Desperate to Get Baby to Sleep
My husband and I have been desperate to get our son to
a) Fall asleep on his own &
b) Stay asleep/fall back asleep on his own.
We began with Elizabeth Pantley's "No Cry Sleep Solution" at 7 months. For a month and a half I stuck to the plan, with a routine in hand and the constant pulling him off at feeding to put him to bed drowsy. He never took to this - or even showed progress. He actually just fought it more and more.
From there, we tried "Ferberizing" - and after a few days of pain-staking crying and fighting things did get better. He was never able to fall asleep on his own, but he did put himself back to sleep in the middle of the night. After a week though, things seemed to regress and then get much worse. He would wake up crying and it was just miserable. He would go on more than an hour - with his cries progressively increasing. We stopped that - it wasn't working for any of us.
Now, we are trying Tracy Hoggs approach. "The Baby Whisperer" has some good ideas, but again, he is fighting as hard as possible. I have been spending minutes at nap time trying to get him to fall asleep - he just cries until he is exhausted and finally falls asleep. At night he is in bed with us, waking every hours wanting to nurse - doing the same if he is in his crib. We have upped his daytime nursing and solids but nothing is working. I am even starting his solids over - tracking to make sure that there are no possibly allergies happening. Again, there is no improvement.
I am getting to the point of breaking. My husband works, so I am taking most of the responsibility for this and it is getting to be too much. I guess that neither me or the baby will ever get good sleep. Do you have ANY advise that might help? -- Emily
Dear Emily,
I have spoken with hundreds of parents about their difficulties in getting their kids to sleep. I have myself felt the desperation of being constantly sleep deprived. There is, unfortunately, no easy solution to getting babies to sleep at night, because the nature of babies is to wake up and nurse. In other parts of the world, moms don't expect themselves to tackle a busy schedule the next day, and they nap when tired.
But you should also know that I am biased, because after struggling to get my son to sleep (I gave up on Ferbering after he got an ear infection from it at seven months), I gave up and used the family bed and night nursing. I loved the family bed. So my own two kids lived “the Family Bed” and moved on into their own beds to grow up into independent, wonderful kids.
So what can I tell you that might help?
1. If your son’s night-waking includes fussiness, he should see a doctor. If he is easily comforted and goes right back to sleep, though, he is normal.
2. Babies in most of the world sleep with their parents. Those babies are not considered to have sleep issues the way babies in the US do. They do wake up to nurse, at least for the first year and often into the second year. The moms try to not really wake up, they pop in the breast and go back to sleep. For the second breast, they just roll over a bit, rather than moving the baby.
3. Many babies whose mothers work during the day often wake a few times at night to nurse, and it seems they are partly looking to connect with their mothers. But it is developmentally normal for all babies to wake at night to nurse. Studies have shown that ALL babies wake up during the night and 50% of 12 month olds require parental intervention to help them go back to sleep.
4. My unscientific observation is that babies who sleep in bed with their parents and nurse at night wake more often for longer. Sometime after twelve months, most of those moms have to do a night-wean where they stop nursing their baby at night so that he stops waking up to nurse. However, I also hear from those moms that it is not only a delight to have their babies with them, but that they get more rest in the early months, when all babies wake often. And all babies begin to sleep through the night sooner or later, at their own developmental pace, even if the parents do nothing to encourage it.
5. A baby under a year old may well need to nurse a couple of times at night. Breastmilk doesn’t keep them for long, and especially during growth spurts they may be hungry at night. Babies all over the world nurse at night into the second year. Since you are already giving him solids, try giving him healthy snacks (sweet potatoes, yogurt, pasta) all day so he tanks up. And of course, make sure he really nurses during the day. Often babies get very busy and alert and distractible and don’t nurse enough during the day.
6. Ben may, of course, be hungry, but if he is almost a year old, he can probably learn not to be hungry in the middle of the night and to eat more during the day. If he takes a bottle of breastmilk, and you can give him the bottle at night, that can be a good transition in which he gradually gets used to not nursing at night. Once he is used to the bottle instead of nursing at night, you can begin gradually diluting the milk until it is so watery it isn’t worth waking up for, and if he does, and he is sleeping with you, who cares? Hand him the bottle and let him suck himself to sleep on the water. It won’t hurt his teeth and after awhile he will fall asleep in two sucks or not wake up at all. But I am assuming that Ben doesn’t take a bottle, from your description.
7. The issue with nursing to sleep, as you know, is that he gets used to it and has a hard time falling asleep without it. I assume you have already tried a pacifier and he won’t take it.
8. Your son is clearly not a kid who can be easily sleep trained. You have tried everything and he has fought it. It is time to ask yourself if you really need to try to force your son to sleep by himself. Maybe he should just sleep with you and you should just not worry about it. Your goal has to be maximizing your own sleep. There is nothing wrong with having your son sleep with you and nurse for now, if that gets you more sleep. Many moms find that it does.
