“So is he a good baby?” Another shopper casually asks while purring over my now 6 month old son.
I hate that question. I put on a brilliant smile and say, “Absolutely! Although he does get up every 3 hours in the night to eat.”
She says, “Oh my!” and tries to abscond her momentary horror.
Sleep is definitely an issue… our issue. Baby Gabe is six months old and still gets up every 3 hours to eat. He won’t go to sleep in his crib except for on those infrequent occasions when he drifts off as I cup his face in my hand and he turns his head and gently presses his nose into my palm as if he wants to breathe my skin right into his being.
This probably all started when I went back to work. He was three months old at the time. I was so exhausted by all of the night feedings, the early morning wake up, and lugging 5 bags back and forth from school that I decided I would nurse Gabriel in bed at night and if we fell asleep together… so be it. Sometimes I would put him back in the pack n play next to our bed and sometimes I wouldn’t. It was an absolutely delicious experience. There’s nothing in this life so wonderful as sharing sleep with your infant child. In order to get more sleep by reducing night wakings that involved getting up out of bed, he started spending more and more time in bed with us.
Up until recently, Gabriel was able to fall asleep in about 15 minutes in his crib with me cupping his face in my hand or standing nearby. However, now that he is obsessed with rolling over, he cannot go to sleep in his crib as he rolls from side to side, does push ups, and bats at his crib toy. He will do this for hours (2 to be exact). He cries after 15-30 minutes because he is so tired but cannot stop moving long enough to fall asleep. I found that he does the same thing in bed with me unless I hold him in the crook of my arm and grasp his little arm with my hand and gently hold it down so that he can’t explore my face (which seems to be a source of endless pleasure).
We tried the Ferber Method (Cry-It-Out or CIO) for 2 nights in a row. The first night took 2.5 hours until he fell asleep. And yes, he was crying hysterically. The second night took 1. 5 hours. He was so congested that he was having trouble breathing.
B.F. Skinner was the pioneer of behavior modification in the field psychology. He saw behavior as a functional response to an environmental prompt. I couldn’t agree with him more. Babies cry because they need something whether it be a physical or emotional need. Richard Ferber utilizes the same theory in his CIO methodology. In order to help babies fall asleep and stay asleep on their own, Ferber teaches parents to allow the child to cry for specified amounts of time without fulfilling their need (to be soothed). The thought is that the baby will learn to “soothe” him/herself. My problem lies not in the validity of the theory but in whether it is beneficial to the baby. Is it detrimental for a baby to be in ‘panic mode’ for extended periods of time? I’m not so concerned about Gabriel whimpering and calling for me or even crying. The thing that really bothers me about this whole sleep training issue is that my baby (and the neighbor baby) cries hysterically during the sleep training.
Allowing my baby to cry hysterically goes against every maternal instinct I have. I’ve read Dr. Sears’ “The Baby Book” and Elizabeth Pantley’s “No Cry Sleep Solution.” Although I agree with their theories and see their methodologies as more beneficial to the baby, I have encountered some difficulties.
- The “No Cry Sleep Solution” does not predict fast results and is very time intensive. It’s more of a life style of engendering good sleep habits.
- Pantley’s solution requires record keeping that will challenge any sleep deprived parent.
- Dr. Sears’ nighttime parenting focuses all of it’s attention on meeting the needs of the baby.
- We’ve found that co-sleeping is difficult in a queen size bed for us as our son is 21.5 lbs and has started to kick and punch during the night.
What does my husband say? You’ll have to ask him. Although I will say that he suggested that I bring Gabriel into our bed last night after 1.5 hours of hysterical crying and 3 night wakings every hour after that (with hysterical crying). He and the baby were both traumatized.
Just in case you’re interested, Gabe only wakes up frequently in the early evening and the early morning. Later at night he only wakes up to eat and will go back to sleep immediately. I can transfer him to his crib easily after a feeding. As far as his developing personality goes, he seems to be a timid child as he cries easily when presented with new situations such as entering a pool or getting close to a dog. He has also recently become afraid of the sound of the vacuum. My husband and I were both very timid as children.
And so the saga continues…
6 Comments
August 1, 2008 at 7:23 am
My daughter also wakes frequently in the evening. I usually put her to bed on our bed, get a few things done before her first waking, and then spend the rest of the evening with her on my lap at my computer blogging and surfing! I can just nurse her back to sleep and then get up again, but she almost always wakes up again if I do that. But she sleeps and sleeps and sleeps if she’s on my lap.
Other than the evenings, she is a pretty good sleeper. But I’ve stopped paying attention to whether or how often she wakes up. I blogged about it here: http://phdinparenting.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/does-she-sleep-through-the-night
Cry it out is just not something I’m willing to do at all. Ever.
August 1, 2008 at 9:49 am
Oh, I feel your exhaustion.
