Our pediatrician said 3 mos was plenty old enough to cry it out if the baby is not hungry and has a clean diaper.

When you do your night feedings, does your daughter eat a normal amount? If so, you may have a few more months of night feedings ahead of you. Neither of my girls slept through the night reliably until after we stopped breast-feeding (6 mos). If your daughter does not take a full feeding at night, maybe you can try to wean her back to one feeding, but it will be painful for all concerned. Given the painfulness of crying-it-out and the worry that she might just be hungry, I would keep feeding her but (1) don't feed her in your bed, and (2) put her in the crib after you feed or if she loses interest. That way, if she is using the feeds as an excuse for snuggling in your bed, you have removed that temptation.

We also used to try to feed our girls right before bed or "top them off" just before bed, thinking that it would help them sleep longer. I did not have much success with that strategy, though.

It's been a while since my kids were that age (they are 9 & 11) but I do recall that they both fell into habits of waking up more and more often during the night, so that they were waking every two hours or so. If I recall correctly, we (okay, my wife) first dialed back on the nursing (though I don't remember exactly how) and would take turns comforting them until they fell back asleep. We finally "ferberized" them at 5-6 months. Five months seemed a bit early for the younger one, because it took longer for him to sleep through the night once we started. 6 months for the older one was right on--it took two weeks total, but rapidly improved after a few nights. Man, we were so worn out by that point with each kid! The crying was really rough for the first couple of days but then we got used to it, and decided that for all of us it was worth the pain.

We considered "through the night" about 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. It was a blessing when the new sleep habits were established. We discovered we could put the older one to bed at 7 pm, nurse him briefly at around 10 or 10:30, then have him sleep again until 5:30 or 6:00. Similar pattern for the younger one.

Good luck.

Brad

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De que depende?

Keep feeding when she wants; Kate would feed at 2am and at 5am - did this from ~3mo til ~7mo. And you know this part: Stop taking her to your bed.

Are you eating enough yourself? I was totally exhausted too, until my GP suggested chugging a Boost after every night feeding - it made a HUGE difference. You burn a lot of calories breastfeeding.

Good luck.

AP

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"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

I'll be wishy washy and start off saying there is no right answer to your question. Every family and every situation will be different. Some exhausted moms will choose to let the baby cry it out, others will decide to cosleep more often. Most of us will be somewhere in the middle.

Baby number one nursed for a year. He was never a very good sleeper, even when he started to eat solids. I Ferberized him---does anyone do that anymore? Basically that meant at six months I started to let him cry it out for longer and longer periods. I would go check at first and make sure he wasn't hungry, poopy, sick, all that stuff, then reassure him and leave the room, staying away for longer and longer times, giving him a chance to comfort himself. He always slept in a separate room. It took maybe a week. Problem was, any time we took a trip or moved or changed his routine, I had to do it again. Not to scare you, but he didn't reliably sleep through the night until he was nearly two, just before his brother was born.

Brother was a better sleeper. Also an avid nurser, he was born chunkier and slept in longer blocks of time. I never sleep trained him explicitly, maybe because I knew eventually he would get it on his own, and maybe because I was used to going through life sleep deprived. The irony is I did bring him into the bed when he would wake up in the wee hours to squeeze out an hour or two more of sleep. Once he was next to me he would sleep like a rock.

Good advice about making sure you are making lots of milk and that baby isn't having a growth spurt or isn't sick. If all is well, go for it. Momma needs her sleep, too.

I feel for you - my almost 11 month old is still nursing 2 times a night minimum. If teething, I seem to become the human pacifier at times (although I really try not to do that). He was doing 6 hour stretches at 3-4 months, then whammy - back to every couple of hours. It's taken a long time to get back to nursing 2 times a night!

As for crying it out - I think Ferber and the other "experts" say 6 months before a baby is able to learn to self soothe - until then, you should help them get back to sleep - not necessarily by nursing, but rocking, walking, singing etc. Ferber is supposed to be the quickest way to help them if you are ok with the crying it out method. One of my sons it worked like a charm for, the other, my youngest, is now absolutely terrified of his crib, so much so that even looking at it makes him cry, scream and hang on to your neck like you're going to throw him off a cliff. It's terrible, and crying it out was the cause... not that we left him alone for more than 10 minutes EVER, and usually less than 10, but after 5 days, it just backfired terribly for us and now we have a college kids room with mattresses on the floor for him and us so he can't fall off the bed when he naps or is sleeping without us in the room. We had him in a crib in our room as we didn't want him to have to share a room with his brother yet, hoping to make that transition when he is weaned - who knows, maybe that will help him sleep better too. Don't know.

Sorry - just realized my sleep deprived mind hijacked ya! Hang in there. A lot of nursed babies will continue to nurse overnight until they are weened, some will sleep through the night like champs. Hang in there!

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Harry: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Loyd: "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man."

I know (from experience) how frustrating this can be.
It is fairly common for babies to change their sleep patterns around 3-4 months. My daughter did the same thing yours did right around the time I went back to work (3.5 months).
It is totally up to you what you want to do. My advice is that when you are exhausted or frustrated by her getting up then you should try something different (like cry it out) for a little while. Our experience was that sometimes the baby did start sleeping a little longer, after a few times of letting them cry. Othertimes it didn't help at all, usually those times they were on a growth spurt, slightly sick, or just emotionally needing mom.