9. For now, you may want to simply go to sleep early so you get nine or ten hours of (interrupted) sleep, and try to sleep through nursing as much as possible. Try blackout shades in the bedroom to buy yourself an extra hour of sleep in the morning. Also, if you offer your breast just before you go to sleep, your son will almost certainly take it and suck without really waking up. That “fill-up” may buy you a longer stretch of sleep if you then go to bed right away.
10. Research from Miami University showed that infants and toddlers who were massaged daily for one month, for 15 minutes prior to bedtime, fell asleep more easily by the end of the study. If you try this, even massaging while he is nursing, you may find that eventually massage will induce the same comforting feelings as nursing and put him back to sleep.
11. If none of this works for you, and you are indeed "desperate" for some sleep, then it may be time to night-wean Ben and teach him to fall asleep without nursing. I believe that you being rested and patient during the day is more important than nursing him at night once he is close to a year old. You will have to wake to nurse him at dawn, and it may be a marathon session, but you can night-wean him.
I have seen this method work miracles. I should warn you that this is a cold-turkey approach, since he is used to eating at night and is likely to be hungry in the night while he adjusts to getting all his calories in the daytime. But it is not Ferberizing, it will not traumatize him, and almost certainly, once Ben learns to fall asleep without nursing, he will not need your help in the middle of the night to go back to sleep. But you will need to honor your husband by asking for his help with this.
Right now, the only way Ben can put himself back to sleep at night is nursing, because it is the only way he ever falls asleep. Now that Ben is older, he might be able to nurse without falling asleep -- maybe a bit earlier than his usual bedtime? -- and then have his dad get him to sleep some other way. It has to be his dad, because otherwise he'll want to nurse. So you'll have to vanish at bedtime for awhile. Your husband will need to walk him, rock him, hold him while he cries. This crying will be hard for everyone, but crying in your husband’s sympathetic arms is not the same as "crying it out." We don't have to give our kids everything they ask for, but they do need our empathy and comfort when they react with upset to the situation.
Eventually, Ben will fall asleep. He is likely to wake up looking for you in a few hours, and Dad will have to be "on duty" again at that point. But he will eventually settle down to sleep again if your husband rocks or walks him.
It’s best to wait until Dad has a vacation from work, or at least start on a Friday night. He gets your son to sleep, probably somewhat past his normal bedtime. The baby wakes up a few hours later, and Dad comforts him, walks him, gives him a drink from a sippy cup, rocks him, etc. The first time he wakes, of course, he may go ballistic at your absence. Your husband may want to give up at this point, so make sure when you discuss it with him in advance that you point out that the first waking (when he's rested and mad) is the worst. Usually it is best if the baby is actually in your bed with Dad, because then Dad can intervene faster so the baby doesn’t fully wake up after the first time. If he doesn’t sense your presence, he has no reason to wake. Make sure you sleep far away, and use earplugs if necessary, and have faith that your husband and son will work this out.
After two or three nights of this, your son will be able to fall asleep without nursing, and will have started on a new kind of sleep association. You don't want him to stay long in the pattern of being rocked to sleep, or he will need to be rocked when he wakes in the middle of the night. So start introducing other sleep associations that will be there in the night, for instance white noise. Research shows that babies like white noise, and that it can put them back to sleep when they partially wake at night.
Also, your husband should hold Ben in the position he will put him down in (on his back) while he rocks him to sleep. It is best if he can rock, then be still, then rock, then be still, which gradually gets Ben used to falling asleep on his back without moving. Eventually, he will be able to be put down drowsy in his bed and will fall asleep, as unbelievable as that now seems.
12. If your son starts waking again after you have been gone from the bed for a few nights, you can also try letting your husband handle his first waking from now on. You can nurse later in the night, but at least you can count on four hours of uninterrupted sleep.
13. Finally, I want to reassure you that as your son gets more verbal it will be easier to wean him at night, and once you do, he will sleep better. Once he can understand, you can explain that his “milkies” or whatever he calls them, go to sleep at night, and there is no milk till it is light out. Then, you tell him “Baby go night night, mommy go night night, milkies go night night.” When he wakes in the night and wants to nurse, you can rock him or walk him, but stick to your guns, tell him the milkies are sleeping, and don’t nurse him. He will cry, and you will have to accept his grief and rage about losing his night nursing, and this could go on for a few nights or more, especially if he is not old enough to really understand, but it will work.
I have heard of moms using this method successfully with ten month olds, but I think it is much harder and drags on much longer when they are little because they don't really understand. My observation is that you should always explain it and it helps, no matter how little they are, but it works fastest (a few days) once they are about 15 months old.
14. I don’t know if you have parents to talk to about this, but I personally love the Berkeley Parents Network Forum.
You might find it helpful, since lots of moms have struggled with this issue.
I want to add that I am the mother of two kids, now 12 and 16. Both were terrible sleepers. Now, looking back, I miss the days of nursing them. Treasure this time of nursing your son, and don’t worry. It may seem long, but I promise you that you will once again enjoy uninterrupted sleep.
Dr. Laura
Ask the Doctor RSS
Comment on this post: