Axel's Rules of Sleep

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Cassie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:21:58 GMT

White noise does help some babies. Worth a shot. Rice cereal does not work. Regular day time naps and moving the bedtime up 30 minutes to an hour might help. Cluster feeding helps at night but nothing will satify a hugry child during a growth spurt. Three weeks of not sleeping and constant eating. At his age I think they are supposed to get 15 hours of sleep per 24 hours right? If he gets less then he will have trouble sleeping. Remember, 5 hours straight sleep is considered sleeping through the night!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

BabyOMomma — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:46:44 GMT

A HOPEFUL/HELPFUL? TIP!! Do you have a windowless bathroom with an exhaust fan? Our baby - who would not be put down for sleep before this discovery - now naps SO well in the bathroom with the door cracked and the fan on. Brilliant white noise, darkness--we put her mini pack and play in there. Swaddled with one of those little round pillows with the hole in the middle. God (not religious) bless this discovery!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

jenbrooke — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:08:45 GMT

I can so relate! My son Mathis is just a few days older than Axel and I love reading and comparing their behaviors in all of your posts- they are on the same baby-wavelength :) Mathis similarly did the 3-month tease where he slept from 11-7 for a few weeks straight - even when we went on vacation to Florida! I made the mistake of bragging to everyone that the sleeping thing "wasn't so hard." Then it all changed, and now at 5 plus months he wakes 3-4 times a night. I'm a zombie. Definitely think we'll try Ferber after our next trip away in May. Must fix this!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

LauraLaura — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:33:55 GMT

I feel your pain. Flann too falls asleep easily at bedtime and then wakes up wakes up wakes up between midnight and dawn. We tried the Ferber route, but it made matters worse (he's perhaps a bit young at four and a half months). My survival strategy at the moment mostly involves avoiding all mothers who announce their babies sleep more than three hours at a stretch. I don't want to strangle anybody.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

CFJ — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:07:35 GMT

I too had what I thought was possibly the worst sleeping baby to grace the earth. He would wake countless times until finally I would just pull him into bed with me so I could get some sleep. I nearly lost my sanity during that time period. I was definitely in survival mode.

Like many of the previous posters, we too finally had to put our little guy down in the crib, walk away and let him learn to fall asleep on his own. It was hell for about a week. I cleaned to manage my stress (my house had never been cleaner). At 8 months he is now sleeping about 10 hours straight, getting an early morning nursing and going back for another couple hours.

I don't think crying it out works for every family and I don't mean to suggest that's the only way. I think you have to find what you are comfortable with and stick with it with utter and absolute consistency. In our case we had to ride out several bouts of crying session (we would go in at intervals to reassure). We had to let him learn that the old way was over and the new way was here to stay. The happy ending is that he now loves his crib and just hangs in there playing when he wakes up in the morning.

Good luck!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

knockedup — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:48:26 GMT

Zellmer - he's just moved into his own room, out of our room. It's too soon to say if it's helping. We're trying to let him do some more fussing because he can (sometimes) fall back asleep, but my tolerance is still about 10 minutes. I'll have to try the bananas in rice cereal.

A coworker of mine told me her twins started sleeping through the night when she was out of town. She came back, after being gone for 4 - 5 days, and they didn't wake her up that night. She asked her husband how often they'd been waking up while she'd been gone and he just looked at her blankly - seems they never fussed or, if they did, he slept so deeply he never heard them. That just sounded so fabulous to me - you go on a vacation and come home to a baby who can sleep.

BSB, I would LOVE to have the sleep schedule your son had, with the one night waking between 7 and 5. Maybe we'll get there!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

BSB — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:36:35 GMT

My son is almost 13 months and didnt' start sleeping "through the night" by that I mean 8 hours until he was around 10 months. For the first 5 colicky months he woke up ever 1 to 2 hours and I thought I was going to die. we started sleep training and at least that got him to learn to fall asleep on his own rather than me having to walk him up and down the hall for an hour, and then he'd sleep from 7 till midnight or 1. Then a bottle woudl put him back down till 5. Miraculously last night, even with pneumonia, he slept from 7 till 7. HOLY CRAP it finally happened. Hang in there. Either he'll get it on his own or you'll sadly resign yourself to sticking your headphones on and letting him cry a bit (I could never hack more than 15 straight minutes)

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

How to start a home daycare — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:49:02 GMT

Oh,

What an excellent rules for sleeping a baby a daycare.Thanks for ur suggestions and sleep rules.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Amy — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:03:21 GMT

I went back to work when my first baby was 10 weeks old. She had not been sleeping up until this point, but once work was involved, sleep became even more important. I met a lady at my pool who had an awesome easy baby (also had an awesome natural birth....hated her) and who made me feel crappy because she was able to work part-time from home and even though I wanted to work, I felt really crappy about it with a new baby. So, she recommended Babywise. Even though I hated her, I had to try to be like her.....hey, I'm a girl, it just works this way. So, I bought the book. I told my dad about it and he said "what do you do, hit the baby over the head with it to get them to sleep." I read most of it, realized I couldn't put my baby on a schedule like that and just forgot about it. We eventually did "cry it out" when she was 4-5 months old. It took 10 excruciating minutes and only took like 2 nights.

And, no, it didn't work for my other kids.

Trying different things will at least keep you busy until he outgrows it on his own if nothing works.

Amy

Mom to 3

www.sofiabean.com

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

zellmer — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:17:17 GMT

Is he still sleeping in the pack n' play in your room?

I ask because we have so been through this exact experience. I mean we tried EVERYTHING. We finally just moved him to his own crib and put it in my husband's home office. That, and a bit of crying it out is what finally worked for us.

