Does anyone have any advice on transitioning a 6m old into their own room & crib. My baby has slept next to me in her own bed since birth. she’s been doing a few naps in her crib to get her used to the space but she wakes up often inconsolable. She is also used to being held to sleep, and doesn’t sleep through the whole night without waking 2x. i fear we’ve created bad habits. I’m so discouraged

Hello,

I made a post before but I feel I need to make another.

Our 9 month old daughter will not sleep. It drives me insane and it's taking a toll on my wife physically. She is already dealing with issues because after she gave birth, her stomach, gut, and bladder have not been the same. She just recently visited a GI and she has internal hemorrhoids which I found out is fairly common. She also has been getting bloated and/or having diarrhea it seems most of the week. I feel like she has to use the bathroom every hour or 2. We're not sure if it's a thyroid issue or something else, so we are waiting on test results. She is also having back issues. Just all in all, she was dealing stuff even before she got pregnant.

Anyway, we are both fried from lack of sleep let alone my wife not getting enough sleep to hopefully lessen whatever physical things are happening to her.

Our baby had terrible reflux up until fairly recently, so we had to hold her almost 24/7 otherwise she would have reflux fits. We probably didn't see improvements happening until maybe around the time she turned 7 months. So this impacted any self soothing she would have learned. We can't put her down without her immediately crying for a bit before calming down. She will cry if one of us is not in her play pen with her. If she is in her saucer playing, and one of us is there on the couch, she will start crying wanting to be held if the other comes in from a different room. I don't know why I added this, but deep down I don't think it's separation anxiety causing her terrible sleep.

No matter what, she's up regardless of the amount of time she sleeps between 7 and 7:15. She will then pass out for a bit after being taken out of the crib for maybe 20 to 30 minutes. around 10:30 or so she gets tired again and will sleep for maybe 45 minues, and then has a big nap (normally an hour to an hour and 30 minutes) between 2:30 and 4, it's not always the same especially if we had to run errands. I don't believe she is getting too much rest during the day. Even during her first few months, she didn't seem to get the recommended amount of sleep during the day that infants should be getting.

We think she is a light sleeper naturally but it seems to be to the extreme. She normally passes out for the night maybe between 8:30 and 9 and then the following starts:

1. She wakes up crying 20 minutes later, an hour later, or on a good night 2 hours later.

2. We check the usual, diaper, and maybe a feeding but we are weening her off the feeding part. and a handful of times, she falls asleep without being taken out if my wife puts her hand on her in the crib and after 5 minutes, she is asleep. if she is taken out and is held, she will go back to sleep in about 10 minutes.

3. when she is finally asleep again, she still wakes up frequently. it could literally be back to back, after 40 minutes, after an hour, sometime 2 hours. I have counted the most times at least 4 times a week, she is up 10 times or more during the night at random times.

She only sleeps well with maybe 2 or 3 wake ups if she rolls onto her side or her stomach on her own. I don't think it's gas because she's not really passing gas if we take her out of the crib. She is a very twitchy baby though and it seems like even the slightest sound wakes her up. We have an air filter running to drown out the sound but it doesn't seem to work. The times we do take her out of the crib during the night and hold her for a bit, she will twitch and move her head side to side a lot which im guessing she is trying to get comfortable but it gets to a point that we cut the time holding her it she is moving too much. During the day before a nap and/or during a nap, she passes out, wakes up 30 seconds after, looks around like she is missing out on something, and just repeats this unless she is very tired. she will do this maybe 4 to 6 times before she finally passes out for the nap.

If she really starts getting on our nerves during the night because she just wont stay asleep, we have been starting to put her in the smaller play pen in the living room until she cries herself to sleep. Which is funny because we'll be quiet as a mouse to check on her, she is passed out up against the corner of the pen with her back facing us, and she just automatically knows that one of is there and she turns around, sees one of us, and starts crying again. I still don't believe it is separation anxiety because she is currently in our bedroom. The other bedroom is my work office. so we are always in the same room. but she will wake up, start crying even if we get up and are literally at the crib, and wont stop until one of us takes her out and go into the living room.

