another 10 month old waking all. night. long.

[dyani]

i've seen quite a few posts recently about 9/10 month olds not sleeping well.  mine is the same!  he's 10.5 months & for the past 3 weeks he's not sleeping more than 2 hours at a time at night & nursing each time. (he's never been a great sleeper & has never come close to sleeping through the night)  i am exhausted & my nipples feel like he's a newborn all over again!  we cosleep, but he moves and flops around soooo much at night we started making the transition to his crib in our room.  he goes down in his crib pretty easy between 7-8 pm, but is up 2 hours later & the only way to get him to sleep is to nurse & put him in bed w/ me.  in my bed he is ALL OVER THE PLACE- flipping & flopping all night.  i get no sleep.  my husband is unable to comfort him back to sleep--he only wants me!  i really don't know what to do to get him to sleep longer!  i am currently reading the no cry sleep solution & the sleep lady book, but am not feeling like anything is going to help.  any ideas??

oh yeah--he has cut 3 new teeth recently & seems to be getting ready to walk too.  fun...

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Yea...that sounds pretty normal to me, mama!  I don't know if that helps to hear or not. If it were me, assuming this is comforting to you to hear, I would try to get by for a bit longer. I feel like my DC was ready for a change at around 16 months but not much earlier than that. Most of the night sleep solutions I've read involve a slightly older child. 

Of course, not of that matters if you're at the point where you need more sleep and a change can't wait. But, with my first child I just didn't have the perspective I have with DC#2. This time around I just know that sleep will come so enough and this will all be a blur. 

I hope my advice doesn't just make you feel worse and that if it does you get some better advice from some other mamas. 

[dot1]

When you say he goes down easy in the crib....is he awake when he goes in, or do you nurse/rock him to sleep first?  

My first baby, at 10 months, was also an all night nurser - and sometimes it only 30 min later and she was awake again - so hard! Everyone said it must be teething, but I didn't buy it since she was so happy when awake and never seemed bothered too much by it.  Anyway, she had developed a very strong sleep association - didn't know how to fall asleep without a boob in her mouth (or put herself back to sleep after wakeups...all babies wake up every 45 min or so...but generally they put themselves back to sleep before fully waking up). It wasn't until she learned to fall asleep in her crib, while still awake, that she finally slept longer - an 8 hour stretch of pure bliss.  

We did the no cry sleep solution to help her unlearn her nurse-to-sleep association....but then had to resort to letting her do some crying while Dad stayed in the room beside her crib and sang to her.  First night nearly an hour on/off...and then 15 minutes the next, and the 3rd day she went down without a peep and slept 8 hours.  HAted it at the time, but hated how I felt and acted without sleep even more!  I think the NCSS was great - taught me a lot of things I didn't really know and laid the groundwork for making the "go to sleep with Dad" plan work a bit better than it would have otherwise.  Of course by that time I was so used to waking every hour or 2 that I didn't know how to sleep longer!  But we all survived and our 2nd is a bit better sleeper (we get 3-4 hours stretches at 11 months).

[dyani]

no, he's not all the way asleep when i put him down.  i nurse him in my bed and then move him to his crib.  he usually flops around for awhile and even stands up a few times before settling down.  i pat his back or hug him and stay next to the crib til he falls asleep. i know he needs to learn to go back to sleep on his own, its just so easy to nurse him whenever he starts to wake up.  

some nights are better than others, but he just won't sleep for more than 2 hours...

thank you all for your replies!

[Kaydove]

Side carring the crib helped SO much with night sleep. It gave us so much more room and even when we have a bad night I can nurse her in bed but still have room for her to not kick me in the face. Just a thought, since you said he's never been a good sleeper.

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[kassandramolle]

i'm sure you probably know this but try to sleep shirtless so your nipples dry:)