a baby to sleep most likely mean that baby is not tired at that moment... so I would get up, eat, do my thing and then try again when baby has tired cues again...

I think the more stress you put around sleep, the more problems it will lead to.

With my four kids, I have given a bath and then let them play quietly while I did whatever I had/wanted to do and then nursed them to sleep in the living room when I saw they were getting tired. If I wasn't ready for bed yet, I would try to put them down on the couch or somewhere near me until I headed for bed and then I would bring to bed with me...

[hollytheteacher]

At 8 months i didn't put ds to sleep. I just let him fall asleep when he was ready...so like i'd be nursing him on my lap watching tv or reading or something and then he'd eventually fall asleep... I didn't even *think* about "bedtime"

Maybe you are just overthinking the whole thing? I mean the kid will fall asleep eventually right? I don't think every kid needs a perfect routine especially not at the infant stage.

[Tway]

We gave up the attempt at a "proper" bedtime at about 9-10 months and decided to put DD down at 9 o'clock. So instead of shushing and rocking and praying and getting mad for an hour, it now takes about 10-15 minutes to get her down. We start the routine at 8, with bath, change, book, nurse, and kisses, and DH brings her into the room to unwind at about 8:45. She's almost always out by 9.

And yes, DH took over the putting to bed at around 8 months, which saved my sanity. I'll do it when he's out, but he now considers bedtime "his" duty and enjoys the cuddles with DD.

Our nights are in no way perfect--and sometimes they're outrageously frustrating--but bedtime seems to be working out for us pretty well, at long last.

[junipermuse]

Originally Posted by hollytheteacher

Maybe you are just overthinking the whole thing? I mean the kid will fall asleep eventually right? I don't think every kid needs a perfect routine especially not at the infant stage.

I just wanted to say that if someone had said this to me when my daughter was little I would have cried. My daughter even at 3 doesn't just fall asleep when tired. She gets more wound up the more tired she gets. Yes eventually she would pass out, but only after screaming and crying for hours in our arms. If she doesn't have dark and quiet she WILL NOT SLEEP. She could seriously go on and on for hours. And honestly if she would have ever slept past 6 am I would have been fine with her staying up until she passed out, but no matter what time she went to bed she always woke up super early, so absolutely she needed to have a bed time or she would have been a cranky crying screaming mess all the time. I kind of think telling a mom that she's overthinking the sleep issue is kind of the crunchy parent equivalent of telling a mom that if she just C'dIO, all her kids sleep issues would be solved. The truth of the matter is some kids are good sleepers and some aren't. The parents of good-sleepers tend to think that whatever they did worked great so why doesn't everybody do it.

I hope that doesn't come off as snarky. I'm still reeling from a long weekend with my kids visiting family where my dad kept accusing me of being anal about my kids sleep schedule and attempting to sabotage my efforts to get my kids (especially my dd) to fall asleep at a reasonable time. He just kept saying I should let it go because she would fall asleep eventually. As a result my dd stayed awake until between 10 and midnight every night (while still waking up at 6) for 3 days straight and I was left with a kid who was so exhausted she melted down at every turn. But in my experience there are definitely kids who will not get enough sleep if they are allowed to stay up until they are so tired they pass out.

[junipermuse]

Originally Posted by Tway

We gave up the attempt at a "proper" bedtime at about 9-10 months and decided to put DD down at 9 o'clock. So instead of shushing and rocking and praying and getting mad for an hour, it now takes about 10-15 minutes to get her down. We start the routine at 8, with bath, change, book, nurse, and kisses, and DH brings her into the room to unwind at about 8:45. She's almost always out by 9.

And yes, DH took over the putting to bed at around 8 months, which saved my sanity. I'll do it when he's out, but he now considers bedtime "his" duty and enjoys the cuddles with DD.

Our nights are in no way perfect--and sometimes they're outrageously frustrating--but bedtime seems to be working out for us pretty well, at long last.

I think this is really good advice. While I believe that having a bedtime may be important for kids, not all kids really need that text-book 7pm bedtime. We found with our dd that 8:30 was the perfect bedtime for her when she was that age. Of course around 2 when she gave up naps her bed timed moved up to an earlier time, but before that she did better with a later schedule.

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by junipermuse

I just wanted to say that if someone had said this to me when my daughter was little I would have cried. My daughter even at 3 doesn't just fall asleep when tired. She gets more wound up the more tired she gets. Yes eventually she would pass out, but only after screaming and crying for hours in our arms. If she doesn't have dark and quiet she WILL NOT SLEEP. She could seriously go on and on for hours. And honestly if she would have ever slept past 6 am I would have been fine with her staying up until she passed out, but no matter what time she went to bed she always woke up super early, so absolutely she needed to have a bed time or she would have been a cranky crying screaming mess all the time. I kind of think telling a mom that she's overthinking the sleep issue is kind of the crunchy parent equivalent of telling a mom that if she just C'dIO, all her kids sleep issues would be solved. The truth of the matter is some kids are good sleepers and some aren't. The parents of good-sleepers tend to think that whatever they did worked great so why doesn't everybody do it.

I hope that doesn't come off as snarky. I'm still reeling from a long weekend with my kids visiting family where my dad kept accusing me of being anal about my kids sleep schedule and attempting to sabotage my efforts to get my kids (especially my dd) to fall asleep at a reasonable time. He just kept saying I should let it go because she would fall asleep eventually. As a result my dd stayed awake until between 10 and midnight every night (while still waking up at 6) for 3 days straight and I was left with a kid who was so exhausted she melted down at every turn. But in my experience there are definitely kids who will not get enough sleep if they are allowed to stay up until they are so tired they pass out.

My DS is the same way, needs dark and quiet and to be "made" to go to sleep. He never would just "fall asleep when tired." But if he OP is spending 3 hours IN the dark/quiet to get her DD to sleep, and she isn't falling asleep until 10:00 each night, that is probably a good sign she is not ready for sleep until much later than 7.

[paxye]

Originally Posted by junipermuse

I just wanted to say that if someone had said this to me when my daughter was little I would have cried. My daughter even at 3 doesn't just fall asleep when tired. She gets more wound up the more tired she gets. Yes eventually she would pass out, but only after screaming and crying for hours in our arms. If she doesn't have dark and quiet she WILL NOT SLEEP. She could seriously go on and on for hours. And honestly if she would have ever slept past 6 am I would have been fine with her staying up until she passed out, but no matter what time she went to bed she always woke up super early, so absolutely she needed to have a bed time or she would have been a cranky crying screaming mess all the time. I kind of think telling a mom that she's overthinking the sleep issue is kind of the crunchy parent equivalent of telling a mom that if she just C'dIO, all her kids sleep issues would be solved. The truth of the matter is some kids are good sleepers and some aren't. The parents of good-sleepers tend to think that whatever they did worked great so why doesn't everybody do it.

I hope that doesn't come off as snarky. I'm still reeling from a long weekend with my kids visiting family where my dad kept accusing me of being anal about my kids sleep schedule and attempting to sabotage my efforts to get my kids (especially my dd) to fall asleep at a reasonable time. He just kept saying I should let it go because she would fall asleep eventually. As a result my dd stayed awake until between 10 and midnight every night (while still waking up at 6) for 3 days straight and I was left with a kid who was so exhausted she melted down at every turn. But in my experience there are definitely kids who will not get enough sleep if they are allowed to stay up until they are so tired they pass out.

Well, I wish that someone would have said it to me when my first was a baby... I was listening to all the advice of bedtime and had expectations around sleep etc and it caused so many problems and I didn't even CIO, I did however do what the OP did, or tried to have DH take over when he wanted to nurse.... (and I did think that CIO has the same effects when someone is next to them) My DS hated to going to sleep because it was always a negative experience and he fought it and we still have repercussions because of it...

Things got better when I stopped having those expectations, when I started to watch him instead of a clock, when I no longer stressed about when he was going to sleep... I also realized that he fell into his own rhythm after a while and when I followed him he wasn't going to sleep much much later than I was trying before, not only that but he would fall asleep quickly with no tears or anxiety and slept much better... but it did take an adjustment period because he was still fighting because that is what I taught him even if I was meaning well...

So yeah... I wish someone would have told me... luckily my other three have never had to go through that...

[jee'smom]

i'm with the others who say that "she's probably just not ready to go to bed yet." if you are spending between 7 and 10 trying to get her to sleep, why not just put her to bed at 10pm? Watch your child closely... get to know your child for them... what are their patterns? how does tweaking their schedule work for them? you may find that it's easier on everybody if you try to follow their natural rhythms. you can always slowly push them into how you'd rather them to be. (my dd1 had a natural body rhythm of a night-owl, but that didn't suit me, so i let her follow her own rhythm for about a month, then slowly started making the bedtime earlier and earlier to fit my schedule. it took months, but was so worth it!)

i realized one day that if my dd2 skipped naps, she mostly slept through the night, so i started trying to get her use to not napping, so she wasn't up every 2 hours all night long. she was about 2yo at that point though.

good luck!

[llwr]

I wanted to clarify me earlier post a bit.

I do think it's really important to be happy and relaxed about the whole thing, but that's not the end of the story. It doesn't mean that it's ok to be held hostage by your baby. It sounds like your situation is falling into the "needing to fill your own cup" category.

I think you have some good suggestions -- having someone else try, putting her in a backpack after she wakes so you can do your thing for a bit, experimenting with different bedtimes.

If baby cries with DH or with you if you decide that nursing when she doesn't need to eat just isn't working for you, I don't think that's CIO. Lots of family members have needs and we just do the best we can to meet as many of them as possible.

[D_McG]

definitely get back to us on the waking and nap times.

For my son his 7pm bedtime magically began when he was 3 months. For my daughter it wasn't until 6 months. An early bedtime is very, very important to me (probably the most important part of infant sleep to me) but they really just weren't 'there' until those ages.

So yours is a little older but if she's 'awake' when she wakes up then pending your answers about the naps it might just be where she's at, developmentally.

OTOH a late nap might be throwing you off. So do let us know and see if we can help out from there.

Deirdre

[MamieCole]

Originally Posted by justKate

Ugh, btdt.

Until about 14 months, we had some success with a weighted blanket and a heavy arm (and leg) over DD to calm her limbs and help her relax. Now at 19 months, I don't have the energy (or strength) to fight with her for hours each night. So I gave up the expectation that my child should have a reasonable bedtime. It's just not for her. All the negativity and frustration in getting her to bed just wasn't worth it.


I think junipermuse has good ideas. Also want to second a later bedtime (just try it for a week or two). Good luck!

Great advice!

[Tattooed Hand]

Originally Posted by paxye

3 hours of trying to get a baby to sleep most likely mean that baby is not tired at that moment... so I would get up, eat, do my thing and then try again when baby has tired cues again...

I would like to disagree with this, just based on my experience. We used to spend HOURS putting DD to bed (who is only 9.5 months). We're at the end of week 2 of a schedule and lo and behold she has been going to bed pretty easily the last 5 nights...at 6:30 PM (she was going to bed at 9-10pm). She still wakes up between 6-7 and naps a little less during the day (2-2.5 hours a day total) but she goes down much easier. I think she was WAY too over tired to sleep. Have you tried putting her down even earlier?

[junipermuse]

Originally Posted by LadyCatherine185

My DS is the same way, needs dark and quiet and to be "made" to go to sleep. He never would just "fall asleep when tired." But if he OP is spending 3 hours IN the dark/quiet to get her DD to sleep, and she isn't falling asleep until 10:00 each night, that is probably a good sign she is not ready for sleep until much later than 7.

I totally agree that she probably would benefit from waiting until later to put her baby to bed. I think I even posted (either in my first or second post) that it really helped for us to try to put dd down later than the books recommended. We knew tons of people who rushed right home to put their babies to sleep by 7 and we usually put dd down around 8:30 or 9. But that's not the same as not overthinking it. If a child is a poor sleeper, it may take more effort to put them to sleep, and you may have to think about things that parents of good sleepers don't have to think of. Saying "don't overthink it" sounds to me like, "don't TRY to get your child to fall asleep, and eventually they just will." It basically seems like saying to the parent that its their fault that the child isn't sleeping because they're trying too hard.

[junipermuse]

Originally Posted by paxye

Well, I wish that someone would have said it to me when my first was a baby... I was listening to all the advice of bedtime and had expectations around sleep etc and it caused so many problems and I didn't even CIO, I did however do what the OP did, or tried to have DH take over when he wanted to nurse.... (and I did think that CIO has the same effects when someone is next to them) My DS hated to going to sleep because it was always a negative experience and he fought it and we still have repercussions because of it...

Things got better when I stopped having those expectations, when I started to watch him instead of a clock, when I no longer stressed about when he was going to sleep... I also realized that he fell into his own rhythm after a while and when I followed him he wasn't going to sleep much much later than I was trying before, not only that but he would fall asleep quickly with no tears or anxiety and slept much better... but it did take an adjustment period because he was still fighting because that is what I taught him even if I was meaning well...

So yeah... I wish someone would have told me... luckily my other three have never had to go through that...

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that she shouldn't watch her baby for cues or wait until later at night to put the baby down so she's more tired, I just don't take these to mean the same as "don't overthink it." my point is that with very spirited babies like mine, their self-regulation abilities may be so bad that you can't just relax and let them "sleep when they sleep" because they might end up crying grouchy messes everyday from only sleeping 6 hours a night. That's not to say that staying relaxed doesn't help (because it definitely is super important) and of course one should follow a baby's cues, but I think with babies who are "bad-sleepers" you often need to spend a lot of time and energy trying lots of different things until you find something that works and frankly that does require a lot of thought.