Bedtime Oh Bedtime

[mamabutt2]

As I'm trying to get my 7 week old darling to stop screaming in my ear long enough to realize sleep is a wonderful idea, I'm frantically looking to Dr. Google for magical ways to just get. This. Kid. To. Freaking. Sleep! And I came across this article on Science of a Mom.

If ya'll are like me, maybe not, but hearing your child scream nonstop at bedtime is the most stressful, irritating, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound. Am-I-right?

Reading this article helped me to not stress out so bad about his nighttime crying. Maybe it'll help someone else.

What did you guys think of her ideas on infant sleep?

scienceofmom.com/2012/04/03/6-little-secrets-of-a-sleeping-baby/

[cougarette]

Oh man, I've been dealing with this tonight. I was starting to wonder if 4.5 weeks is too early to let him CIO. (It should go without saying that I did not actually do this. Though I did set him in the pnp while I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I had to walk away for a few minutes to get my sanity back).

It's so hard to listen to him cry and not be able to "fix" it. I agree with her sentiment that you feel like a failure.

[allonsy221b]

I can't handle non stop crying. It increases my anxiety because I worry his crying will wake up dh and Dd. Also, I want to sleep too

I don't think letting ds cry would help me, even attempting to soothe him but letting him cry would make me insane.

[kricha2010]

So let's refresh this topic. I've got two littles. DD is 5ish weeks. I'm struggling with bedtime. We have no routine established yet. For these reasons. 1. DH works second shift so I'm on my own at night. 2. DS has to be put to bed and i try my best to keep his routine the same. And 3. She seems to take a short nap sometime between 5 and 7 every night. So when She calls asleep For the night varies. Between 8. and 10.
Are you all sticking to schedules with Your new little ones or are you still fflexible? I'm going back to work in less than 2 weeks and feeling like I'm unsure of this routine/ non routine we have.

[mels823]

I'm back to work next week with no real routine either :/ I'm trying to get lo's bedtime closer to 9. Right now it's usually 10. Not sure when it's supposed to be even earlier? She also naps around the same time, 5 to 6 or 7, every night so an earlier bedtime just doesn't make sense yet. I'm a ftm so I'm just making this up as I go along!

[kricha2010]

mels823 what's throwing me is that i still have to do routine with my son... And then create one for her too? Should sure be earlier? Later? I just am stuck. Especially with no help in the evening. I don't think i worried about it too much with my son. We just eventually feel2into a routine. Maybe that's how things happen with #2 too.

[lilyelayne]

kricha2010 I'm a FTM but my SIL had 2 under 2 (now nephew1 will be 3 in June and nephew2 will be 2 in August) and once she got bedtime routines for both boys, she put the baby down first. Their routine when nephew2 was still young enough for a bottle was something like shared bath time, pajamas, nephew1 gets a cup of milk while she goes into nephew2's room for bottle & rocking him to sleep. Once nephew2 is in his crib, then she takes nephew1 to his room for a bedtime book and to tuck him in.

It really depends on if your older one can be unsupervised while you put the baby down & what time each of them goes down. Good luck!

[junebugjam]

I'm jealous of everyone with a good bedtime or even nap routine. My LO is still just napping whenever. I've tried keeping him up in late evening to make bedtime easier, but if he's tired he'll just scream and it makes everyone miserable so I let him sleep. He's a terrible napper though and it's rare that he'll sleep longer than an hour at once during the day.

For bedtime I can usually get him to sleep around 9 or 9:30, but I only get one long stretch of sleep out of him (3-3.5 hours usually) and then he's up a lot after that. Last night it was roughly every hour from 2 - 7 am. Exhausting.

[anchovies]

I don't have a good routine yet either. DS is 6w3d and we aim for a bath between 7&7:30, then I feed him and rock him. I can usually lay him down in his rock n play by 9:30.

I want to start to read him a book but I think I'll start that when we transition to the crib.

[fishes]

As soon as I was smugly thinking sleep training is going to be soooo much easier this time around - DS2 started fighting sleep at night like his life depended on it. And I just realized that maybe I should start paying attention to his schedule. But of course since last night was so rough, he's been sleeping all day.