As far as bringing her into bed with you, don't feel guilty at this point. It's making life easier for you and really she's only 3 months old. I always brought my 1st back to her crib after feeding and I just co-slept with our 2nd. I got a lot more sleep with the 2nd even though he woke up more often.

Good luck!

I like Dr Sears' The Baby Book. It tells you when to expect the growth spurts that lead to more frequent night wakenings-- as well as the other reasons: too cold, hot, teething, etc. These all pass. We didn't do any crying it out until he was about 9 months old. By then, they know they can depend on you. You'll know the different cries and will already have that trust built up. My 15 month old is working on 4 molars right now and is waking up again at night. Inconvenient, but short-term.

Every family does this differently.

Our kids were all sleeping for 5-6 hour stretches at around 16 weeks. Every once in a while they would wake in the night, usually for a diaper change, sometimes a feeding. Seems like we would put them down for the night around 11 pm and I would get up at 3 or so to feed them when they were hitting growth spurts. Anything other than the diapering, eating a full bottle thing and they usually self-soothed.

I always played music for them at naptime and bedtime, so when it was lights out after a feeding or diaper change they were swaddled and music started for them. For the most part, barring illness, they went back to bed. The middle daughter didn't nap worth a crap, but she slept well in the night.

I think that if you let her cry for a time, you will know what those cries mean. You know your baby best. You know her 'Hey WOMAN FEED ME' cries and her 'uhm, I am awake so you should be too' cries. I can't remember exactly, but I *think* that we did 5 minutes or something like that, then checked and if all was well, we extended that time until they fell back asleep. Growth spurts tend to only really last a short time, so it shouldn't be weeks on end of being up. Babies will eat a lot more during the day as well and nap more, so that may be a clue as to what might be going on.

Best of luck. Rest up. I do not envy this stage...not one bit....even if they are just too cute for words :)

I'll agree that everyone does this differently (along with everything in parenting) but I'll give the perspective from the other end. Mine are 17, 15, 12 and 10. We slept with ALL of them until they were ready to move out of our bed (at one point we had a king and queen together making one Very Big Bed) and we obviously found time to have sex (see 4 kids..) They all moved out, on their own, around 8 to 9 years old. I also breastfed as long as the kids wanted (about 5 for the longest). Read Dr. Sears and Read "Our Bodies Ourselves" (I think that's it) to see why, biologically, kids are supposed to sleep with us and nurse.

Believe it or not, the time you're in will pass in a blink of an eye and you'll be YEARNING for the chance to get up with a crying baby (and my 2nd born was up every 20 minutes his first 2 years of life, so no, mine weren't all easy :)). Time goes so fast you have no idea. Anecdotally, none of mine had the night terrors (supposedly all kids get them) and the teen years are the best yet. :)

enjoy your time and don't feel guilty for answering your mother instinct.

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

I don't have anything that's groundbreaking to tell you but just know that there are a lot of us out there struggling with our baby's sleep. My 10 month old wakes up at least once and usually twice a night. Sometimes he nurses, sometimes he just needs snuggling for 10-15 minutes. I still haven't slept more than 5 hours in a row since he was born. I've read about the different methods (Sears, Ferber, Weissbluth) but feel that I know what he needs. I usually wait anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes before going in to see if he will self-soothe. It all depends on the level of crying ("I'm awake so you should come be awake with me" or "I'm hungry" or "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, where's my binky?").

All I know is that this phase won't last forever and they are constantly changing. I am pretty tired a lot of the time but I just try to enjoy the quiet snuggle time I have with him while he is small.

With two babies, I've had completely different experiences.

The first refused to breastfeed (I have a crazy fire hydrant letdown) so I had to pump milk for the first 10 months. I followed the Baby Whisperer method of never letting her nurse to sleep, but putting the baby down when drowsy, and following the routine every single time of wake feed play sleep. Also, put the baby to bed at night in her own crib at pretty much exactly the same time every day. I highly recommend the Baby Whisperer for your next child. With these methods, she was sleeping through the night around 3 months (8 pm to 6 am) and never had night wakings, nightmares, etc. She always napped for 1.5 to 2 hours, starting at 3 times a day, then reducing to once a day as she aged. I kept the routine for the first few years, enforcing naptimes at the same time every day, and things were easy. It requires quite a sacrifice to your social life, but it can be done.

The second was the opposite. I called her "alert baby." She wouldn't sleep more than 30 minutes for naps and 2 hours at night without waking!!! TOTAL NIGHTMARE. She was breastfed. I was determined not to go the same way as my first, thinking it would make it easier for me. Big mistake. I did nurse her to sleep and I also slept with her in my bed because I was so damn exhausted. She was sick almost all the time with a cold. I can only guess that was because she never slept well, so she never recovered much from one cold to the next. I read that you can sleep train at six months, but I waited until 9 months because she always had the d*&* cold. At 9 months, she still had a cold (runny nose, congested), but I decided that it could be because of the lack of sleep that she never got better, so cold or not, I was going to do something about it. She was undersize and underweight... She was at the very bottom of the bell curve.

