Sleep Training - Surviving IT!?

Hi Lonie - The thing is, its not the falling asleep part that is the problem... its the CONSTANT WAKING that is driving me bonkers with sleep deprivation. If she would only sleep for about 3-4 hours at a time I would survive, but she doesn't, she wakes up every hour, to hour and a half. I don't get enough sleep at all and hubby doesnt help cause she only drinks breast and demands that every waking time.

Teething has already started for us early, she got her first tooth at 5 months and a week and a half later the second. I thought that maybe once they were out she would start sleeping better, but NOPE... no such luck.

Hi ladies, thanx so much for your replies...

1st Timer - I never had a sleep routine, but have implemented one a week ago, so we are working on that now yes.
She almost never napped during the day (20min naps mostly), where as now that we are training, she naps 2 x 1.5 hour naps a day!
So yeah, day naps have improved SO MUCH since the training started.
And she's got a blanky that she sleeps with since training started so thats sorted too.

Sarah - You are SO lucky that nursing to sleep works for you and your little one sleeps until 5 in the morning... If that was the case for us, I would be over the moon!

Yaz - *sigh* I love breast feeding her to sleep, especially at bedtime, but what that had done is to make her want the breast EVERY time she wakes up during the night! Before we started training, she woke up EVERY HOUR at night demanding the breast to fall asleep again... It was so exhausting I just couldnt anymore. She would wake up and not know how to fall asleep by herself again, so she needed to suckle to do so... She'd have a crying fit everytime I tried to just hold her and make her drowsy again to sleep, she just wanted to feed to sleep.
That's why I have to stop associating sleep with breast feeding, that way they learn to self soothe and fall asleep again on their own.
As for co-sleeping, I've tried that too - doesnt work for us. My husband is a deep sleeper and restless too... he would hurt her and not know it and I would NEVER sleep cause I'm watching over her. AND she also used to wake up every hour almost and demand suckling again. That didn't help me get any more sleep.

Karin I would not be stressing too much trying to sleep train just yet..they only small for a bit..
I use to rock and sing my LG to sleep and all of a sudden at about 16 months or so she didnt want to lie in my arms any more.
Few months later I decided it was time for sleep training and took about 3 days.. She goes to sleep by herself at night without any probs..(ok we do have to odd difficult night here and there!)

One of these days teething will start and then all the sleep training is down the dumps anyways!

Ah Karin, that sounds stressful. I'm pretty much anti most forms of sleep training, especially CIO. I only have one child so far, but one thing I've learned over the 14 months is: if it doesn't feel right, stop it!

If I may ask: why don't you want to breastfeed your daughter to sleep anymore? I think it's the best method in the world to get baby to sleep and sooo easy If you read Dr. Sears Baby Sleep book you will see that this is the method he recommends up into toddlerhood. Have you considered co-sleeping and breastfeeding her lying down throughout the night? Might be worthwhile looking into it for you and LO to get a better night's rest (I know, co-sleeping is not for everyone). My daughter is a bad sleeper and co-sleeping is the way to go for us.

Good luck!

Huge HUGS. The Baby Whisperer method does work, promise, I think perhaps she was getting over stimulated by the PU/PD. I still nurse my baby to sleep but she goes to sleep quickly and then sleeps through till 5am or so. She's 1 months old now. At 6 months she was also a bit more difficult to settle but nursing her in a quiet room away from distractions helps. I don't like CIO, I don't think it is fair to anyone, but I'm not you and not in your shoes.

Whatever you decide to do, HUGS.

Shame Karin. Sleep deprivation is horrible!

So various thoughts.

1. For a 6m old a feed before bed and 2 feeds during the might are completely normal so don't stress yourself out fighting that I reckon

2 . Don't forget there's a 6m growth spurt

3. Sleep training - especially non cry - can take weeks not days. If you are set on it hang in there. Maybe keep a sleep diary so you can look back and compare after a few days.

4. Have you tried some white noise or sleep music? We found tgis helped a lot.

5. Do you have a good/strict bedtime routine that you follow every night at the same time every night?

6. How many naps is she having and how is she sleeping in the day? I always found poor daytime sleeping meant a lousy night

7. She might be teething which can put pressure on her ears. Try lift the head of her cot by putting it on bricks or something

8 does she have a comfort item like a teddy or taglet or something? These can be super helpful (buy 2 though!)

Good luck!

My Kiana is now just over 6 months old.
I've made the terrible mistake (what the hell was I thinking, THIRD baby here HELLO!) to nurse her to sleep every time...
So now I am sitting with a baby that is so used to that and she doesn't want it any other way. *sigh*
MY fault, yes I know and I feel terrible cause now she has to suffer for it by me trying to train her to not do that.

I've read up on the Baby Whisperer way - she doesn't believe in letting your baby "Cry it out" so her way is the "pick up/put down" method. Baby cries, mom picks up, comfort till calm, put down again... now this can carry of for VERY long, and LOTS of times doing the PU/PD method. But she says in the end it works, can take a few days or a few weeks.
So I've done that, tried it, it worked for us to a point until Kiana caught on and decided to rebel by throwing major temper tantrums no matter if I hold her or not! So to save my sanity I ended up leaving her in her cot to Cry it out a few times.
Now unfortunately we went away this past weekend so the Sleep Training went out the window cause we went with friends and I didn't feel that it was fair keeping them awake with my training. (By the way, we've been training off and on now for about a week and a half, excluding the weekend of course)

I've got the Baby Sense book too, read that, knows that they also recommend Crying it out if baby doesnt self soothe after first 5 min of putting them in their bed. Basically I've decided this is the way to go for us, I can't take anymore.... I'm so sleep deprived and so emotionally and physically drained that I'm afraid that I'm now going to loose my patience and harm her in some way because of it....
She wakes up almost every hour, sometimes hour and a half to two hours at night, wanting to see if Im there and have me pat her bum back to sleep... She also still wants to breast feed before bedtime and then also twice a night. I can handle twice a night wakings!! But thats not what she does... she wakes SO many times and if I refuse her a feed like last night at 1h00, she kept us up till 4h00am with constant waking and crying till I gave in and fed her.

So ladies.... my question/request is: Please would you share your sleep training experiences with me and any tips or motivational stories? I really, really need this... I'm scared I'm being so unfair towards her, I HATE the way she cries when I leave her there, she gets hysterical sometimes! I then go in and pat and ssshhhh her a bit, but she keeps on screaming... so WTH then?? Do you really just turn around and leave again?? I need help. Please.