(I'm not really doing sleep training yet, BTW, but I did read the Lull-A-Baby sleep book, which, although there's some stuff I don't agree with or pay attention to, but the general idea that starting good habits early can help us avoid CIO later sounds good to me. Except that bad habits are so much easier short term )

[mamabutt2]

Sorry for the post and run, LO has been extra cranky lately. He is 7 weeks and although he is pretty good about going down for his naps on his own (10a- 12p and then again from 2p-4, sometimes 5p) he sometimes fights it for up to an hour and a half before he goes to sleep. He always goes to sleep o n the boob and when I transfer him to the bassinet, he immediately wakes and screams for another 10 minutes or longer before falling asleep on the boob again. Rinse and repeat. Same story at night also. Lay him in the bassinet sleepy but awake, immediately wide away......and screaming. Til he's put on the boob again. I don't know what to do and its exhausting and frustrating.

[mishka29]

Apr 1, 2015 16:20:34 GMT -5 fishes said:

As soon as I was smugly thinking sleep training is going to be soooo much easier this time around - DS2 started fighting sleep at night like his life depended on it. And I just realized that maybe I should start paying attention to his schedule. But of course since last night was so rough, he's been sleeping all day.

(I'm not really doing sleep training yet, BTW, but I did read the Lull-A-Baby sleep book, which, although there's some stuff I don't agree with or pay attention to, but the general idea that starting good habits early can help us avoid CIO later sounds good to me. Except that bad habits are so much easier short term )

Hey fishes! What are some of the good habits that the book recommends?

[anchovies]

Apr 1, 2015 17:24:00 GMT -5 mamabutt2 said:

Sorry for the post and run, LO has been extra cranky lately. He is 7 weeks and although he is pretty good about going down for his naps on his own (10a- 12p and then again from 2p-4, sometimes 5p) he sometimes fights it for up to an hour and a half before he goes to sleep. He always goes to sleep o n the boob and when I transfer him to the bassinet, he immediately wakes and screams for another 10 minutes or longer before falling asleep on the boob again. Rinse and repeat. Same story at night also. Lay him in the bassinet sleepy but awake, immediately wide away......and screaming. Til he's put on the boob again. I don't know what to do and its exhausting and frustrating.

This was DS until about 2 weeks ago. I don't know if it's because we switched to trying to have him sleep in the rock n play or because we started supplementing. It seems like he doesn't feel the need to be attached to me as his sole source of food.

He was also diagnosed with reflux, so I think the incline helps.

[fishes]

Apr 1, 2015 21:53:28 GMT -5 mishka29 said:

Apr 1, 2015 16:20:34 GMT -5 fishes said:

As soon as I was smugly thinking sleep training is going to be soooo much easier this time around - DS2 started fighting sleep at night like his life depended on it. And I just realized that maybe I should start paying attention to his schedule. But of course since last night was so rough, he's been sleeping all day.

(I'm not really doing sleep training yet, BTW, but I did read the Lull-A-Baby sleep book, which, although there's some stuff I don't agree with or pay attention to, but the general idea that starting good habits early can help us avoid CIO later sounds good to me. Except that bad habits are so much easier short term )

Hey fishes! What are some of the good habits that the book recommends?

The main point of the book is just get them to fall asleep in the crib, not before you set them down. And you can do pretty much anything to help them fall asleep, talking, patting, white noise, swaddling, pacifier for the first part of the night (because of SIDS, but don't replace it after they drop it because of the whole sleep prop thing). Because she recommends starting with little babies, saying that the "window" between when they first start to smile until they start to sit up is the time when the are establishing their sleep habits (and then after that you have to work harder to retrain them), she also says to let them fuss and whine but pick them up and calm them back down when they start crying.  And like every single sleep book it talks about putting them to bed at the right time, when they're sleepy but not overtired, and having a relaxing, predictable routine.

thats pretty much the whole book right there. So, I don't know, I'm probably not following it right when I turn on the vibrating part of the RnP or rock him a little - but at least I'm not holding him, right? And so far his "bedtime routine" is just putting on pjs and being swaddled. I think I might try switching him to the PnP once we move in a couple weeks, and just use the RnP for naps.

i think their personality plays a huge role though. So while DS1 was the type that was wide awake if you set them down and refused to fall asleep if he wasn't in contact with someone, and even if he fell asleep on you, if your breathing changed at all he would wake up - DS2 is the type to fall asleep halfway through nursing and sometimes a diaper change won't wake him up enough to continue, let alone still be awake after burping and being set down. I really want to avoid the fight I had with DS1 to get any sleep for the next 2 years, but I also think that even if I do have to let Ds2 CIO later on - he probably won't put up as much of a fuss. I hope.