Baby Not Sleeping through the Night

Dummy

I guess this is the question that requires the 64000 dollar answer.

We have a 13 month child who so far has never slept through the night. The child goes to bed at 9 in the evenings and almost like clockwork will wake up at 1 , and perhaps 2 or 3 more times unti 4:30 in the morning. At 4:30 he is up for the day.

Some people have said to leave the child cry and not to run too quickly. We have tried that but neither of us can leave the child crying for too long. We know that it is neither hunger or being cold - only 3 sucks of the bottle are taken each occasion and the bedroom is neither too hot or cold.

Other things I should mention are that normal breakfast, lunch and dinner are eaten. Takes about 2 or 3 bottles per day. Is very active during the day crawling all over the house all day. Goes out for a walk everyday for about 1 hour.

Any ideas?

climaxer

Hi Dummy - luckily for me my son (now 2) has been a great sleeper since he was 2mths old. So I don't have much personal advice but I have read on other parenting sites like eumom and www.magicmum.com and rollercoaster.ie that a lot of parents use "Controlled Crying" or the "Pick Up Put Down" method. There is a whole section in Rollercoaster on sleeping or maybe do a google for Controlled Crying etc. Also I remember some parents saying homeopathy helped. I would be like you though and couldn't leave my child cry. One other thing I might suggest (even though you said he's getting enough food) but maybe just a small bowl of readybrek an hour before bed or one liga. Perhaps with all the crawling, walking he might be hungry - its worth a try anyway! Best of luck and hope you get it sorted soon. Definiately try those other sites - I'm sure you'll get a lot of advice there.

climaxer

Sorry just re-read your thread and saw he is up for the day at 4:30 - you and your wife must be shattered. Does he get a nap during the day. Perhaps cut this out or limit it to 45mins. My son gets 1 hr nap a day and I try not to let it be anymore.

Furp

I sympathise, our son 14 months can be a little insomniac I can count the times on one hand when he has slept through the night completely. Well since about 3 months anyway because before that he slept through the night every night.

Anyway not quite sure what to do as we have tryed everything ourselves, have you tried Dozal used to work a threat when I was a kid.

Last night my son went to sleep at 10.30pm and he woke at 2am and just would not go back asleep he wanted to play and jump around. I don't know where he gets the energy he runs around and plays all day long and when I get home from work I get at least an hour of Ben and Daddy time where we play hide and seek and such things until he can take the laughing no more before he gets sick.

Anyway he hates his cot and won't sleep in his room we have to lull him to sleep then put him in his cot then when he wakes he is hysterical, and won't go back down until he gets into bed with myself and my wife.

Although that does not always work like last night its kind of funny now how tired we are because this morning my wife had enough and put him back into his cot he screamed at the top of his lungs I got out of bed we listened to him for a few minutes (which is heartbreaking) he screamed so hard he got sick so that was the end of that, then we realised it was 5.30am and we had to get up to go to Dublin, so we both got about 3 hours sleep.

And of course to add to all this our 5 week old daughter who was as good as gold last night and slept through everything, which is not like her..:)

PS. I have to add that he sleeps like log for his Granny..

C Fodder

Well the good news is that it should get better eventually. Our eldest would not sleep, waking a couple or more times during the night and wanting bottles, cuddles etc. He also seemed to hate his cot and wanted to get out of it at the first chance. This continued until his mammy went into hospital to have his little brother when he was 19 months old. He came into the bed with daddy that night and slept through the night and every night for the rest of the week. After that he would wake once during the night and have a bottle and get into the spare bed with one of us. Recently I came across an article by a woman who had put a single bed between the parents bed and the wall and put toddler into it. When we tried this we now have him wakening up only occasional nights and everyone sleeps(mostly).
p.s. the baby sleeps the night from 12 ish to 8 ish. Why couldn't we have had two like that ?

Zombienosh

try bathing him before bed.... use lavender in the bath or have some in the room

Blinda

If the 'bottle' drink during the night is 'milk' then it is 'food'. Baby will continue to wake up on cue & habit forming.
Try giving 'water' in the bottle instead as there is no need to 'feed' baby during the night. PERSEVERE until habit is broken as child soon realises 'water' is not worth waking up for.