Also, have you tried mixing bananas into his cereal? You're right. Rice cereal is nasty. But it's quite tasty with bananas mixed in. My son gorges on it every night now. It's super cute to watch him gumming his spoon and getting it all over the place. So, I would keep at it with the cereal. I believe it will beef him up and that should get him closer to sleeping better, as well.

Also, with the bottle feedings, try different temperatures. My son is super picky about his bottle being very warm. If he won't take it, I nuke it a bit and then he gulps it down.

Best of luck to you.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Amy — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:55:29 GMT

So I read this post this morning, and I felt bad for you. I truly did. But then I was reading a book this afternoon, and decided I no longer pity you.

Here's why: You have a very gifted baby on your hands! On page 378 of "What To Expect The First Year, 2nd Ed." by Murkoff, Eisenberg, and Hathaway, Axel may fall under the category of a GIFTED BABY:

"Difficulty sleeping. Gifted children may be so involved in observing and learning that they have trouble tuning out the world, so they don't sleep much - a trait that can exasperate parents."

So, I'm done pitying you and Sean. Axel must be brilliant! Congrats!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

shm18 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:24:15 GMT

I hated all the advice I would get about sleeping from other moms. My daughter barely slept for the first 6 months (usually up 8-10 times a night on average). And always screaming. NOTHING worked. I would get annoyed at people who would tell me yet another suggestion.

Despite this I will tell you the 2 things that worked the best (don't hate me!):

-Switched to formula for the bedtime feed at 4 months (breastfeed all other times). Rice milk didn't work.

-letting her cry. I see the benefits of this now that she is 15 months. While a lot of moms I know were never able to let their kid cry and they still have sleep problems, ours sleeps pretty good most nights. We have no elaborate routine to make her sleep or nap which I see as another plus- she learned how to put herself to sleep. But I know not all moms are capable of letting their kid cry.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Marshs_Mom — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:00:26 GMT

I feel your pain. My son is turning 5 months next week and he's still not sleeping through the night either. He's not nursing in the night anymnore, just waking up to hang out. The only thing that is helping is this little vibration thing you can put under the mattress. When he starts to wake up, I hit the button which vibrates the mattress for 10 minutes and most of the time he goes back to sleep for at least another hour or two. It's not sleeping through the night, but it's better then roaming the halls bouncing him until he drifts off again.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Emily — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:23:58 GMT

I love rule # 6 - that is a stupid phrase. Especially when you have a little man who is on a sleep strike!

My boy has always thought naps were for sissies and sleeping at night was optional. My husband would put on nightly shows of 10 songs or so and once the babe was sleeping we would gently place him in the crib and the arms would shoot out, eyes open and it would start all over again. We did not want to go the cry it out route until around 10 months when he started a streak of waking up on the hour and then was up for the day at 4/4:30am. A person can only take so much. We did the tough love and it was torture - but the crying only lasted about 30-40 minutes (I envisioned entire nights of screaming) and the boy has started to learn to be a much better sleeper. It's still not a perfect process (and naps are another story, but we've decided to pick our battles) but we can put him in his crib while he's sleepy - but still awake - and he'll squawk for a few minutes and then put himself to sleep. It's been miraculous.

I know every baby is different, so I'm not saying this is the only way to go - just offering up one mom's experience. And wishing you lots of luck in the sleep war!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

k1 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:22:26 GMT

Cute post. :)

Though I don't advocate it for everyone as all babies are different, letting our baby simply sort himself out (i.e. "cry it out") was THE ONLY thing that worked for us. We tried all the attachment parenting techniques and we simply didn't have the stamina for them.

But after one horrible night of crying our boy started sleeping through the night. And he was SO MUCH happier when he slept well. And WE were SO MUCH happier when he slept well.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

MidLifeMama — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:31:43 GMT

He may be tormenting you, but he is adorable. When I was pregnant a friend of mine would put me in a panic with stories of her kid who never slept either. Thank whatever god you like, mine is a pretty good sleeper, but then both of us were too as kids and are as adults. My snoring not withstanding. My friends' kid did eventually begin sleeping, so I imagine Axel will too!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

ewokmama — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:11:38 GMT

It kind of sucks that everyone has to go through this process to learn what you wrote, but indeed we all seem to learn it the hard way. :P

It does get better whether you try to change it or not.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Laura — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:10:42 GMT

I can relate to all of your rules! My 8.5 month old daughter is hell bent on never sleeping through the night. I have decided that for now we'll take what we can get for sleep and assume that at some point sleep will return to our house. She's got to sleep through eventually, right?

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Lydia — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:11:13 GMT

You may not be getting much sleep but this post was hilarious and well written. I too have been there, with the rocking and the monster-walking and the feeding-to-sleep-thing. Babies either start sleeping through the night on their own, or they don't -- and then you end up doing sleep training and it works. You're not there yet, I can feel it. So hang in and know that he will sleep longer one night and so will you! Promise.

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

Melissa — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:03:12 GMT

I feel for you! There is just no rhyme or reason to babies. Except that they look ADORABLE in engineer overalls!

re: Axel's Rules of Sleep

GiantPanda — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:47:13 GMT

I have soooooo been there... it is a sleepless hell that seems like it will never end. I tried everything, and eventually came to the conclusion that my son would sleep through when he was good & ready, and nothing I could do would change that. And you know what? One night he did. I woke up at 6.00 am with my breasts engorged and my heart pounding because I was convinced he was dead...but a miracle had happened and he had slept through. That day will come, I promise. You just have to stay alive until it does.