Forum Is Currently Closed — We apologize for your inconvenience

At 4 – 5 months old, it took at least 2 hours every night to get baby to fall asleep.  After he was "asleep" he would still wake up every two hours to feed/fuss/resist sleep.  I've read Pantley, Sears, Ferber, Hogg, & Weissbluth.  In the beginning, we were bouncing/patting/shushing until baby fell asleep but he would wake up every time we tried to put him down; in the end our backs hurt, our wrists hurt and our throats were dry.  We tried Pick Up/Put Down – resulted in a very angry baby who proceed to wake up every 1/2 hour after screaming for 3 hours.  We tried Ferber with no change after 1 week.  Baby thrashed around so much, and got out of every swaddling method we tried so I was too worried that he would hurt himself if we did complete Cry-it-out.

So, where are we now?  We tried gradual extinction starting 4 weeks ago.  We got rid of bouncing, then we got rid of patting, then we got rid of shushing.  The first day we started, baby screamed his lungs out for over 3 hours before falling asleep.  The next day: 1 hour.  The third day: 27 minutes.  "Hurray!" – we thought we were on our way to getting nights under control.  Baby would still wake up twice a night to feed, but hey, that was still leaps better than before.

BUT.  Then we had immunizations on day 5.  Then we had the eruption of tooth #2 a couple days after. 

Since then, we have tried to remain faithful to our initial actions.  Baby follows the same bedtime routine he has had since being 2 months old (bath, massage, sleep blanket, story and nurse).  We put him in his crib drowsy and at this point one of two things happen:

1) baby falls asleep then wakes up after 5 – 30 minutes and proceeds to cry for at least one hour

2) baby starts to rub his eyes right away, then proceeds to cry, then scream for at least one hour.

Either way, baby is in his crib by 7 PM but he usually does not settle down to sleep until around 9PM.  While he is crying we sit by his crib with our hand on his tummy or back to make sure he doesn't thrash so much that he pins himself against his crib or rolls onto his tummy.  Once we get through this, we can get 2 1/2 – 3 hours of sleep in him before he wakes up to feed around 11 or midnight.  He tends to wake up to nurse around 3 or 4 AM but again can't fall asleep for 1 – 2 hours afterwards.  We tried moving his bedtime earlier, but saw no change.

This has now been going on for 3 weeks and there has been no improvement!  How long will it take for baby to learn to fall asleep?  I've been keeping records of his sleep and he only averages an obscenely low 8 hours a night!

We have not enjoyed an evening in months.  We dread putting baby to bed, knowing what's to come.  We tip-toe around the house at night after he's asleep, terrified of waking him up.  HELP!  Why is baby doing this???

His schedule is usually:

7AM – wake up, nurse

8AM – breakfast

9AM – nap

11AM – nurse

noon – lunch

1 PM – nap

3 PM – nurse

4 PM – nap

5 PM – supper

6:15 – start bedtime routine

Baby was/is a terrible napper too.  I decided to tackle his naps at the same time as his nights…about 5 weeks ago at the beginning of December.  As per Nicole's "Mastering Naps and Schedules", I started doing the nap hour.  We do our nap routine and then I put him in his crib while still drowsy and I sit by his crib with my hand on his chest.  At first, he would scream for 50 minutes then sleep for 10.  Thankfully, now we have more days when he will go straight to sleep for his nap; however, his naps have NEVER exceeded more than 1/2 hour.  Since starting the "nap hour" 1 month ago, the longest he naps is still 30 minutes, after which time he wakes up and cries/screams.  He has never put himself back to sleep for any remaining portion of the hour; he has not even got to the point of staying in his crib quietly for the rest of the nap hour.

I am so sick of hearing him cry every day for naps and at night that one week ago I decided if he wakes up after 30 minutes, I just take him out of his crib.  If he sleeps for less than 30 minutes, I will tough it out and sit with him for the rest of the hour to see if he will go back to sleep (so far, with no success).