Comments on: Back to Sleep (Part II of Sleep on This)

By: janet

janet — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:00:56 +0000

Hmmm… It sounds like sleep is going really well for him, and continuing to use the pacifier (even though it’s not the greatest habit) would be extremely tempting for me in your situation. Does he use it at other times during the day? Infants your son’s age have a strong need to suck and it will help him if he has time during the day to work on finding his thumb, which will then be readily available to him all night long. If you give him a pacifier during the day, he has no opportunity or desire to work on sucking his thumb (hand or fingers).

I don’t know if you’ve read some of Eileen Henry’s sleep posts here, but I know that she would say what I’m thinking… that he’s developed a habit and of course he wants to continue it. If we want to change our childrens’ habits, the needs we’ve created (and please don’t feel bad because we are all inclined to do that) we can’t expect them not to grieve the loss of what we take away. Eileen explains it beautifully here: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2011/01/babys-no-cry-sleep-is-exhausting-more-wisdom-from-eileen-henry/ and also here: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/11/baby-sleep-struggles-guest-post-by-eileen-henry/

Please keep me posted on your progress! And take care.

By: Sierra

Sierra — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:44:08 +0000

I have done everything mentioned above.. my son is 3 1/2 months old and does not have a night feeding and hasn’t since 11 weeks.. he goes to be consistently every night at 7 pm and wakes up at 7 am. We don’t get him out of his crib at all in the middle of the night.. if he wakes (which he does typically around 3 a.m and then 5 am.), we go in and soothe him without talking to him.. so, so far so good, EXCEPT I cannot figure out what to do about the pacifier! He goes to sleep with it and once he is in a deep sleep it will fall out and stay out until he wakes up again in the early morning like I mentioned above. HOWEVER, sometimes it falls out and wakes him up because it’s lodged under his face or neck and clearly is bothering him and he can’t put it back in his mouth yet.
When we go in to soothe him, he immediately will go back to sleep if we give him back the pacifier right away. If we don’t give it back, he cries and gets more riled up. At 3 am or 5 am, I’m exhausted. What do I do?!

By: janet

janet — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:29:44 +0000

Hi Mary,

There are positives to co-sleeping with children, but also downsides. It is generally much more difficult for an older infant or toddler to learn to go back to sleep independently when he has a parent nearby. This situation works well for some families, others have found that providing a separate bed for a child has a dramatic effect on the quality of the child’s (and the parent’s) sleep.

If we want our baby to return to sleep independently, we must “do less” when we he wakes up, and keep in mind that children like to do what they are used to doing. If we decide to change habits and respond to a child differently than we have been, it’s important to be respectful, acknowledge those changes for our child, and allow him to express whatever feelings he has about the change. Not sure if that answers your question but…

I wrote more about this in Babies Breaking Habits, Toddlers Dealing With Change: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/06/babies-breaking-habits-toddlers-dealing-with-change-3-steps-to-ease-the-way/

By: mary ellen pleasant

mary ellen pleasant — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:31:54 +0000

what about mothers who “co-sleep” or “bed-share”…?…..

how do the ideas apply?

i exclusively breastfeed….i put my little one (6 mos) to bed usually between 6 and 8…..he wakes about 2 times to nurse before waking up at 7…..both times i nurse lying down….the first time he wakes i am usually still awake and not in bed….the second time he wakes he usually rolls over….roots and wakes me to nurse…..

By: janet

janet — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:28:48 +0000

Thanks Kim!

Yes, helping babies sleep so that we can sleep is sometimes extremely challenging. And since our well-being depends on the baby sleeping, sleep becomes a huge focus, especially for nursing moms. I remember being a little obsessed about getting a few hours of sleep in a row when my first and third children were babies. Usually, by midway through the first year, the baby can be physically capable of sleeping several hours without being fed, and the mother’s milk supply is well-established. But, as with all areas of development ,yes, that varies.

Thanks again for reading the blog!
-Janet

By: Kim Lewis

Kim Lewis — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:35:35 +0000

I am really loving your blog and these posts. Thank you for sharing so generously!! Sleep can be such a trying topic. In one of my parent/infant classes, it was the topic the parents disagreed about the most! One of the difficulties in “creating good sleepers” is that a new baby must be breastfed throughout the night to guarantee that the mother’s milk supply is adequate. And some working mothers really rely on night-time nursing because the pumping they do during the day is not as efficient as a nursing baby at building the milk supply. I would love to talk about this need to wake up at night with someone such as Elsa who is a trained lactation consultant as well as a student of Magda, because it isn’t congruent with sleeping through the night. I think what you are probably talking about here is a time when the milk supply is well-established and the child is able to take in enough nourishment at one feeding to sustain him or her through the night. I don’t know when that age is or how one would discover when it is. I’m sure it varies. As you said in your earlier post, there are no fast rules.

By: Attica

Attica — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:05:37 +0000

I agree about presenting a unified front, both parents in agreement about how to handle nighttime cries. I would also add that it’s okay to know where you’re weak. In my house, I’m the wuss who would always want to pick up my daughter. My husband was more firm about the sleep thing. So he was the one who went in at night because I knew he wouldn’t cave.

Great post!