angeltek

It has been about 3 months and a bit now since he was born, and my son just will not sleep anymore. He will take these 10 oir 15 min power naps every few hours, then wake up and want attention. My wife is definatley suffering as she is the one who usually gets up at night to comfort him. When he does actually sleep it will be for about 4 hours or so and then it's back to the same routine. We have tried nuking some blankets to put under him, putting him to bed with his sucky sue (soother), leaving an article of moms clothing in the crip, putting a hat on, feeding him some cereal before putting him down for the night, singing, talking, etc. Nothing seems to work, or if it does, it only works once or twice and that's it.

I am sure that some might say I should wake up and do it myself at least half of the time. However I work about 12 hours a day at work, and am usually ready to fall into a come by the time I get home. I honestly would get up out of bed to do this, however I am a heavy sleeper and my Wife just doesn't wake me up because she knows that I am tired and that I need my sleep for work, although I told her that she can do it, she still insists on doing ti most of the time.

This is why the ohnly thing left that I cna think of is to find some sort of miracle failsafe way of getting our son to sleep through the night, or at least for a good solid 6 - 8 hours of solid sleep a day.

any suggestion?

maleficent

I am a terrible sleeper -- always have been-- I'm sure I drove my parents crazy when I was a baby.

if the room is too hot or too cold - I'll wake up.
Noise - I'll wake up.
too quiet -- I'll wake up


Somethings that do work for me- one I didn't realize one I knew about. My old watch used to have a very audible tic toc.. since I never took it off, I always heard the tic toc -- especially when trying to go to sleep -- the monotonous sound -- not overwhelming loud, but enough to make me concentrate on the tic tocing rather than the other sounds or lack there of.

Lavendar Oil - just a few drops on the pillow it is soothing and relaxing and helps me get to sleep.

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Redlemon

Is he tightly swaddled? Some kids can be distracted by their own arms if they can move them. Some of our friends were helped greatly by the SwaddleMe.

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I can't read your signature. Sorry.

KMA-628

I had the exact same problem with our son (right around the same age as yours).

The problem: He was hungry and the bottle wasn't doing it for him anymore. It just wouldn't provide enough nurishment to sustain him for a decent length of time (he is/was a big kid and continues to grow rapidly).

The act of feeding naturally drains the energy of the child, so they get tired after awhile, full or not. If they get tired and didn't eat enough to be really "full", they will wake back up sooner because they are hungry.

Our solution: Adding solid foods to the diet. We still did the bottle, but we added a bowl of baby cereal twice a day (morning and evening). I thought he was too young for it, but even our doctor (who also had a similar problem) agreed. Sure enough, after a few days, he took right to the cereal.

Almost immediately, he started sleeping longer. Shortly thereafter, he quit taking the bottle and was only on solid foods. It was his choice, he didn't want the bottle, he wanted his cereal.

We then added vitamins and cottage cheese to his diet to substitute for the stuff he wasn't getting anymore from the formula.

All of this occured with the blessing of the family doc. He is now a big, strapping 3 year-old, who still eats us out of house and home.

angeltek

we have been trying the cereal but it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. Mind you my wife only feeds him like a tablespoon or 2 of it. maybe we should try increasing that amount.

KMA-628

I would give it a shot.

We started out with about half of a small, child's bowl and moved up from there.

It won't hurt (as you use less formula/breast milk, make sure you replace the nutrients with something else).

And I don't need to tell you what will happen if it helps.....

f6twister

There are quite a few things out there my wife and I tried. I listed them below. You can try the swaddling but 3+ months is when our son stopped liking it.

Switch to solids as a regular meal supplement, not just before bed. A fuller stomach will help him sleep longer.

Play some light music (either elevator music or a CD on repeat)

Have him play hard through out the day so he is more tired at night (that still works for us)

If you haven't already, get him into a routine. We found that our son slept better once he was on a routine.

Does he have an ear infection? Crying, tugging or rubbing his ears, dislike of laying down are all signs of an ear infection.

Does he have gas bubbles? Burping and/or Mylicon drops would help

He is a little young but he could be teething. Does he drool a lot and want to chew on everything? Does he have a fever?

Does he sleep in his own room or yours? Many kids don't sleep well in their parents room.

Let him cry for a while. Sometimes my son will wake up and cry for about 2-3 min then go back to sleep on his own. We always wait a little bit before going in by him unless the cry is a scared or pain cry (as a parent you get to know the difference).

Try some of this stuff. I would start with the routine if he isn't already one. That worked the best for us. I would also check for the medical issues I mentioned. Everything else is just things we tried that may help. It sounds like you will try anything as this point and you have nothing to lose.

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A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. Calvin

canuckguy

well i have a 8 month old myself so i have lived or shall we say slept in your shoes. only real advice i can give you is not really any advice at all. babies do what babies do. your baby may sleep 8 hours straight for weeks, then go back to 2-4 hour intervals. eventually you'll see some light at the end of the tunnel. My friend who has a 5 month old, sleeps for 10 hours or more each night still shocks me. there is no miracle, babies do what babies do.

yellowchef

my parents used to take me out for a drive and gave me tylenol 3(tylenol with codine) because from the time I was 6 months till the time I was 10 months changing my diet, letting me scream(my mom said she would let me cry for hours), putting crown in my bottle, playing hard was easy to do because I stayed with my grandparents who had me outside, in the baby pool, in the bathtub, and by 6 months I was in water babies at the YMCA with my mom in the afternoons learning how to swim. My mom started to notice that I slept usually on the way home for about half an hour in the car, we lived 30-40 min from the city when I was a baby so my mom said some oldies or country music and buckled in and I was out.. like a ROCK. She said one day a hailstorm hit while she was driving home and it was a few miles to the next exit so as she drove the hail was very loud and I didnt get up. So they put me in the car one night to drive into town to get some cereal and i was out as soon as they left the driveway. My mom said they drove for about an hour maybe an hour and a half and I slept the rest of the night.

ShaniFaye

When my daughter was a month old we had this problem....my solution was the same cereal one I'd take a normal 4 oz bottle and mix gerber cereal in it until it was really thick and couldnt be sucked thru a normal bottle....they make "feeder" bottle especially for cereal/formula mixters it worked like a charm...I even added a tablespoon or two of baby food pears or some other fruit to give it flavor

all with my doctors approval as well

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Rinndalir

My kid is almost 2 and still doesn't always sleep though the night. Its just luck of the draw I think, one kid will be out 20 hours a day and another will sleep for like 30 minutes every 12 hours.

I have been there and absolutely nothing worked, believe me I tried everything, my wife and I both work full time so we were zombies for about 6 months. Eventually she fell into a routine, we had been putting her to bed at the same time every night for months and she finally started sleeping the whole night through about half the time. That was when she was 9 months old I think. Like I said she still wakes up some times, she goes to bed at 9pm and will occasionally wake up at 11pm or midnight fresh and ready to go, and nothing short of an elephant tranquilizer will get her back to sleep.

Then again I have a friend whose kid has been on a regular sleeping schedule where she sleeps 10 hours a night ever since she was a month old. People like that should die a slow painful death. Well not really, but you want them to when you haven't slept for 48 hours because your kid kept you up 2 nights in a row and you had to go to work...

Grasshopper Green

My son started waking up about three months old because he learned to roll over on his tummy and he would wake up and not like that. He tended to be a good sleeper though, so I really don't have any advice other than whats already been mentioned. Good luck to you though, the first few months are definitely rough and sleep deprivation is no fun!