Comforting at night

[GOmamab15]

Can anyone's DH comfort at night? I'm a one trick pony (boob) I always just feed him again, which is probably still fine since he's so young but I know eventually he'll be able to go longer in between meals and in theory he shouldn't be nursed to bed every night & every time he wakes up.
What do you do to soothe, if you're not sleep training and just want to get them back asleep? Any 5 S tricks for older non-swaddled babes? Particularly what does your H do to soothe?

[sandandsea]

Sorry wrong post on tt.

DH comforts by pacing and bouncing him. We've started trying to not pick him up and just plop the paci back in which works sometimes. I will feed once or twice a night but not more.

[babyzebra]

MH is fairly successful getting DD to calm down by rocking her. She's a pretty easy baby though.

With DS, we tried all the 5S's and nothing really worked all that well. DH and I were equally bad at getting him to calm down. We eventually sleep trained at around 9 or 10 months because nothing worked for us. DS did take a paci though and that helped him tremendously.

[pbandj714]

Usually the pacifier is why they wake, so he'll just pop it back in. If they're still mad after a couple times he'll pick them up and rock and shush. If they're still not happy and it's not a diaper issue, it's bottle time. 90% of the time the paci does the trick though.

[bgkc4]

DH is so much better than I am at getting DD to sleep. He's not as hands-on during the day, but we call him the Sandman at home because he has an amazing ability to get her to sleep at night. With lights out and noise machine on, he cradles her/rocks her with the paci in while playing this a very slow version of Twinkle Twinkle on his phone. He does it every night so it's become a routine, and I think the consistency helps. In the middle of the night he feeds her one bottle if she gets up crying. If she wakes more than once, he'll try to give her the paci without picking her up. That works about 50% of the time. If that doesn't work, he takes her out the crib and rocks her to sleep again.

[origamimommy]

Just me. My dude is a total mama's boy stage 5 clinger. I nurse him back to sleep every time. And every night, we alternate bedtime for DS1 (because he asks me to do it, and he is also my baby) and last night I was doing bedtime for DS1 and DS2 was asleep, but woke up crying. H went in to soothe and it just pissed him off more. We had to switch, and I felt terrible because DS1 started crying for me. H can calm and soothe him though, he is 4.

[titania]

DH is really bad at MOTN comforting. He can put her to sleep for the night and usually does fine with naps, but in the middle of the night he just makes things worse when he tries. I usually end up feeding her or cradling her with a pacifier to get her to go back down - mostly feeding her.

[athn64]

DH just pokes me or yells. He is not helpful MOTN

[mladerri]

Dh can't sooth at any point in the day and sleeps in the basement at night. Last night I put ds to sleep and handed him to dh then I went to check on my older son. 2 min later I hear ds crying. I waited 5 min to let my husband try to figure it out but ds kept getting louder and more upset so I came out and took him. He stopped crying instantly (smh). I asked dh what woke him up and he said oh I laid him down. I said all you had to do was hold him until I came back out. So I got to put him to sleep twice last night (oh and the other 5 times he woke up in the motn).

[mladerri]

origamimommy twins! I felt bad for my older son last night too. He finally got his mama time and it was cut short. Poor little dude.

[GOmamab15]

Ok so I'm not alone at least. bgkc4 would your H be interested in teaching a seminar on being a Sandman?

[greysonsmom]

I really try not to nurse her before 5 am, I know she can go that long so that's my rule. Of course sometimes there are exceptions. First I try just rubbing/patting her back, if that doesn't work rock her.

[ArgyleEnigma]

Since he generally wakes every three or four hours ish, and it's fairly consistent, he still gets fed every time ( bottle or breast). And after that, he usually requires some bouncing to go back to sleep. MH does the same number of wakeups as me, plus or minus.

If we feed him less than he wants, he is content but will not sleep.

On the rare occasion he wakes up after only an hour or two, 100-200 bounces (we count) do the trick.

[mladerri]

greysonsmom I'm going to try and just rock ds to sleep during one of his wake ups and not give him the boob. Maybe it'll tell him hey I should sleep more since I don't get the boob every time. Thanks for the advice!

[Stringy]

I wander in telling myself I won't feed her. But then when I pick her up (if the pacifier isn't doing it) she attacks my boobs. So clearly hungry all the damn time!