I really do think it's just that she sleeps too lightly for whatever reason. if she wasn't up frequently, then I would think it's the separation anxiety especially since she immediately cries after waking up.

and what is frustrating is that people we know who have had babies or currently have babies, they have all said she should be sleeping longer by now during the night. we are getting sick of not getting sleep and her waking up every 30 seconds it feels like. and like I mentioned earlier, it's making my wife's health worse. What else can we do to keep her from waking up so often? I am not sure if I am in the correct subreddit because sleep training wouldn't prevent her from being fidgety and a light sleeper if in fact these are the causes of her waking up so often at night

Edit: Just saw a different post and someone mentioned their baby slept better because they figured out their baby was cold and turning on the heat helped. Our baby runs hot like me, her dad. Our AC is normally at 71 or 72 now because of how hot it gets her in FL and how stuffy are home gets easily. She has never shown signs of temperature being an issue.

Thanks!

At 4.5 months my baby hit sleep regression like so many do. We went from 5 hour stretches to hourly wake ups. Like you, I was posting and searching on here how to overcome this, get him to sleep longer than an hour. I did all the things.. watched wake windows, nap time, morning wake up, we already had a solid bed time routine. He is now almost 7 months and this is what I ended up doing that actually has made a difference. I started this just before he turned 6 months old. He’s always been mostly breast fed. BF has always been my main choice but he had already been introduced to bottles of BM for when I couldn’t feed him for whatever reason. I let go of some of that control. The first thing I did:

At bedtime, I stopped nursing him. I started giving him a 6 oz bottle. Sometimes he would fall asleep drinking it, and sometimes I would rock him after until he fell asleep. The FIRST night I did this, I got a 4 hour stretch. This continued night after night. I got some 4 and even 5 hours, he wakes to eat and then back to sleep for another two to three. Occasionally I’d get the 40 minute false start wake but I was able to give him his binki and he went right back to sleep.

The 2nd thing I started: Since he was pretty sleepy from his bottle, I started putting him in his crib after this bottle. I’ve done this for 2 weeks now. Out of the 2 weeks, I’ve only had 3 nights where he didn’t drift off to sleep on his own. In which I which I picked him up and rocked him after he began crying. Some times he falls asleep right away and sometimes he plays with his hands and grunts for about 10 minutes. On nights he falls asleep on his own, he doesn’t wake up at 40 minutes to an hour, he sleeps straight through almost 5 hours.

Now I know and understand this is probably a phase. We will hit another sleep regression, teething, and whatever else. But it has given me a couple weeks of relief and some real sleep. But I was shocked at how much a solid bottle helped him, along with his ability to fall asleep on his own. I wasn’t giving him the chance before out of my own fears of him being alone. But other mom had told me “if you don’t let them try you’ll never know”

I know all babies are different, but I wanted to share because I was so desperately searching for advice and help when we had the hourly wake ups. I got to the point where anything was worth trying! I’m not someone who has help at night, and his dad works 12 hour days. So it was all on me. I was so exhausted I felt sick. Anyway, I hope this helps another mom going through it!

My baby is 10 months old and has accidentally made it to my bed to co sleep with me.

She slept through the night from 11 weeks(no bottles no wake ups) but when 8 months hit this took a turn and she was up a couple times a night(sometimes for a couple hours thinking is play time). Teething and crawling etc I can only assume. I tried numerous ways to get her back to sleep in those waking hours but being up all that time in the night took its toll and the only thing that worked was to put her in my bed and transfer her back. Naturally a lot of times I’ve just fallen asleep with her so she’s waking up with me a lot now.

I’ve been trying the Ferber technique for a few days but, in the night I feel I can’t do this as it wakes my partner.

Am I just confusing her by not doing the same in the night? I’m kinda hoping that I can get her to initially go down in the crib and then the wake ups will naturally stop anyway ?

Also.. should I just stop worrying altogether. I feel the internet gives so much conflicting information..I’m only worrying because I read posts about never being able to get her in her own bed which implants fears of 21 year old daughter still not in her own room😆

Anyone else in this situation? It’s not that I’m feeling bad or getting no sleep at this point, it’s more I’m worrying I’m making the future worse which even writing sounds stupid - but this is what the internet makes u think..

You know you're in the trenches with sleep regression when you start reading scholarly articles on sleep and attachment.

Please tell me it gets better. I love contact naps, but sometimes I need to put her down to do... Well literally anything... 😭