Infant sleep help

DS is 4 1/2 months old. We can get him down to sleep in his crib, but he's been waking every hour on the hour - we'll get 2 hours if we're lucky - and he screams as soon as we put him back down in his crib.

I've been reading & know that it has to do with his sleep cycles & not being able to get back to sleep; however, if we give up & bring him into bed with us he sleeps GREAT, which makes me think it's a security thing. We don't feel comfortable co-sleeping & really want him to stay in his crib all night - does anyone have any tips on how to help him? He slept great until he hit about 3 months & then the bottom fell out

Our 1st ds was a terrible sleeper from the beginning & we waited too long to address the issue so we had 13 months of bad nights. We did CIO with him, but he was older & a different temperament than this baby...I don't want to have to do it again because I don't think it will work with him.

Re: Infant sleep help

I'm not an advocate of CIO so I'd never suggest that but I find it interesting that your instincts tell you it wont work for this child. I'm sure you're probably right!

Ferber himself said that CIO does not work for every child, there children with certain temperments who just WONT have it.

We cosleep with DS for part of the night and I understand that you're not comfortable doing that but he definitely needs you. Are you ok with sidecarring his crib next to your bed so that he has his space and you have yours and yet you can provide him the security and rest needed right now?

In time you can start moving the crib away from your bed little by little over several weeks and eventually back to baby's bedroom.

Infant sleep help

Thank you so much for your reply! I wish that we could move his crib (or PNP) into our room, but it's tiny & our bed takes up the majority of it. Maybe I'll talk to dh about removing our nightstands for a few weeks to give us the space though...his crib definitely won't fit, but the PNP might

I've told dh that we need to work on our bed & nap time routines. We work opposite shifts a few days a week & with our older son being there I know that we both handle the evenings very differently since we're on our own. I think we need to sync things up a bit...

Infant sleep help

I am not a fan of CIO and didn't want to do it. Everytime I tried I caved. Until we had a bunch of bad nights in a row. Finally tried it and DS is great now. We have bad nights here and there but that is because he just got his bottom teeth and now the tops are coming in.

I also find that DS goes through phases of good sleepign and times he is up all night.

Infant sleep help

I'm actually not against CIO at all, in fact we did it with our first (several times!). I just think that whether or not you use the method depends on the child & my gut tells me that it's definitely not the method to use with this little guy. I almost wish it was so that we could get started & be done with it, but dh & I agree that it's not the route to go this time. At this point I think that he just needs some more coaching on how to get back to sleep...

Message edited 9/11/2012 10:02:57 AM.