[manybellsdown]

Nov 22, 2016 21:55:18 GMT -5 Stringy said:

I wander in telling myself I won't feed her. But then when I pick her up (if the pacifier isn't doing it) she attacks my boobs. So clearly hungry all the damn time!

sounds about right

My H has been able to calm him a handful of times. I usually only make him go in if I've just nursed DS and put him down but sleep did not take. He rocks amd sings to him. I'm always the happiest clam on the block if his intervention works.

ArgyleEnigma, counting the rocks? Does it help? Do you stop after 200 and try something else? I might fall asleep

[GOmamab15]

ArgyleEnigma I totally tried counting the bounces last night. Thought of you.
Didn't work. But at least it kept me entertained.

[woodengirl07]

DH just doesn't have the patience. He just feeds her and gets her down asap and she just gets mad!

[ArgyleEnigma]

Counting the bounces keeps me from going crazy-- has it been 3 minutes? 15? An hour?-- and also prevents me from escalating to more and more bounces and making bad habits.

[Stringy]

So how does one stop this every two hours shit. I'm dying.

[ArgyleEnigma]

Nov 26, 2016 6:43:47 GMT -5 Stringy said:

So how does one stop this every two hours shit. I'm dying.

First thing to try, if you haven't already, is giving her the biggest bottle she'll take right before bed. They can sleep much longer when stuffed. I gave Bear like 3-4 ounces after his goodnight nursing, and he skipped a feeding subsequently.

[ArgyleEnigma]

I know others try nursing as often as you can leading up to bed. Variation on the same theme. Didn't work for us, though, my evening supply is unimpressive and we needed the bottle.

[Stringy]

Nov 26, 2016 10:02:47 GMT -5 @cheeze said:

Nov 26, 2016 6:43:47 GMT -5 Stringy said:

So how does one stop this every two hours shit. I'm dying.

I'm sorry. It's exhausting, I know. 

Is baby hungry or just waking Up? 
How are daytime feeds? Push for daytime calories, and frequent feeds before bed. 
Also how are naps? Sleep begets sleep. I'm a huge believer in that after all the shit sleep we had with ds1. I'm following a  strict sleep schedule with ds2  and its paying off. 

Can an someone else handle soothing to sleep, maybe every second wake up? Then baby will learn that feeds are not always going to be had. 

Sorry for all the questions. 

She's hungry but I feel like she shouldn't be this hungry. Her naps are short. I don't know how to make them longer. She naps like 4-5 times a day for 30 mins. Some days one stretches to an hour. She is distracted at the boob so we often go in her room and then she's better.

She puts herself to sleep for about half the naps and at bed unless she falls asleep nursing. But even then she's not an out cold transfer.

Currently she has a cold and maybe teething so she's miserable anyway. So no hope. I could try a bottle too before bed but I don't have a lot of extra stash so that stresses me out.

[Stringy]

@cheeze tell me about the sleep schedule. We suffered for two years with DD1 and I've tried hard to not do it again. But other than getting her to initially fall asleep easier I think I've failed.

[greysonsmom]

Stringy you can also try cutting the amount of time you are nursing motn and then eventually cutting that session out.

[Stringy]

So @cheeze we aren't far from that schedule when I put in her wakeup and a 5 month old. She's usually up 2-3 hours in between. But what happens if the nap is 30 minutes or less and she can't make it three hours til the next? Do you keep them up til the time or adjust? I always adjust but then it's a different schedule every day.

[Stringy]

Nov 26, 2016 19:59:59 GMT -5 @cheeze said:

Stringy, I'm following the 6m schedule and I had started following those times minus 15mins, except for the first nap time. I'm now tweaking the times to be closer to the suggested time.
I would adjust, but try to stay consistent. I wonder if there are too many naps? Is she fighting any? When I dropped nap #4, bedtime moved up considerably.

She's in bed between 7 and 730 at night and wakeup is usually about 12 hour later. Tho sometimes she wakes at 6, perfectly happily, and chats in her crib alone for a half hour and falls back to sleep. Never does that in the Motn. So I dunno what to count that as.

Anyway I'm not good at being a schedule person and our day care situation makes it tricky (different grandparents/parents daily) tho certainly not impossible. Maybe I'll try it tomorrow and Monday while I'm still the main caregiver.