From the very beginning…
Sleeping through the night….NOT
I need some advice. Ian is still not sleeping through the night and he’s 10 months old. He doesn’t receive a bottle during the night. I’m not breastfeeding. He doesn’t get a diaper change either. When he wakes up during the night, we’ll rock until he falls back asleep and then I’ll put him back in his bed. At this point, he’s getting up out of habit and I want to break it. Also, I have never let him cry it out and I don’t plan to start now.
A friend gave me some advice this morning and I did try it tonight, but it seemed like it had the opposite effect. Or maybe that was just because it’s the first night trying it. Either way, instead of rocking him until he fell asleep with a bottle, I gave him diluted formula in his sippy cup. He didn’t seem to like that too much, so we ditched that and started to rock. When I thought he was drowsy, I got up and went to put him in his crib. The first time, he laid there for a moment and then got up and stood in his crib. He cruised around for a bit, jabbering the entire time, and then after 10 minutes he started crying. At this point, we went back to rocking until I thought he had gotten drowsy again. We went back into the bedroom and, again, he immediately woke back up – only this time it seemed to wake him up even more. Finally, we rocked until I thought he was asleep and then I went to put him in bed. He moved around a bit after I laid him in his crib, but he’s still sleeping after 15 minutes.
My main concern is I waited until he fell asleep again because he was fighting me every time he got up after I tried to put him down. For some reason, it seemed he fought me more tonight than usually. This is strange considering he only took about a 1.5 nap all day. I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong or if it’s just the first night, but I’m not comfortable with the cry it out method and I’ve never used it and I don’t plan to start now. The biggest problem I have with him crying is he does it while standing in his crib. So it’s not like he can cry himself to sleep anyway.
Any advice? It’s time he starts sleeping all night.
What does he do when you come in the room? The only thing that worked for my parents, when babysitting my nephew, was to make him cry it out. He learned that if he screamed, my parents would come in. He would immediately stop crying and put his arms up, as if to say “Suckers! That was easy!” When it was obvious that nothing was wrong, and he was just being difficult, they would leave him in the crib. Maybe 15 minutes and he’d cry himself to sleep.