Yavvy

yeah .. food isnt important at all... espically to a growing baby. That nasty habbit of taking nurishment when it needs it is awful....

My advice would be to bring the child into the bed, Im amazed your child is only getting 7 hours of sleep in the night, isnt he/she knackered ? I have a 14mth who gets between 10-12 hrs per night. how many hours during the day does the baby sleep ?

The bath is a great idea as it relaxes the baby and bringing the baby into the bed with you will promote deeper sleep paterns I think.

Please dont let your child cry for any lenght of time withour responding, its not fair and teaching him/her that you dont respond to to their needs may not help them sleep any better ( never mind the trust and seperation issues).

my little girl is 14 months and on adverage gets between 11-14 hours sleep in every 24 hours, if she gets less than that she becomes over tired and very difficult to manage at night, so if I want to relax her I give her a bath and put her into a baby sling and walk around a dark room humming or talking quitley, she falls asleep within 30 minutes. if you dont have a baby sling (im not talking about one of those harnessess either) Look it up on the web, there so comfortable for that sort of thing

RicardoSmith

Everyone has different opinions on this and of course every child is different.

I think a regular pattern of bath, book bottle is important. To reinforce the idea that the babies room is the sleeping room. We will let the baby "cry" for a little while 5-10mins. . But that said there are many different types of crying. Theres a "giving out" cry and a cry of "distress". The latter you don't ignore ever.

luckat

He sleeps like a log for the granny? Ask the granny what she does. If she doesn't know, just kidnap her and chain her to the radiator in the kid's room!

You can buy CDs online that have white, pink and blue noise, the sound of heartbeats, etc, to help kids to go to sleep, by the way.

Getting back to the granny, the fact that he sleeps for her suggests that he may be a little anxious at home for some reason. Or maybe you just do things differently. Do you leave lights on and the granny leaves them off? Does she feed him at different times? Does she have a very set bedtime routine?

Ask her, observe her, and remember your own childhood.

cajun_tiger

i've had a clock work baby since 13 days old but was speaking to my mother about , both myself and my sister had differnt sleeping patturns
i had a 3 hour cycle i'd sleep for one be wake for two but didint cry mum said it was grand. my mother fixed this by cutting out naps altogether in the day and a heavy feed before bed after a lavender bath. our(me and sis) bed room was doused in orange essential oils in burners.
my sister would sleep till about 2am from 8-9 then my dad would put her in the truck and drive around for a while. then she'd stay asleep till 6am and would be up all day. my mam got the girl next door to bring her for fast long walks when i was born to tirer her out and it worked

gubby

Just keep repeating to yourself "this too will end"
I thinks, as others have said that you should look at the amount the child sleeps by day.. also, try to get rid of the bottles.. I know, I know... that is not the problem.. but it all to do with habit.
Try to keep to the same patteren every night. Perhaps also the child senses your mood and feeds on it.. be calm but firm.
even if you have to stand outside the door.. and keep coming back to reassure her/him that everything is ok. or, how about changing the position of the cot, and redecorate the room with favourite posters etc.. telling him that it is HIS/Her room.
good luck

Blinda

Dummy you say your 13 month old is not hungary etc. and soon settles after taking a 'bottle'. I stand by my initial advice 'only in relation to' giving a food substitute during the night, since you indicate that your toddler is healthy with adequate nurishment during the day.
There is no need to feed a 13 month old during the night unless on medical advice for a variety of developmental metabolic or nutritional problems.
Giving the bottle will be comforting in itself, but giving food drinks can result in thirst a couple of hours later. The reason I advised water.
There is a variety of litrature you can find in the library or book stores.
Try 'Toddler Taming' by Dr. C. Green.

luckat

Yeah, a bottle of water is a good idea - tepid boiled water is best. Anything with energy-giving nourishment in it is just going to fuel the babby.

There's no reason to let a child "cry it out" - if the kid's crying because it's distressed, find out what the distress is and solve it, then kiss goodnight and go.

