My 6 month old is a high needs baby (to use Dr. Sears' term) and since about her 2nd month has rarely slept more than 10h out of 24h. Now I am trying NCSS to try to get more sleep out of her and it is going miserably. It has been just shy of 2 weeks and there is no improvement.

First, when we put her to bed early she still only sleeps 5-6h as her first, long stretch (that is, if even that) so we are up for the first waking at 12p or 1a and then every 1-3h after that.

Second, there is no correlation between her naps and her sleep, as in good naps do not equal good sleep that night, and vice versa. In fact she does seem to sleep better at night when she has worse naps.

Third, the theory of "do anything and everything to get them to nap" because theoretically the good naps will help them sleep well ... bs. I spend ALL DAY trying to get her to sleep, she'll nurse for an hour and never even close her eyes.

Fourth, even when she is completely, limp-limbed asleep and i try to put her down, even if it is just laying her down close to me in the bed so I can sleep too, she wakes up immediately. I can't just let her sleep in my arms b/c she wakes herself there too. I generally will try for an hour to get her down before I give up. sometimes she goes down and wakes after 10-15m and I'll try another hour. It is not so unusual for me to spent 2-3h getting 1h of sleep out of her. admittedly, sometimes she goes down within 30 min and sleeps 2h although that is not the norm.

She can only go to sleep swaddled although I have seen her continue to sleep with her arms out.

I don't even really get to play with her much because of all the time we spend trying to get her to sleep. I really don't do much chores, DH has taken on almost everything, but there are some things I still need to do like eat meals and do some of the grocery shopping! She won't tolerate a sling, she likes to look around, so I wear her in a snugli as much as I can whether we are out or just around the house.

She cries and rubs her eyes and yawns so I know she needs sleep. I don't know how to help her go to sleep and stay asleep.

i am frustrated and really just want to put her in her crib and walk away. but of course I can't do that. HELP!!!

I don't have much to offer for help....but, I just wanted to say I'm right there with ya. I did the CIO thing with my baby when she was 6 months old (she'll be a year in May) and now I'm back to square one. I have to nurse her to sleep....ever since her ear infection several weeks ago. I can't bear the thought of doing the CIO method again....we've actually tried and she vomits she cries so hard. There has to be something I can do. I'm at my wits end as well. Just wanted to say I know how you feel.

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--Sandy
40 yo/DH 38
TTC#1 since 10/05
M/C 1/16/06
BFP 8/31/06
EDD 05/06/07

Scarlett Born 5/10/07

Great! You've gotten through your first sleep log! I believe at the beginning of the book she suggests setting aside a few months to try to get sleep in order. I'm paraphrasing, but she says something like 'remember, it's taken months to create the sleep pattern that your baby has now, so it will take quite some time to create some new sleep associations". With our first son, he was a bit high needs in several ways himself (had a lot of characteristics that Dr.Sears described) and it took us 5 months to get him to sleep through the night...

That is sooo good! Remember that the American Academy of Pediatrics considers 5 hours as "sleeping through the night", because they are referring to only 1 skipped feed... so you are already there! That took my 2nd son forever to get to that stage! At 6 months, that is sort of a common schedule, as per all the lactation consultants that I met for my son, and all my conversations with leaders from La Leche League... now with me, my son woke every hour to hour and a half all night so that he was up 8-12 times a night.... so with me they were concerned because he wasn't developing that one skipped feed. With him, they were concerned that he wasn't getting enough nourishment so I had to do a bunch of stuff to boost my supply etc... it's taken him longer because he just NOW has that one skipped feed since he was about a year old... they don't all develop their ability to sleep at the same time, same as they don't walk at the same time, or grow teeth at the same time....

My first son was like that... fabulous naps, terrible nighttime... I think his teeth were hurting so much that he couldn't sleep at night... but somehow daytime was better... I loved those daytime naps and was glad that I at least had that! He napped like clockwork... right at 9am for 2 hours, then right at 1pm for 2 hours... sound sleep too! Eventually the nighttime sleep came and he sleeps very soundly at night and has since he was a year old...

You could let her sleep swaddled, then, if that works... being wakeful like that at night sounds so much like my first son... he was soooo like that because of his teeth... he just so much needed comforting during that time... in retrospect I'm so glad I gave him that... he's a jumpy kid and he needs that reassurance and I'm glad he got it then, now that I know what he's like!

