I am in sleep-training hell. Over the course of the last 3 1/2 years we have tried every trick in the book. "Happiest Baby on the Block" shhhhsh-ing; white noise; patting, cooing, swaddling till, ohhhhh, 10 months...! All of it. My husband and I are not the most consistent or persistent of people in terms of schedules for our kids so we often tried things for a certain amount of time and then sort of let things lay. But now, with three monsters underfoot, life is almost unmanageable without a rigorous schedule for naps and nighttime so here we are, fish out of water again. How can it be that, after almost 4 years and 3 attemps to "do it right," we find ourselves in this position of having to learn and re-learn the most basic components of raising children?!
Don't get me wrong, it's not like I think we should be experts. But it's almost hilarious to me, in my current tenure of a mom, to ge Googling things like "how much should a 5 month old sleep." How quickly we forget! Just another reminder that every single baby, and every single situation is differnt, unique, and, let's face it, challenging.
At this point, I can see the light at the end of my child-bearing tunnel. I am 99.999999 % positive I will not be having any other kids (I am not so foolish as to say I am 100% sure of anything, ever). My eldest is a person now, no longer a baby. My husband and I have firmly established and buttressed our lives and identities post-baby. But I haven't gotten consistent, uninterrupted sleep in over a year and a half. On days when I get something resembling decent sleep I can tangibly feel my brain working better. As such, I am going to resort to all caps in relation to the next couple days (weeks?) of sleep-training hell and say BRING IT ON, I am so ridiculously ready to have full mental functioning back, to be able to round this bend in the tunnel, take care of my kids, and re-enter the world of the not pregnant and not looking to be, to get real sleep and know I can expect real sleep from here on out, my family being complete.
SOOOOOO, if any of you guys have any advice for a mom of 3 in the midst of some hard-core sleep training PLEASE let me know. I and my sanity will thank you...!
Deepa is a wife, mother, writer and she sometimes masquerades as a lawyer as well. She revels in friendship, humor, champagne, and laughing at herself--often. She never ever reads US Magazine, thinks Rushdie is a genius, wishes she could write one sentence as funny as "Arrested Development," and lives in the Bay Area with her motley crew. She can be reached at deviswithbabies@gmail.com
good luck!!!
consistency is key, good luck!
we never trained and our two (2 1/2 and 4) are doing fine, to each his own.
two words: sleep trainer. i mean it, some things are best left to experts!
my advice? don't do it, especially if you are doing CIO. it's really torture, why would you give a child the idea that if she is crying yuo won't pick her up?
sleep training, in my opinion, is one of the many things parents do for themselves more than for their children. don't get me wrong, i am thinking about it (my little one is 3 months old) but it DOES seem cruel and its not like people in previous generations worried about training as anally as we do now right? they will grow up and sleep.
has anyone tried a sleep trainer? i am at my wits end and am thinking about it but would love insight.
@ above poster: do you really think it's cruel? from everything i have heard or seen, kids on schedules actually sleep better than when we let them sleep "when they want to"? asking only genuinely since i am pregnant now and not sure which approach i am going to take.
Was going to say the same thing, even if "training" isn't for everybody I think it's a little dramatic to call it cruel or torture or whatnot. Every family is different and needs different things, sometimes when my mom is in town I can see her thinking I am too set in my schedule with my daughter but she also realizes that I need to do what works for me.
The topic that never dies! Who wouldn't give up something for more sleep? And I agree with the person above who says that babies who sleep on a schedule are usually better sleepers later. GOOD LUCK! let us know how it goes, I hear the first day is the worst but who knows when you ahve three of them?!?! are you training all at the same time? Is "D" trained?
thank you for letting us see you aren't perfect, sometimes i wonder!
do it, you will NOT regret it
i'm ashamed to admit i agree with above poster about cracks in your armor, it's nice to know you are going through the same things as the rest of us!
some weird comments today??? GOOD LUCK!!! if possible, get your husband to do some of the heavy lifting???
Cara: After over a year of sleepless nights we did bite the bullet and hire a sleep trainer. BEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE. can't explain the difference it makes when an outside force comes in and gives you a schedule and imposes an order on a situation that has gotten out of hand. within 4 days, our life was drastically different!
Have you tried co-sleeping?
While pregnant, I wasn't quite sure about the sleep training thing. At about 3 months, I was seriously considering it.