If the baby cries again, go to the door of the room and say "It's all right, pet," and go again. If it cries again, go back, but again, only to the door.

It might also be an idea to think about any reason that the babby might be anxious at night; for instance - I know this is a long shot - if anyone argues at night, that can make small children anxious. (The solution to this is to make an appointment for once-a-week arguments, when you can sort out together the things that are bothering you. Best time for this is something like Sunday afternoon, when you've had a bit of the weekend to relax, and you're fed and ready to solve problems.)

As I say, it's a long shot - but that is one possibility for a wakey-uppy baby.

The going-to-the-door solution, after having solved all problems of thirst, sore nappies, too-hot, too-cold and so on, is a good one, because the baby gets the reassurance that you're there, but not the reward of your playing with it. And once this starts to work, everyone calms down, leading to much easier sleep.

RicardoSmith

I would have said going to the door when the baby is wimpering is doing the crying out.

Dummy

Hello there,

There appears to be unanimous agreement, consistent with our own thoughts not to let the baby cry. We take turns during the night - I go to the baby upto 3:30 and my wife looks after him from 3:30 to 7. It works for us.

On the way home on Friday night, I stopped off in the Square and bought a baby lavender pack - lavender spray, soap and a mixture for the bath water. We tried it out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. It hasn't worked yet but will continue to use it.

We had tried using water in the bottle but baby did not like this and got more upset. We went back to using milk. He has never taken a soother.

I cannot see the baby being hungry - Breakfast - porridge, Lunch - veg soup, dinner - potatoe and carrot mix. Everything is home-made as naturally as possible. During the day he will also have some fruit - pear, banana etc. He doesn't eat huge quantities.

Somebody asked if there was any tension in the house. No, there are no arguments or fights. We're a happy little family, despite the lack of sleep. We get on with it and enjoy our son very much.

Blinda - I ordered Toddler Taming on Saturday and should have it by the end of the week.

Thanks to all for the feedback.

climaxer

Best of luck Dummy - another book that supposed to be excellent is "The Baby Whisperer". Hope you get a decent nights sleep soon.

Dummy

Thanks Climaxer - I'll look that book up also.

Am amazed with the responses this thread received. I think this is an excellent forum. Have mentioned it to a number of friends with young children.

Take care.

RicardoSmith

Heres another one for you...

http://www.magicmum.com/

climaxer

Dummy wrote:

Thanks Climaxer - I'll look that book up also.

Am amazed with the responses this thread received. I think this is an excellent forum. Have mentioned it to a number of friends with young children.

Take care.

No probs - its very quiet here though. You'd get even more response at www.rollercoaster.ie - its an excellent site for the ups and downs of all aspects of parenting. Also I'll second Ricardosmith on Magicmum but it does tend to be mainly female which if fine for me being a Mammy but at Rollercoaster its a lot more mixed and its nice to get the Mam and Dads view

Miner

Just to add my bit. My ds is seeing a psychologist and his sleep pattern, or lack of, was the first thing dealt with. She said some kids see sleep as a kind of separation anxiety. When he was put to bed he'd spend ages messing so the psychologist told me to sit in the room with him, say nothing and wait for him to drop off. Ok it took about a month but it worked. We went from an hour messing about to sleeping instantly. He now goes to bed at 9, I walk out of the room and he's asleep within 5 mins. We initially had his bed time at 8.30 but the psychiatrist reckoned this was too early for his activity level and to move it out by 30 mins. For the final hour before he goes to bed it's all about him. Read a story, play, watch Scooby anything so long as he has the attention. With about half an hour to go I'd start saying "Bed time in half an hour", "Bed time in ten minutes". Time means nothing to him but it's sowing the seeds in his head that bed time is coming. At the start when we'd sit with him in the room he'd be asking questions but the reply is "its sleep time". Nothing else! Like I said it took about a month but it was well worth it.

Dummy, my ds also woke at the same time every night like clockwork so if we knew he would wake at 1am, just before 1am I'd go into his room and the second he's seem to be waking I'd reassure him so he'd never actually wake fully. We're now at the stage where he sleeps through most nights and on a bad night he'll wake maybe twice. HTH