Thread: Please tell me it's not just my child....(update)

.....who wakes up a billion times a night.....

Yes, this is about sleep. We all know I have a child who's never been big on sleep. He naps great most days and goes down for the night without a fuss BUT THIS KID WON'T STAY ASLEEP! Any ideas at all? We've got a solid bedtime routine that I feel good about. Couple of days ago I was wondering if maybe co-sleeping is leading to worse sleep for him so he's spent more time in his crib than usual. He goes back down pretty easily (mostly), but trooping between the two rooms all the time is wearing and I always end up dragging him back to bed in desperation where it takes him longer to fall asleep.

Here was 2 nights ago:
In his crib asleep without fuss at 8:15pm
Up at 10:15pm, nursed to sleep and put back in crib
Up at 11:30pm, nursed to sleep (just a snack) and put back in crib
Up at 12:15am, drug him to my room where I nursed to sleep (just a snack)
Up at 1:45am, nursed to sleep cosleeping
Up at 3:00am, tried to get him to go back asleep without nursing. Starts crying. DH wakes up and rocks him back to sleep which takes until 4am.
Up at 6:00am, nurse to sleep.
Up at 6:45am, I throw him in the crib after reading to him and turning his classical music back on.
Up for the day at 8:00am.

Here was last night:
He took a late nap (till 6pm) so it was 8:45pm before he was asleep in his crib.
Up at 11:10pm, nursed to sleep and put back in crib.
Up at 1:15am, nursed to sleep and put back in crib.
Up at 3:15am, brought back to my bed and nursed to sleep
Up at 4:00am, couldn't get him to settle down (did not nurse him)
Gave up at 4:40 and put him back in his crib after reading a few books and turning on classical music
Up at 6:15am, nursed back to sleep and put back in crib
Up at 7:15 am, brought back to my bed and gave up on sleep at 7:50am

I'm exhausted. And these past two nights are very typical. I seriously think he gets up more now than he did as a newborn. I nurse him as much as I can b/c when his mouth is full he can't cry (or do play squeals lol) which wakes up DH.

UPDATE POST 28 (here)

Wow! Natalie was doing the same thing almost when I had her in my room and coslept.

Her nights usually wasnt getting up every hour but usually every two hours and then it became routine for her to not fall alseep in between some of those hours so last Saturday I put her in her room and BAM!! Good sleeper!

She usually wakes up at 11 or 12am to nurse and doenst wake back up until 9! This has been pretty much everyday. Last night I did hear her at 3 but I waited 10 minutes and she fell back alseep on her own. I do think at this point cosleeping can make it worse.

I don't have any suggestions, since we never did cosleeping. DS seems to do pretty good in his room. But....wow, that is alot of waking up. I'm sorry you are having to get up that much during the night. Hugs your way.

i might agree with at least just trying him in his own crib. That is HORRIBLE!!! i never thought his waking was that bad. Is he a sensitive sleeper? maybe if you or your dh move in your sleep it disturbs him and he wakes up? or he wakes up and notices you are there instead of going back to sleep? Lucas is a very light sleeper and i hear him wake up or moving multiple times in the night but majority of the time he goes right back to sleep or babbles for a second and passes out again. If he saw me or knew i was there i know he wouldn't go back to sleep easily unless i fed him lol. maybe he knows that eventually he will be brought into bed? if you can try for a little while not doing that maybe it will help? sorry, that is tough

I've started to suspect that co-sleeping is what's keeping Teagan from STTN. She'll go down most nights between 7-8pm and will wake up 15 minutes after I go to bed no matter the time. I've been toying with the idea of putting her crib in her own room but that's going to have to wait until FIL comes and goes. I'm also worried that she'll wean if it works because she does the majority of her nursing at night. I'd almost rather suffer sleep deprivation than have her wean prematurely. I'm THAT crazy.

Have you had his crib in your room before? Is having him in his room a new thing?

I agree with Janice! I think Natalie was a sensitive sleeper and every little noise or movement we made she heard. Plus the bed we have makes noise.. I think one of the things that helps Natalie sleep in her room is the window fan, but i have it sucking air out instead of in so she doesnt get cold, just a good white noise..

Since about 5 months Aiden has been in his crib in his room for the first part of the night. We typically don't cosleep till after I've gone to bed for the night (10-11pm). The past two nights I kept getting up out of bed and trying to put him back in his crib till I was too tried to think and just brought him back to my bed. Other than the one time I noted, DH hasn't woken up to Aiden at all. Just me. Aiden used to follow me and sleep up against me in bed, but recently there are more times where it seems like he wants his own space. He's trying to move around a lot more. So there's where I was thinking he needs more time in his crib. But trooping back and forth every two hours (or more often) is not helping me sleep at all! Every time I get up out of bed it takes me at least 30 minutes to fall back asleep.
ETA: His crib has always been in his room.

Okay, so Aiden's bedtime routine is like this: Sometime after dinner and playing with dad (usually around 7:15ish) I take him and give him a bath. Then he brushes his teeth. We go into his room where I massage him with lotion. Put on his night diaper and a t-shirt (anything more and he gets hot right now since we've been ordered to turn up our a/c due to the TX energy crisis). I nurse him, usually his typical 5 minutes. Then DH takes over. He turns on the fan in there, turns on classical music, then rocks to him and reads to him until Aiden is asleep. Aiden is very used to this and very quickly falls asleep without any fussing or anything (even if he's reached the overtired stage if we had to delay bedtime due to something else). The classical music only plays for an hour which makes me wonder if that's an issue. We don't own a CD player, so the CD is played on a DVD player and TV in his room (yeah, we keep those in his room just for a CD lol). I'm wondering if he's getting so used to the music that not having it on when he stirs is a problem. The music drives me nuts though and I can hear it down the hall and into my bedroom! That's why I asked in chat perviously if this seahorse might be worthwhile. Maybe he could learn to turn it on himself? Or maybe I'm way too hopeful about my cranky child. lol.

Wow, that is a lot of time up each night. Odin totally had that sleep pattern until like 6 months when I moved him to his crib for the first part of the night. I love cosleeping but was responding too much to his every move and shoving the boob in his mouth so that he wouldn't wake DH as well. It took a few weeks for his sleep pattern to improve, and the first week was crazy, but it improved with persistance. I moved the nursing chair into his room for a few weeks and would nurse again after the first waking (1-2 hours later) and then put him down in his crib. Sometimes I would do this again for 3 in crib cycles and then bring him into our bed for the rest of the night. That was exhausting but worth it later. His sleep stretches started getting longer and I went in to nurse less and less. Also I turned down the baby monitor so that I would hear if he cried or fussed but not if he moved or grunted as much. I'm not a CIO type of person so if the crying went on (after a quick potty stop by me) then I went in to nurse. Now he will go from 7:30 till about 4 a.m at which point we co-sleep the rest of the morning and have a marathon nursing session. When he is sick, all bets are off. I'm actually suprised this worked because he didn't seem like the type to be a good sleeper but I think I was the problem in the co-sleep and sleep issues.

Dont want to say it but have you tried to let him CIO in his crib? Usually one good night of that and it gets easier! I think since you have coslept and had him in your room since NBish its going to be hard for him to be able to sooth himself at his wakeups in the middle of the night..

The music thing could be an issue too. My friend has had to play the radio for her girls since birth and they are 3 and 4 now.. and still playing the radio all night long..