When she gets up for the day, when do you try to get her to sleep? It should be after an hour. Try to get her ready for it with settling down, read a nap book... but after 10 minutes if she isn't appearing sleepy, then try again in a half hour... although you said she naps well... Then transfer this to bedtime... have a consistent bedtime routine with bath, books, songs, white noise in the room, maybe a gentle CD like Fisher Price Lullabies (no singing on the CD... sometimes someone else's voice freaks them out) playing quietly... as dark as you can in the room, with nightlights not in view of the crib...

Just a reassurance that 5-6 hours is incredibly good for this age, and so is waking every 2-3 hours after... that's common for 6 months. I know there are the anomaly babies where "Oh, my baby started sleeping 12 hours after 6 weeks" but that is not the normal case. In fact, I believe that it is reported that something like 76 percent of families believe that somethign about their child's sleep should change... 76%! Check it out in this month's Wonder Time for May... My take on this is that people have somewhat of a skewed perception of how babies really sleep so if people found out that really it's normal to have a wide range of different sleep patterns that we could relax and know eventually we will all have teenagers that we will not be able to drag out of bed... in the meantime, I'm enjoying cuddling with my little one when he wakes up at night, even though it means I can't remember where I put my shoes, or what happened to my lunch that I brought to work... or where my sunglasses are... etc... haha! I have the benefit of having a 5 year old that has made it through all of this to know that it will change, and that I loved the times I got to cuddle with him because that slowly slips away...

Good for you for getting this far with sleep! You are on your way! Tell me what you think of the book... Elizabeth Pantley has such a great outlook on life! Check out the last chapter for a nice message!

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Host of:
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zennifer-
i must have said something misleading. her naps are awful. her nighttime sleeping is awful. she sleeps somewhat better at night when she is so totally exhausted from extraordinarily bad daytime sleeps. or sometimes she sleeps even worse when she is totally exhausted. 2 nights ago she slept s 7.5h stretch, then took a 3h nap later in the morning, last night she was up every 1-2h and i couldn't get her down for her morning nap that is her best sleep (best meaning I can get her to take it about 60-70% of the time). she sleeps a total of 10h each day usually, and that includes the 30 min naps that Pantley says don't even count.

we get up some time between 6:30-8am, and we go back down 1h later.This is the "first nap" she usually takes and it is usually 1-2h. any other sleep during the day is a crapshoot.

i know that 5-6h = sleep through the night thing, but that is for newborns. by the time a baby is 6 months old any resource will tell you they can sleep 8-10h at a stretch although some may still need 1-2 night wakings.

i do let her sleep swaddled, as that is the only way to get her to sleep. in her life she has probably managed to be put down to sleep a couple dozen times without the swaddle, and that includes all naps.

the lack of sleep is affecting my mood and it is affecting my marriage. half the things Pantley recommends like having a lovey require the baby to be able to use her hands at night, which mine can't because she can't go to sleep unswaddled. I am actually incredibly frustrated with the book as I feel it is a tantalizing fairy tale.

anyway she is screaming now, i do appreciate any useful info that can help us through this.

Have you considered seeing a lactation consultant to see if she is hungry? My younger son woke every 1-2 hours until he was about 1 year old, no matter what I did... He now still wakes 2 times a night at 18 months... What I have learned is that children come with their own temperaments, and this was just a part of who he is... he is nonstop all day... just an active little inquisitive person who can't stop climbing/running/rolling whatever.... I just read an article on temperaments in wondertime.com that I just loved. My favourite part:

Isn't that awesome? I love that magazine! Anyway, I totally agree about temperament, which is something we all have to try to help our children with... I never figured out why he woke so much (and it really made me beside myself to miss that much sleep for a year... I'm still recovering) but in other ways he is very easy going... a laid back little guy who likes to play with everyone he sees, and try anything new... whereas my older one never missed his 2-3 hour naps twice a day and started sleeping from 8pm-7am at about 11 months on top of that... but he is much more apprehensive with new situations, and would never nap or sleep anywhere but home so going on vacations was AWFUL until he was about 2 years old. We really have to prepare him for new situations or he is likely to have a horrible time.... but he is a very happy guy in his way, too... loves intricate toys, reading, cooking and baking, drawing...-always some type of character or another - often a pirate or someone from Star Wars... he is who he is... I enjoy both of them with their very different characters... but I could have used more sleep!

