My baby has sleep problems....can someone help me !?

Question

My daughter is 10mths old and I cant get her to sleep well during the night. She has been sleeping in her crib in her room since she was 3 mths old but she has never been a good sleeper. She wakes me up frequently in the night for no apparent reason she just wants to be held by me. Even when my husband gets up with her the crying escalades to screaming until I come get her. Last night she went to bed at 8:00 as usual but kept getting up every 20-30 min. I would lay her back down and she would get back up. This went on until 3:00 am until finaly she is too exausted to continue. I have tried everything, the last thing left is to let her sleep with us and give up what little bit of intimacy we have. Sometimes she only wakes up once in the night but i've notices that she only has these good nights after she has had about 3-4 bad night. So really she is only sleeping when she has no choice but to recuperate and then it starts all over. Im discouraged, tired and I feel im failing, help !

Answer 1

It sounds cruel to many a well-meaning parent, but you need to let her cry. She must learn to get to sleep by herself. She has trained you to pick her up. Your daughter knows that you will pick her up if she screams and cries everytime. You must let her cry- whenever you give in to her demands you are showing her that you are submissive to her.

It may be difficult for all three of you for the first few nights until she learns that she cannot make the demands anymore.

Answer 2

She's become used to you going in and holding her...she's learned cause and effect. She HAS to learn to soothe herself and get to sleep. The LAST thing I would do personally is bring her into my bed. No way.
Make the change gradual. Tonight, keep your bedtime routine the same. If she wakes after 30 min and cries for you, go in. Tell her it's bedtime, give her a kiss and put her back down. If she starts to cry again, let her. Give her about ten minutes. Continue doing this, waiting longer each time between going in her room. At this point let her know you're there but do NOT pick her up. This is going to probably take several nights and will be difficult listening to her cry, especially if it escalates into screaming, but she has to break this habit, for her own sake as well as yours.

Answer 3

I do not beleive in letting my baby cry but I do strongly believe in giving my baby a good sleep schedule.

My first question for you would be how is her sleeping habits during the day. I know what does the day have to do with the night right? Well, a baby who is overtired will wake up several times during the night. If your little one is well rested and has two good naps during the day, your little one will sleep better at night. This will not improve instantly but with consistance you will see a big difference I promise. My little one was in the same situation and is now sleeping from 8 or 8:30 pm until 7 or 7:30am with two naps during the day.

I would strongly suggest to not feed her (not even water) if she is up for a bottle. Feed her more during the day to compensate. Next get her up the first day at 7am, feed her have play for a little and then 9 or 9:30am put her down for her first nap. Keep everything as predictable as possible. Keep her nap routine the same everytime so that she can know what you would like her to do... sleep! Her second nap should be about 3hrs after she wakes up from her first nap. Both naps should last between 1hr and 1hr1/2. No longer. If so you will not be able to get her down for her second nap or to bed at night on time. Then she should down for the night between 7 and 8pm.

Now for her naps as night time sleep, if she wakes before 1hr for nap or during the night, I would suggest put down method. Don't get her out of her crib. Comfort her without picking her up. At first she will not know what you are doing but if you stay consistent she will get the hint and she will stay asleep longer and she will sleep better. Eventually she will realize that it is not worth getting up anymore and she will sleep better. When it is time for her to get up make a big deal at first, pull up the blinds and great her with a lot of enthousiasme so that she knows that she did a great sleeping job!

I wish you the best and feel free to contact me and I can try and give you more suggestions.

Answer 4

This is probably gonna cause a controversy, but I have a 2 year old. I was very hands on with her, stayed home until she was about 18 months old, breastfed, and until she was about 7 months basically used attachment parenting, for lack of another option I guess. when I breastfed, she had to be fed every 3 hours for a while, then every four for a long time, so she was almost always attached to me. That meant when it came time to go to sleep, if she wasn't sleeping on me, she wasn't sleeping period, for more than about 10-20 minutes. We even did co-sleeping off and on after she was about 5-7 months old, because I am a ridiculously light sleeper, and I skipped the blankets and pillows for that time. I never felt comfortable just letting her cry it out, especially when she was so young, but when she turned 7 months, frankly I just couldn't function anymore for taking care of her, literally 24 hours a day, so I finally took the advice off of Babycenter.com and Babyzone.com. I fed her until she was drowsy, but not asleep and took her into her room and layed her down calmly, and told her I loved her and goodnight. I walked out of the room and stayed out. Within one hour she stopped screaming, the next night it took 10 minutes for her to stop.
I knew she was fine, because she was bathed, fed, changed, had had plenty of mommy to baby contact, and everything else. Any younger than this and I feel they're too young to cry it out because children under a year aren't capable of intentional manipulation, that's proven...but this worked. She still goes down with very minimal fuss, because she's used to it now. It took those two nights and it has been blissful sleep ever since. (well, as blissful as it can be, lol). The thing is, is you can't keep going in a checking on her every few minutes and leaving again. I tried that piece of advice too, and it never worked. My child would just keep going as long as she knew I would come back in.
At this age, just give her a routine. It's hard to get used to it, but it makes life so much simpler for both you and her. We eat, take a bath, brush our teeth, read a few books, take a few minutes to play while holding her in the cradle position and then go to bed. It's almost always the same, and she seems to do really well with it. When they know bedtime is coming they are prepared for it, and not wondering why is she leaving me all of the sudden?
I know this is really long, but I know how hard this was for me to deal with, and really hope this helps. If you can, then give it that first night, I know it's hard, and you have to restrain anyone else in the house that may not like the idea also from going in. As long as you know she's fine and you don't hear the "pain" cry, she will REALLY be fine. I still have trouble with letting children cry it out, but I finally realized, they really will be okay.Good luck!

Answer 5

Let her cry it out in longer and longer periods. Another idea is to not pick her up, but get/kind of force her to lay back down and try patting her back, singing, then gradually move away from patting the back, singing from further away, then sing really quietly and sneak out. (Thats what we do on our now occasional wakeups) They also make crib things now where it can record your voice/singing where she can push a button and it plays.

Answer 6

You should try to leave her in the crib and let her cry. I know it's hard (I have 2 of my own) but she will eventually tire herself out. If you know that she doesn't need a bottle and that she has a dry diaper, then she is fine.