[NYCMel]

my 7 month year old is still not sleeping through the night. we just moved to HK so i know the first 2 weeks is jetlag. since then we've been doing the controlled crying method of not picking him up, but letting him know we are there. it seems like less harsh than the ferber method. anyone else having these issues? he goes down for bed like clockwork, but then wakes up after 5/6 hrs and it takes an hour and half for him to go back down, then he wakes up again after 3 hours....is he just a horrible sleeper and i should accept it? any other methods that have worked for people?

[carang]

both of my kids began waking up again when they turned around 6 months. they would roll over or even sit up in their sleep and not know exactly how to get themselves back to sleep.

the problem with crying it out is that it can sometimes wake the child up completely, where as a quick cuddle and the child will be back to sleep in 5 minutes, the crying it out can take an hour or more. (only my experience) besides the fact that i just do not have the heart to leave the child to cry it out.


my mantra for being a mum.... WHATEVER WORKS FOR YOU!
so do just that... find out what works for you and forget what everyone else is doing.

[NYCMel]

so true..our son is everywhere in the crib now - standing up, crawling and flipping every which way....thanks for the advice!

[mel_g20]

Hi,

7 months is still pretty young to be sleeping through, although I am sure that you will be feeling like many people you know do have babies that sleep through the night.

My 2, didnt really sleep through until they were almost 12 months old. When I started training them, then initially I started getting them used to going to sleep on their own, without aids (patting, pacifiers etc) for the 7.30pm sleep. I would use controlled crying. For my son I would go in every 5, 10, 15 minutes (it never want passed 30 minutes in total), for my daughter I would go in every 2, 3, 4, 5 etc minutes (she would get herself really worked up otherwise). I would simply go in, and say hush, night night time, hush (gently)After a few nights they were happy to go to sleep on their own.

Then I said I would not feed them until after a set time. Say 1am. Then following the same controlled crying process, I would help them go back to sleep. After afew nights they would sleep through until about 4am, sometimes 5am. For this wake up time, I never had the heart to let them cry, so would generally feed them, and hope they would go back to sleep. If it was 5am, then generally they wouldnt.

You have to do what you most feel comfortable with. I also found I had to adjust my technique to the different personality of my second child. The most important thing was they had to learn to fall asleep by themself and without any aids. Good luck.

[NYCMel]

thanks! my son goes down easily at 7pm. he wakes up at 12am and that's when i do controlled crying, but he's crawling @ now in the crib and i has so much trouble putting himself back to sleep. did you pick up your 2nd baby?

[mel_g20]

If I ever picked up my second child then I ended up right back where I started, with her refusing to go to sleep.

What we had to do was go in, never pick her up, but say lie down, then hush, gently and slowly afew times, and maybe pat her on the back - and then leave. Then keep going back after an inclearing intervals. After a while we could just put our head through the door and say hush, and she would lie down. I still sometimes have to do it now in the middle of the night. (She is 20 months) If I ever take her out of bed then we have difficulties again putting her to bed. I will only pick her up if she is sick. She just seems to need to know I am around. She is the same in the daytime too. Very much a mummies girl.

[rach]

I had similar problems when my son was 8 months but i had breastfeed then rocked or carried to sleep and always picked him up in the night. So i tried differnt things - i let him cry while i was in the room and it took an hour the first night (for the 7pm sleep) then quicker each night - not sure he even knew iwas there. then was the issue of not picking him up in the night - some ways that was harder - it took nearly two hours of crying (stop and start) and me standing there soothing him explaining - i felt terrible but it worked and i was with him the whole time - i had to do it he was heavy and needed more sleep!

naps were another issue but what worked in the end was baby whisperer pick up and put down. basically when they stand lie them back down saying same things eventually they don't get up and you can comfort if ]really upset

[Sleuth]

Ours had problems sleeping through the night until we started letting him take long naps during the day. Not that we were waking him up from naps during the day, but it seemed that we always had the baby out and about during one of his naps.
As soon as we had him home for two naps/day, he started sleeping through the nights.