That is true that some books will say this... but I think that the operative word is that they "can" sleep an 8-10 hour stretch, but the point of that is to let you know you don't need to wake them up to feed them to make sure they are getting enough nourishment. For example, with babies up to 3 months old, every doula, lactation consultant and pediatrician we had said babies 0-3 months old shouldn't sleep more than 4 hours at the most before being fed, to make sure they are receiving the correct amount of nourishment and to keep milk up etc... there are conditions known as failure to thrive which can occur with not enough nourishment at that age... however at 3 months, they point out in some books that they "can" sleep longer but I think the point is supposed to be used to let people know they don't need to wake them to feed them... it's not meant to be saying a baby is having sleep problems if they don't sleep more than 4 hours at that point. Some are not developmentally ready for a long time. I prefer to go with experts on sleep in general, versus the people who have chosen to write books on baby sleep to get people to follow their sleep plan. For example, Dr. William C. Dement who is a world leading sleep researcher and expert at Stanford Univerity ( William C. Dement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
in his book "The Promise of Sleep", he points out that babies on average do not develop what we would consider a normal nighttime sleep pattern until 40 weeks, which is 10 months old. I would think this would mean that even though babies can sleep longer earlier, that is not the norm.

Another expert is Dr. James McKenna who is another world leading sleep expert writes a huge paper that he seems to be trying to write to doctors to suggest that instead of telling the truth about sleep, they perhaps do not realize that the information they provide about sleep (for example changing the idea that babies CAN sleep 10-12 hours at 6 months into babies SHOULD sleep 10-12 hours a night) is culturally biased, and is NOT the way the rest of the world views infant sleep. It is really only in western culture that people have decided that our babies should be out at 7pm and wake up at 7am starting at just a few months old... most other cultures in the world do not think this, and therefore they don't fret about it the way western cultures do... this huge expansive article explains this in some detail... it is a great article to read and really is very enlightening about how cultures in the world view sleep... I really found it helped me relax about what I expect: Cultural Influences Article

That being said, it really was disturbing how tired I was last year... it was much MUCH worse than it was with my first son. It made me a very jumpy anxious person... I can still overreact to different small things that happen in my life, and sometimes I have to step back and realize that perhaps what I'm getting worked up about isn't a big deal, it's possibly my tiredness causing me to blow things up to huge problems when really I just need sleep! As well, I forget everything... I'm finding my job very hard now that I'm back because I can't keep track of all the little things I need to do which is usually very simple for me... oh well! At least now he only wakes up 2 times... sometimes more...

I know where you're coming from! It's very hard to relate to someone when you're this tired! We have had LOTS of arguments that got out of hand because every discussion is like one you'd have at 3am because that is how tired we were... and sometimes still after a particularly bad night we can have ridiculous arguments... we've just tried to realize that during the marriage vows we said we'd stay together in good times and bad... and that means we have to MEAN the bad times, and this is probably not up there with the good times. I recommend goint to a counsellor together that can help with putting things in perspective and realizing that it's not the relationship, it's the lack of sleep.

The thing is that it can take months because it is learning a new habit.. and habits can take a long time to form... that is why this method can seem so confusing... however it works over time and sometimes that can take a LONG time, but using it you are creating excellent sleep habits that last a lifetime. This is not just a method of how to sleep as a baby, it is also the tricks and tips offered to insomniacs or those having temporary sleep problems as adults... adults with sleep problems are ALSO told to have a bedtime routine, to use darkened lighting before bed, to have white noise, to make sure no exciting activities or things that are stimulating (tv, or disturbing info such as news or violent video games) before bed, having warm milk, having a bath, goign to bed at the same time each night... these are all the same tips she has for babies as sleep experts recommend for adults... I find that because we have had the same routine for years for my older son we can get him to sleep easily even if he says he's "not tired" because it is a plan that works as a subliminal habit... it can take a long time to form because that is the nature of habits, but once created over time, it is solid.


That being said, living the tiredness with my second son was nerve wracking, but I couldn't think of what else to do but keep plugging away at it, trying this or that small change based on the tips in the book... and slowly over time it worked... even though he still wakes at night a couple of times... it took WAY longer than I would have liked, but he's doing it finally. I truly believe it's just connected to his temperament as I get to know him as he grows... I can see it now that I can look back instead of being in the middle of the clould of tired... it's hard to see in the middle of things for sure...

Keep writing back here, keep talking, keep asking for help here... it's part of the process of figuring different ways to get closer to sleep... take care... I'd love to keep helping you and chatting with you here!

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Host of:
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Attachment Parenting