My baby woke at least three times a night for two and a half years. We didn’t believe in letting him cry, because we knew he needed help back to sleep. First it was nursing, then teething and nursing, then separation anxiety and nursing, then separation anxiety, then nightmares, then who-the-hell-knows. He always went to sleep fine–quietly, happily, alone, without help. But he couldn’t stay asleep for more than three hours.
And I stopped talking to the people who said there was something I was doing wrong.
All the research I did said that some kids just don’t sleep through the night until age two. In other coutries they don’t even expect babies to sleep until age two. A small percentage more wait until three to sleep through. But all kids eventually sleep through the night, when their brains are ready.
I’m so, so sorry you’re losing sleep. It’s tough. It made me crazy, mean, and emotionally unbalanced to have a wakeful child. 27 months. 27 months I went without more than three hours at a stretch.
And I could only be friends with other sleepless parents, because it was so awful to have people give us suggestions we’d already tried or that went against our instincts.
Baby will sleep.
I just can’t tell you when.
I can tell you you’re not alone. And you’re a good mom. And baby will sleep.
You’re not alone. You’re a good mom. Baby will sleep.
This is not a copy and paste error. You are not alone. You are a good mom. Your baby will sleep.
September 11, 2008 at 11:01 am
I came across this site after googling “my baby only wants to sleep on my lap” which isn’t actually true…my two-month old only wants to nap on my lap; my DH gets him to sleep at night by cupping his face, holding his arms, and shushing the heck out of him.
But with me during the day, mommy’s lap is the place to be and even then it’s only for a half-hour, 45 mins max before he starts fussing and wanting to be carried…no swing, no bouncy seat, no fancy mobile will do. So I sit with him, watching TV or pecking at my laptop keyboard one-handed (as I am now), dreading having to get something to eat or needing the bathroom — forget about “sleeping when the baby sleeps”. And housework? Ha!
He won’t even sleep on car or stroller rides and what kid doesn’t love to nap in a moving vehicle of some sort?!?
My DD, now four, was a non-napper (as well as a poor nighttime sleeper) and the sleep deprivation sent me into post-partum depression…I seem to have escaped it this time, thankfully, but am still challenged by this little one’s preference for my body as a bed.
Anyway I wanted to write to say thanks to the last commenter, Christine Harkin. The final few lines of her comment saying “You are not alone. You are a good mom. Your baby will sleep.” brought me to tears, especially her assertion that “This is not a copy and paste error. ” Isn’t this exactly what we all need to hear *repeatedly* — instead of yet another suggestion of something that we’ve already tried — to make us understand that being a mom shouldn’t be about beating ourselves up over what’s “wrong” with our children (read: what’s wrong with us as mothers) but about accepting each day as it comes, knowing that the sleep deprivation and all the other frustrations won’t last forever…but also that it’s OK to be frustrated about them now.
That’s how I’m trying to live — some days are easier than others — but it was nice to get that reminder from someone else.
We are all good mothers, just doing the best that we can.
September 11, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Yes, thank you Christine Harkin. Your comment almost brought me to tears as well. I took this long to respond because it’s so hard to believe. Am I really a good mom? It’s been a long journey and we’re still traveling. He’s whimpering on the monitor as I write. It’s been an hour and a half. Here I go… He’s now 7.5 months old and I still don’t sleep more than 3-4 hours at a time.
October 14, 2008 at 1:30 pm
My son is 5.5 months old and we are feeling like bad parents because a) he needs to be nursed to sleep and b) he wakes every 1.5-3 hours in the night. We’ve tried controlled crying but the first night he cried for 2 hours, the second 2.5 hours. We went to him every 10 minutes but he was crying hysterically and I ended up nursing him to sleep. By the third night he was inconsolable even when we picked him up. He is a sensitive child. My husband and I were both hyper sensitive children. I’m so tired of the sleep training advice people give because it just doesn’t work for our son. But we’re also exhausted beyond anything we ever imagined. We hold out hope that some day he will learn to sleep through the night.
November 20, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I totally understand how you feel. My son is now nearly 6 months. Up to 3 months he nursed every 1-2 hours and up to 4.5 months every 2-3 hours day and night. He needs nursing to sleep and rarely sleeps more than 3 hours. In the day he often only naps for 1 hour in 12. He is very happy and smiley and always taking everything in and seems to be developing normally. I need more sleep though! He sleeps at night with me in bed due to the frequent feeding. If I leave him to get himself to sleep or don’t instantly react to his crying on waking he becomes hysterical. In the car he screamed nearly every journey until 4 months. In the night up until 3 months he screamed up to 2 hours and sitting on the birthball and bouncing was the only method but the instant I put him down he cried. I tried a dummy that he spat out. My baby carrier instantly soothes and gets him off to sleep. He has slept 2.5 hours in it.
I have tried bedtime routines, bathes, soothing with pating and rubbing and ’sleep training’. Letting him cry doesnt work for me and his volume just increases.
Last week he decided to sleep 12 hours. I dont know why. I just live in hope he decides to do it again! I just try and take it day by day.