P.S. I know its been forever since I've posted and I have a lot to update on, no worries it's coming...I don't know when but it will come soon :)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Help with Sleep!!
Yes I need sleep, but this post is more to ask for advice or suggestions on what you do to help your children/babies sleep at night. Lucy will be nine months old next week (crazy I know!) but she still wakes up multiple times in the night. We've tried the crying thing....it doesn't work, she just gets more and more worked up and will cry for hours if we let her. So we don't :). We've tried picking her up and putting her back to sleep then laying her down in her crib. But by the time I'm back in bed she's awake and crying again. So after about an hour and a half of this I give in and she comes to bed with us. She sleeps great, but I don't. I'm selfish about my bed, I'll admit it, I like to sleep with only one person, that is Devin. I really want to help Lucy self-soothe and put herself to sleep at night without nursing or sleeping with us, before the baby comes. So if any of you have tried something other than these two things I am ALL EARS! :) Thanks!
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It's popular "wisdom" that babies sleep through the night at 3 months, but it usually isn't true. Most kids don't really sleep through the night completely until they are 3 years old, and forcing them to can actually give them long-term psychological hangups.
ReplyDeleteThat said, most of my kids have started wanting to come to bed with me when they were 9 months old, too. A couple of solutions that have helped us: ditch the crib. Put her on a big girl mattress on the floor (not in a big bed where she'll get hurt when she falls out). Leave her door open and let her crawl into your room when she needs you, and then take her back to her bed and lay down with her for a few minutes (or until she's asleep) on HER bed. Soon she'll get the idea that you are accessible on her terms, and that her bed is safe and comfy like yours, and she'll settle into her own space better. At 9 months, kids develop the idea that you can be inaccessible, and it's traumatic to them to be stuck where they can't get you. So giving her freedom to get you is comforting and will help her sleep.
Another option is to make her a bed from blankets on the floor in your room. Even if she falls asleep in your bed, you can plop her on the floor and she'll probably stay asleep. Plus then you can soothe her before she wakes fully up without getting out of bed yourself. This is the option we end up using most often. Just make sure she can't slide UNDER your bed. That gets tricky.
Also, sometime in the 6- to 9-month range, babies develop adult sleep patterns, and some also start having nightmares or just being scared of the dark. So she might be soothed by a nightlight.
She also might be growing. You could stick a bottle in her bed so she can get herself a snack in the middle of the night without waking you. (It's not good for her teeth, but some of us decide we'll deal with that later.)
one of the most consistent things i read on sleep was to create a bedtime routine. You have to be willing to do it every night around the same time. For example:
ReplyDeleteBath
Book
Bottle
Bed
is the most common, but for blake we usually end with some songs. Doing this every night lets them know that it is bedtime. This technique takes a while to start working especially if they are older. If you are willing to stick with it, it really works. Kids love repetition and consistency.
Also quite time about an hour before they go to bed. That last hour they are awake make sure the lights are dim, its quite and you can only do quite things with them like read book, sing songs, play with soft toys. nothing stimulating like TV, bright or loud toys.
I did these with blake before i made him cry it out so the cry it out wouldn't be so bad and it totally worked. He has never cried it out for more then 20 min but i also waited until he was sooo tired before putting him down. crying it out is hard because you never let them if they are sick or teething or anything like that. You have to constantly re-teach them and its so sad:( i still hate it, but for blake at least ive found its the best.
In Conclusion (just incase all of my rambling didn't make sense) first do a bedtime routine (every night!) with dim lights and quite time then when they are so tired they can barley keep their eyes open put them in their crib.
Hopefully this helps i know every kid is different it took me forever to figure out what worked for blake. So maybe you can use some bits and pieces from everyone to figure out what will work best for lucy.
Good luck!
Ha ha sorry that was brittany not tanner.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments guys. You gave me some ideas of what might work for Lucy!
ReplyDelete