I read 5 pure sleep training books. FIVE. To find a solution. Agonized over what to do.

Sleep trained her (modified cry it out... I would go in if she cried and pat her on the body, but never pick her up-- also increased the amount of time before going in and comforting her) within 1-2 nights. It was really really awful and agonizing to listen to her cry, but if you relent and pick her up, you're teaching her that if she cries hard enough, you will give up.

BAM. From then on, she slept 9-10 hours without waking at night and immediately got better and healthy. Rarely sick at all. As for me... I got my life back. Until then I was sleeping no more than 2 hours at a stretch, some times only 1 hour... Both kids have been sleeping in their own rooms/beds since infancy. Works for me, because I have my privacy with my husband and the freedom to go to sleep when I want. (And my youngest is still at the bottom of the bell curve, but she is healthy and has a body of steel).

Sleep is key to your child's health, learning, everything. Even now, I wake my kids up once a week, for their 7:15 am Sunday morning swim club, but other than that, they wake up by themselves because I put them to bed at the same time every night, 8:30 pm. As I said before, it ruins your social life, but the payoff is incredible. Only on vacations or special occasions such as weddings do I let them stay up past 8:30 pm.

I hope this works out for you and you make a decision you are comfortable with.

Two other unrelated and unsolicited pieces of advice to note for the future...

For my first child, I spent many weeks bent over holding her hands and killing my back while she was in the pre-walking stage. Then she walked at 11 months.

For my second child, I never hunched over holding her hands while she walked. Then she walked at 11 months.

In other words, there was no need for my bad back walking with the first because she was probably going to walk when she did whether I helped her or not.

On toilet training... It should only take you 2-3 days, when your child is ready (for mine, aged around 22-25 months). Do not attempt it earlier or you are wasting your time and confusing them. I read Nathan Azrin's Toilet Training in Less than a Day and modified it for my use, but basically the idea is you let them wear big kid underwear and reward them when they pee/poo on the toilet successfully with candy or something like that. Set aside a long weekend with no other distractions.

Enjoy!

Thanks for all the responses and insight. It sounds like what we are experiencing with the nightly feedings is completely normally and might be for a few more months (special note, we got 8+ hrs of straight sleep the other night !!!). I'll just have to find better ways to overcome my exhaustion.

Yes, I could probably eat more / take in more calories, especially foods higher in "good" fats. Might have to revert back to a bowl of ice cream every night like I did when I was prego.

I've read the "Seven Sleeping Habits..." book and have done some online research on the matter. There is so many conflicting arguments that some of you are right -- I need to listen to my intuition: when to let her try and self-soothe, when to immediately attend to her nursing needs.... and on some of the rare nights, when to let her fall asleep cuddled up at my side (and not feel guilty about it !).

Or you could never toliet train. :) My I took my boys out of diapers one summer (nekid) and they trained themselves. The 2nd one was iffy at nighttime until he was 5 though. My girls (had 2 boys then 2 girls) I started from almost birth (5 weeks with #4 and 4 months with #3) taking them out of diapers. Never toliet trained them. HAve a picture of my oldest boy (#1) holding my youngest on the toilet when she was 7 months. Might not be your thing (dunno what they call it now as my #4 is 10 years old now) but back then it was called EC (elimination communication) if you're interested.

Yeah, I'm that hippy mom. :) (course now we live on a beach in the Caribbean and kids don't wear diapers here either).

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

Just curious as to why you aren't putting her in her own room at 5 months. If it is a bonding thing (like Kathy) then that's fine, to each their own. But if you are worried about SIDS, then I suggest getting one of those motion sensors that goes under their mattress. You might feel a bit silly about it, but for us overly nervous first time parents, anything that calmed us down to get some extra sleep was worth it. It also really help to not have her in the room if you are going to sleep train.

For our daughter, we moved her to her own room at 1 month because she was a grunter. She could keep us up all night with her little soft grunts. We trainer her at about 6 months. First we shortened her night feedings, then eliminated them, then took longer an longer to go to her when she cired. When we finally stopped going to her, it was probably 2 nights before she slept through. No problems after that. Whole process took about 10 days and we'll probably cut that in half for our next one.

My 6 month old is up every 2 hours to eat at night. He's on the small side - 12lbs, so I'm sucking it up for now. Hopefully some solids will help him grow & then we can consider other options.

Just letting you know it could always be worse... :P

Torrey - she's not yet in her own room more because of security/safety than a fear of SIDS. If we had a break-in, fire, etc at night we would never hear the commotion downstairs. Granted this fear will be ongoing as long as we live in the house.....but I just can't bring myself to let her sleep in her own room, on the main level by herself at such a young age. This is arrangement is something my husband and I strongly agree on for the time being.

Wow. I am a light sleeper and from DAY 1 K slept in her own room, but I realize if her room is a floor away, that I might reconsider. Damn, I need sleep too! If I can't function, then how good am I for bebe? Any way to give her spaceoutside your bed but in or near you room?

AP

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"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS