Teething and the No Cry Sleep Solution

[Tattooed Hand]

Hi ladies,

My 11 month old DD is a terrible sleeper. She's just regular bad (like 3ish wakeups a night) when she's not teething, but she's been teething for over 4 out of the last 6 months. Every sleep book I read acts like teething is the exception, not the norm but that has not been our experience. DD just feels every movement of every tooth like sheer agony. Her 1 year molars are currently coming in and she cries every day and night, naps 30 or 60 minutes a day total if we are lucky and barely 10-11 hours a night total, usually in 1-2 hour increments. Many nights it's more like 30-45 minute ones, even with pain killers we give her. (and yes, we give her frozen washclothes and Hylands, but let me tell you, prebed they do nothing and she is usually still crying, pounding on my chest with her little fists, biting me, biting herself, etc). I'm totally terrified about the amount the pain killers we've given her - 5 nights out of 7 for almost 5 weeks now. If we didn't she'd cry her self to utter exhaustion, which would take hours.

But she and we are totally exhausted. My DH and I both have jobs and are beginning to make mistakes and I've already gotten a warning. We've been trying stuff from the No Cry Sleep Solution and most nights we get her to not fall asleep directly on the boob and to limit nursing to 3-4 minutes from 10-3. But she still wakes up 6-8 times a night. Is there anything else I can do or I am just doomed to have to lose my job, livelihood, sanity, etc... She sleeps in a twin bed pushed up against my side of the bed so she is right next to me, but we have separate blankets (my blankets shifting were disturbing her sleep). We've tried every sleep arrangement possible except putting her in a crib or in a room alone. If I can, I'd like to preserve our co-sleeping, which we both enjoy. I just want her to wake up less and I need a 3-4 hour stretch a night to function properly at my job, which requires higher brain functions (teaching university).

But she is totally tired and only gets like 11 hours sleep total and has these dark circles under her eyes. I feel so bad. What can I do?

[ACsMom]

I just wanted to lend support.  My first one was like this and now my 9-month-old has been waking 6-7 times a night for the past two months. 

At 11 months, is she eating some food yet?  Maybe you could limit her to 1 nursing per night, and the other times she wakes up, it's just snuggling back to sleep even if she cries.  That worked for my first babe - we did it at 13 months but probably should have/could have done it a little earlier.  It took 2 weeks of not nursing her at night (except for the once - I picked 3am because it seemed logical somehow, and she always woke up around that hour anyway), but she finally started sleeping through the night - every night, and dropped the 3am nursing on her own.  I will night-wean my babe, too, at some point, but I feel like I can't do it yet because she's not ready.

Hope that helps.  I feel your pain!! 

[Tattooed Hand]

She has just started eating for real like 3 or so weeks ago. We offered her solids from 8 months onward, but she wasn't really interested or eating much. But judging from her poop, she's really eating now... so I try to offer her food 2-3 times a day and tank her up as much as possible with nursing.

I've been trying to reduce her nursing between 10 (when I go to bed, she sleeps around 7pm) and 3am. We're down to 3-4 minutes before I unlatch her. So far that's worked with very little fussing. I unlatch her after 3-4 minute between 10-3 and she usually just rolls over and goes back to sleep. Should I reduce that even further to 2-3 minutes for a few nights or just jump to trying shush and cuddle her. I've sort of half heartedly tried this but give in and nurse when she sounds like she's ramping up instead of going along with it. How long do you let them cry?

I want to try to get nursing down to 2-3 minutes and then drop one feeding at a time. Not sure if it will be confusing for her to not get nursed only once. This is so confusing trying to figure out what will happen in their little minds!

[ACsMom]

Yeah, that is the hard part (figuring out what the baby's experience is).  I tried weaning my little one off one feeding a night about a month ago, and she clearly wasn't ready - it's that cry they have, when it sounds like their little heart is breaking - I just can't let that one go on even if I'm holding and comforting her.  If it's just that she's complaining about not getting to nurse, that cry sounds and feels different to me and I'm able to just hold her or rock her, and she falls back to sleep eventually. 

If reducing the amount of time your little girl nurses each time she wakes is working for you both, I would stick with it.  For me, it's sometimes hard to get back to sleep right away when I get woken up, so when I'm having to wake up multiple times during the night I'm really losing major sleep time.  So I need to find a way to get longer stretches of sleep out of her.  I'm sure you would like that too, but you never know - reducing her nurse time might eventually teach her not to bother waking up unless she's really hungry.  I'm a big fan of sticking with a plan - whatever plan it may be - for long enough to find out if it's really working.  That's me, though.  Go with your instincts (sorry - I sometimes hate when people say that to me because I don't always know what my instincts are telling me, but many times it's sound advice).  HTH!

[Carrie1105]

I don't have any advice, but my girl is exactly the same way.  She just turned 12 months and has been teething her molars for 3+ months.  All four will swell up and go down at various times.  One is finally starting to pop through.  Even co-sleeping some nights is horrible because she's either tossing and turning or getting up and crying, crying, crying.  Sometimes she even asks for a bottle, and I'll give it to her because I think she uses it for comfort, although I won't give it to her right away unless she keeps asking.  Right before this all started I had FINALLY was able to put her down in her crib drowsy and just pat/sing for 10 minutes and she'd fall asleep without crying.  I feel for you.  At first, I tried to keep doing what I was doing, but I learned with teething, there's nothing I can seem to do for her.  Even advil/tylenol doesn't work.

[blake201]

I wish I had advice instead of just commiseration! My 6-month-old used to STTN until I went back to work (at 3 months)... and her sleep just gets worse and worse every day. Last night she was up every hour. And like you, everything in my life has completely fallen by the wayside and I've gotten talked to about my performance at work (where formerly I was totally a star!), which is even more stressful now that my hubby has been laid off.... there's a reason sleep deprivation is used as a torture device. I'm not having any luck with the No Cry Sleep Solution methods, but I keep trying... it's just hard to try them in a coordinated way when I'm so tired.