Help my kiddo sleep!

September 26, 2009 9:39 PM

My son's sleep schedule is all screwed up. How can I make it better again?

My son, now 16 months old, has always been a horrible sleeper. Part of it was just his own personality, but part of it was my tendency to nurse him to sleep whenever he awoke at night (hey, when it's 2 AM and I have to be at work the next day, getting him down as quickly as possible was my only priority). We kept up this pattern until he was 15 months old.

Then one day I had to be put on prednisone and we had to quit nursing cold turkey. He adjusted surprisingly well. Within two weeks he went from waking four times a night and having to be nursed each time to sleeping through the night independently five nights a week. About twice a week he'd wake up once a night and I'd hold him while he drifted off again. He was going to bed at 8:15 and sleeping until 7 AM. Sleeping so much was blissful for everyone.

Within the past week it's all changed. He's back to waking up four times a night again...most times he cries for about 90 seconds and then settles back down, but it's enough to wake me up. However, most nights I have to go into his room once and rock him back to sleep. He's also waking up earlier. Nobody's getting a good night's sleep anymore.

I have no idea what's happened, or how to get my kiddo back on track. I do realize that the cry it out approach might be necessary at some point, but I'd like to know of anything I can do before we try that. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

posted by christinetheslp to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

"I do realize that the cry it out approach might be necessary at some point"

Honestly, it seems like that may be the best thing at this point. It seems as if your son has at least some ability to self sooth, and you may just need to ride this out. The more you continue to go in there and rock him back to sleep the more likely you are to create that pattern for months to come. I know it is very hard to do, to hear him crying. As a parent you always want to alleviate any situation like that. But at this point, you may need to just let him self sooth and try your hardest to get back to sleep after his crying wakes you. Kids sleep cycles often change, so his waking earlier may stick around for a bit or may go back to the way it once was, it's hard to say. It's good that he is generally only waking for 90 seconds or so. The fact that he was at one point sleeping from 8:15 til 7 is amazing! I know a lot of parents that would kill to have that happen. I wish there was some magical trick that I could give you. I've been a nanny for 11 years and I've seen some crazy sleepers in that time! Good luck sticking it out.
posted by muxnaw at 9:51 PM on September 26, 2009

Best answer: He might be sick, or hungry---you could see if feeding him more before he goes to bed helps...
posted by leahwrenn at 10:13 PM on September 26, 2009

Are you willing to let him sleep in bed with you?
posted by AngerBoy at 10:17 PM on September 26, 2009

One thought is you might try something like Trixie Tracker which helps you track your child's sleep patterns (among other things). I thought this note from a user was interesting:

By tracking our son’s sleep I have now been able to see patterns I never would have seen otherwise. It was counterintuitive to me that we would sleep more in 24 hour period if I cut out his nap (he is 3 ½). We no longer have to drive him to sleep or lay with him for 2 hours at night trying to get him to sleep. He is now able to put himself to sleep at night.

By eliminating his nap, he is actually starting to sleep a full 11 hour night now (sleep has always been a problem since he was born) and has boosted his sleep time in a 24 hour period by about 1 ½ hours. He is happier and healthier.

posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 10:49 PM on September 26, 2009

Sleep schedules tend to change with some frequency in my experience
As long as you are confident he is not sick, teething, thirsty, patience will reward you: easier said than done certainly
best wishes that you get some more sleep
posted by dougiedd at 12:30 AM on September 27, 2009

My son at 16 years has a bad sleep schedule. And he's had one all his life. It could be because we didn't "let him cry it out." Or, since we probably did at times, not enough. Or it could just be his temperament. The later formulation is an attempt to evade a cause & effect model.

Though I believe in (optimal) frustration, I also believe that letting kids cry it out is most often not optimal, in that it has unmeasurable (or as yet unmeasured) side effects which are the cost of attempting to adjust the sleep schedule this way.

All this non-answer is meant to say that I don't believe there is really a way to solve this problem in a one-size-fits-all way and that over time you and your son have to work this out in the context of your unique relationship.

Like so much of parenting seems to be about.
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:27 AM on September 27, 2009

No Cry Sleep Solution. Seriously. (Shocked no one said it yet.)
posted by k8t at 9:29 PM on September 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Buy Weissbluths Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It is a bore to read but the foundations are great and accurate.

In short, you son does not know how to self soothe himself to sleep. He relies on you to do it for him--nursing, holding ,etc. Trust me, its' not his personality. It's a lack of self soothing, routine, and sticking with a schedule. Babies learn from what we make them do (sorry for the blame but I went through this myself with our son).

So...

Make sure he's getting naps at a regular schedule (see the book for suggestions)
Get in a routine where he is aware that this is the beginning of sleep time. We wind down our son at about 7pm--read, sitting on my lap, small strokes/baby massage, lights down very low, sometimes tv in the background.
Watch for tired signs but not the overtired signs. Relaxed state with a few yawns is a tired sign. Rubbing eyes continuously and cranky--overtired
Putting him in his crib with routines. My son gets a receiving blanket, 3 rattle toys, and his music box on
Then the killer--we have done the cry it out. He's never gotten to the point of hysterics but crying and then slowly calming down and sleeping. But more often than not, he just lays there staring at something, chewing on a toy, and falls asleep.

But trust me, it's hard. It took one weekend of stoppin the 2am feeds and letting him just deal. I realized he wasn't hungry--he liked me soothing him. I needed sleep and was tired of this for the both of us. My husband is an insomniac and it all stems from his childhood. No way was I going to let my son be one too.

You can also combine it with the Ferber method. Crying kid? Wait a few minutes (like 10) and see how it goes. If it starts to decrease and slowly go away--don't check him. If it increases, check him but do NOT pick him up or feed. Stroke him for a minute or two making sure he's a bit calmer and walk out. Wait a few minutes for him to try on his own---repeat. Extend the lenght of time of checking/soothing over days.

But if you son's crying is increased to hysterics, he also might just not be quite ready for bed. A few times I put my son down at 7:30--hysterics. I picked him up and resoothed him (stories, etc) but did NOT let him fall sleep on me (worse thing to do). By 7:45/8pm he was calm enough to go back to bed. He self soothed himself after that and was out by 8pm on the dot.

Good luck. Sleep is the hardest thing ever with a child but seriously, that book was a godsend to understand basic principles and the science of sleep. You can choose baby boot camp with cry it out hard core or Ferber it---whatever you're comfortable with.

Good luck.
posted by stormpooper at 9:09 AM on September 28, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. For the record, my son was learning to self-soothe - he had been sleeping through the night five nights out of seven for a month before this started - so I don't think that's the only problem.

Here's how the story ended for those who might look at this thread in the future: my son spiked a fever yesterday, so I'm thinking some illness might have been brewing that was interfering with his sleep. The night that I posted this I turned up the baby monitor so I could hear him stirring more easily and heard snoring. I'm not sure if the snoring is part of his illness (tonsillitis, maybe?) or if it indicates a separate problem, maybe with his adenoids. Either way we'll get it checked out.

So I guess for me the lesson is, even though the "cry it out" approach might have its place, sometimes a screwed-up sleep schedule is just your toddler's body is just trying to tell you something :-) But then again I read and loved "The No Cry Sleep Solution," so I'm biased anyway!
posted by christinetheslp at 7:27 PM on September 28, 2009

Good luck. Note that a tummy virus lasting 24hrs-a week is going around. He might be getting that. Maybe a visit to the doc is in order to go over all of your questions?
posted by stormpooper at 7:20 AM on September 29, 2009