I am one desperate Mommy! I am beyond sleep deprived and have exhausted every possible idea I can think of to help my youngest child sleep better at night. Here's my story:
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My first child is now 3.5 years old. He was breastfed until 13 months. When he was born, I fell into co-sleeping just out of necessity because he was quite a colicky baby who it turned out suffered from reflux. Co-sleeping worked really well for us and he started sleeping thru the night around 5/6 months. During this time I learned a lot about attachment parenting and really enjoyed all that it entailed. As he got older he got to be quite a pain as he is quite a violent sleeper. LOL. He thrashes around quite a bit. That is the point that I would try a couple times a week to put him into his own bed to sleep. I kept trying this until he was about 8 months when he finally gave into the idea. He started sleeping in his own room in his crib, no problem. Now he is a happy 3 year old who is SO EASY to put to bed.Â
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My second child was born back in July, she is now 9.5 months old. She was exclusively breastfed up until 7.5 months (she had no interest in solids when I tried at 6 months) and now she is finally eating a couple ounces of pureed food 2-3 times a day (She still doesn't have any teeth yet). She still mostly nurses, and we are pretty much on a 2-3 hour schedule for nursing throughout the day. If I ever thought it was rough with my son... I had no idea how hard it could really be until I had my daughter! She not only had reflux like her brother did, but she has been plagued with chronic middle ear infections since she was about 2 months old. She had her first set of tubes placed back in January, and already has required a second set a couple of weeks ago. No surprise, she has been very difficult when it comes to sleep! She has "comfort nursed" during the night long after she was old enough and big enough to sleep thru the night which was fine with me because I knew her ears were bothering her. Now we have established that her ears are better and I am left with a baby that is trained to nurse during the night every time she enters into light sleep! Like her brother she is also a very violent sleeper that likes to toss and turn a lot, which disrupts my sleep and she also thinks that the milk bar is open all night when she sleeps in my bed. LOL.Â
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After discussing it with my hubby, who bless his heart... Has been sleeping on our pull-out couch since she was born... I decided to try moving her into my son's room (we only have 2 bedrooms at the moment). My husband works manual labor and has a very hard time at work if he doesn't get a good night's rest so it was not practical for him to sleep in the bed with us, he was also very uncomfortable at the thought of sharing the bed with a baby because he is a very heavy sleeper. So now not only am I ready to go back to sharing a room with my husband, but I am DESPERATE to get a good night's rest! Now that I know my daughter has no health issues that is preventing her from sleeping I am really ready to help her learn to sleep better. I'm not unrealistic, I know that not all babies are ready to sleep thru the night at her age (despite popular belief), but I would like her to get at least ONE 4 or 5 HOUR STRETCH! I have read Elizabeth Pantley's 'no-cry sleep solution" twice at least and have been on the KellyMom.com and Dr. Sears websites for advice and nothing I've tried seems to help! Every where I seem to go for advice I keep getting "cry it out" advice and I am just not willing to go there. I have tried it a couple times and it simply doesn't work. I have now tonight finally gotten her to successfully fall asleep in her crib instead of at the breast, or by me rocking her but it took almost 2 hours! Last night was terrible because whilst she went down fairly easily, she woke up literally every hour on the hour. She only nursed twice out of all those times, the other times I just had to either pop her paci back in her mouth or just hold her for a moment. I am desperate for anyone's advice that is not related to CRY IT OUT! Â Please and thank you :)
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