My baby won't sleep!

My Baby Won't Sleep!

Remember my last post with the perfect 3 months milestone and sleep routine??? Well, forget about it!!! My baby has decided he no longer wants to sleep during the day... or at night! Yes! At night!!!! Mama is suffering for real now!!!

My baby, the one that so perfectly slept for the first 3 months, just completely changed his sleep patterns!

I will try to finish this post as fast as possible, before he wakes up, I hope it does not have too many mistakes, but otherwise, is almost impossible for me to write anything. For the past week it was impossible to sit down to write something; either I was trying to put him down to sleep, trying to sleep myself or falling asleep with him in my arms. My husband is a great help, however, he also goes to work everyday, so I try to use him when he is home and can spend time with the little one, but at night, the least possible amount of time. I exclusively breastfeed, so it makes no sense for me to keep him up as well. Of course, I am exhausted, but this family does not need two exhausted parents, one needs to maintain the sanity!

Anyway, back to this post. I have read many articles about baby sleeping, sleep training, and other blog posts about how many moms have achieved to have their babies' sleep from the 6, 8 or 10 week on; this, as I believe, many other moms that are not sleeping, find it very frustrating. My baby has a routine since the early weeks, but HE HAS NEVER SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! He had, until two weeks ago, slept a maximum of 6 hours in a row, no more. I believe this can be because he is a exclusively breastfed baby? Not sure, please, if you know this, share it with me! Maybe bottle fed babies' have this advantage? My husband has suggested this by the way, to give him a bottle at night, but for me, this just means being selfish, just because now I feel tired, I want to change his feeding, do not think so.

To manage this situation, I have done the following things, some of these things were a mistake, but hey, I am learning!

• First thing, the sleeping routine for the night. This is something good to do, works for both, babies and parents. It creates a schedule for them, that helps with the sleeping through the night *not for all kids, but helps with an improvement on their night sleep*; and also gives the parents time to do their thing and to spend some time together. And even, moms can join the baby going early to bed, to take advantage of the extra sleeping hours.
• Second, read a lot about babies that do not sleep, either at night or naps. This gives you a better view on the sleeping techniques that exist for babies and possible solutions for your baby's sleeping issues and solutions, depending on their age. As well as letting you know that any baby under 6 months will have sleeping problems; and letting you know that you are not alone, even though you will find all these posts about "How I got my baby to sleep by 6, 8, 10 weeks..."
• Third, put all together into my current situation. This means, I kept on with my baby's night routine, trying to combine it with a nap routine during the day, which basically consists of observing my baby for tiredness cues and feeding him, rocking him, giving him the pacifier, until he falls asleep. Putting him into his crib for the nap time and, in the cases of him waking up before the 2 hours 'need of sleep', letting him sleep in my arms.
• Fourth, letting my baby cry. This part, I did before the third one, but it was TOTALLY WRONG! That is why is coming after, as this was one of my mistakes.
• Is very important to read a lot before trying to find a way to get your baby to sleep. Why? Because, you find tons of information about sleep training right away, specially blog posts of other parents' experiences of their baby sleeping through the night, which on one hand, make you feel even worse about your situation and second, some do not specify that sleep trainings are age related, and that if your baby is under 6 months, sleep training will not work or will worsen the situation, as the baby's brain has not reach a maturity to understand and assimilate the sleep training yet.
• I have learned, that babies between 3 to 5 months experience the so called "sleep regression", which is an important milestone on brain development and learning of sleep patterns. And this can be the cause for the baby not sleeping. Naturally, you have to rule out serious sleep conditions on your baby, but for the most part, this will be the case.
• So, after reading all these blogs and before finding all the right information, I tried letting him cry, it worked one time, he fell asleep, but for the most part, it only made it worse; and, I felt like the worst mom, after, I was not only exhausted, but also depressed, for letting my baby cry. We are not the kind of parents that let their baby cry, he barely makes a sound and we pick him up and comfort him, feed him or whatever he needs, so, doing this for a day crushed my heart. Specially, because letting your baby cry can generate so many psychological issues for the rest of his life and during this moment, tire him and his brain out, not really teach him a valuable lesson.

Bottom line, we are still struggling with him not sleeping, I am struggling keeping myself awake and at the same time, trying to have a life and keep the house in order. It is hard to do everything at the same time. So, I would say, give him all the love your heart has to give, try to calm yourself down and think this is only a phase and it will pass. Ask for help, take turns with your partner to take care of the baby and even ask grandma, grandpa for support. And ANYONE that is willing to be there for you and your baby. (I suck at this, but it is a great advice!)

A little summary on this:

• hold your baby if he needs to be held, 
• pay attention to him and his cues for when he is tired,
• important is, do not let him get overtired, about 20min over his sleep time, will get him to this point and make it harder to make him sleep.
• do whatever it takes for him to fall asleep (feed, hold, pacifier),
• when he finally sleeps, take advantage of this and sleep as well, the rest can wait!

If you have any comments, questions, complaints, suggestions, etc, please leave them down!

Thanks for stopping by and reading!