But as you know, parents need to be consistent. The effort to maintain a rigid schedule is worse combined with lack of sleep. We gave up on that and tried co-sleeping instead. Things turned out to be much better.
Have to put my two cents in if co-sleeping is brought up. Can't tell you the difference it made when we got our DD out of our bed. It works for a while, especially for nursing, but after that, we've found that the babies sleep better in their own space. There is definitely a cultural component at play though because in India babies co=sleep sometimes, well, forever, no??
Try the Ferber method. It works. Yes its hard, but it works. Our friends have trained their kids in 3-5 days and now the kids fall asleep on their own when they are drowsy. It is VERY difficult to listen to them cry and not rush in there to cuddle them. Best advice? Do it when the baby is 6 mos. It makes it go easier than when they're older. This is what I'll be doing for the next one! :P
The things that's worked the best for us is a good bedtime routine and consistancy. I never wanted to be the inflexible mother who HAS to be home by 8pm for the kids' bedtime, but for two weeks that's exactly what I did....we started out bedtime routine around 7:15pm with our 8 mth twins - gave baths, changed into PJs, drank milk, read books, brushed teeth, did our prayers, turned on music the room, gave kisses, and laid them in their cribs. If they cried, I'd take them out and rick them a bit and put them back. If that didn't work, then I'd let them CIO, luckily didn't have to mouch. (CIO is torture, for the parents, but I do think it works.) We did this consistantly for at least two weeks, and now they know what to expect and happily walk to their cribs after prayer. And now we can be more flexible about the time and length of the routine when we need to.
Does anybody have success stories that do NOT involve crying it out? I just don't think I can do it.
Also, Deepa, like you I have three kids (though my youngest is already 1) and only now does it seem unmanageable, with 2 schedules sort of evolved.
Thanks for all the good luck wishes! I am half way into day one of training the littlest ones and...dude...it's HARD. That being said, it's already clear that my youngest (5 months) is going to be much easier than my middle one (1 1/2 years), which makes me wish I did this earlier. Sleep: You will be mine.
As for sleep trainers: We actually did hire one--we had an initial consultant with her yesterday and she laid out the plan for the week and walked us through all the contingencies. She came with the highest recommendation from good friends of ours and if it hadn't been for that, I don't know if I would have gone this route...but I'm glad I did.
Thanks again!
Ah so you DID go the sleep trainer route! would love to hear more detail! And I take it that your eldest is already trained which is good?
First juice cleanses now sleep trainers: I'm just going to copy you. Can you let me know where you got the name of a good sleep trainer? I am in Connecticut.
We saw a great deal of success with a modified Ferber method as recommended by our pediatrician. We started at around 4 to 5 months when the doctor said the baby could go all night without eating.
Our baby went to sleep on his own with no crying on the third day. The longest he's ever cried was the first day (about 40 minutes, with us going in and consoling him - but not picking him up - every 5 minutes or so).
I am convinced that it is really good for him. He now sleeps 11 to 13 hours per night, uninterrupted, and about 1.5 hours at naptime. He's so joyful all day long because he's well-rested. Of course, we're more joyful too because we're well-rested!
Training for naptime was harder than training for nighttime because it's harder to tell when he's drowsy in the daytime and there are so many other variables compared to bedtime (when he last ate, etc.).
Good luck - e-mail me if you want any more detailed advice because it worked amazingly well for us and we're big fans of sleep training...
Depends on the baby too. My first one was a nightmare..clingy and needy. I breastfed for 13 months and coslept, and initially it was OK because I would just nurse her to sleep. Once that was over..hell. I used to be in tears after walking her around the room (and she was no featherweight) for up to AN HOUR and trying to put her down only to have her jerk awake and clutch me. She's still a pretty lousy sleeper, at 4.5 years of age. Needs someone to cuddle up with constantly.
Younger one is a year and 3 months and completely different. Doesn't like to be cuddled or held while she sleeps. Is content in her crib. Does take a pacifier though. We give it to her and she fusses and cries sometimes, but I have learned my lesson. I pat her, but on no account do I walk her around the room. She still wakes up at night occasionally, but I don't mind that so much. I wish I had hired a sleep consultant with the first one but I had never even heard of such a thing! And the INdian thing does make it worse....grandmothers and aunts were horrified at the idea of CIO.