Nursing and bouncing to sleep
My son had a short colicky period when he turned 6 weeks and could only be nursed and bounced to sleep. Now he's 8 months and 26 lbs, still needs to be nursed and bounced to sleep and he's starting to kill my back. He's not a self soother at all. Won't take a pacifier, lovely, nothing. So I know most traditional methods of sleep training (such as cry it out) won't work well for his personality type. We also cosleep, because we live in a studio. Eventually, I'd like to get to a point where I can have my husband put him to sleep or maybe my mom. My husband used to be able to bounce him, but now our son just won't sleep with dad. I want to continue cosleeping, but I want him to fall asleep without nursing or bouncing. I don't know how to transition from where we're at. I've read a few sleep training methods and nothing has worked for our situation. Has anyone dealt with this predicament before?
Parent Replies
My son nursed and rocked to sleep until he was almost one year. We were also cosleeping. At that point we transitioned him to his own room and crib. Like your son, he wasn’t interested in a pacifier and did not seem able to self soothe. But we did it. Your situation is a bit different so I don’t have any specific recommendations. What I can say is that you need to have a plan and stick to the plan. Be consistent. Whatever it is. I read the sleep easy solution. Also the group on Facebook, respectful sleep training/learning, was helpful. Good luck. You will get there.
I also have an eight-month-old. We tried sleep training around 5 months for a long time, but it just didn’t stick. So I’ve been nursing to sleep, and rock him in the chair I nurse in. Thankfully my back is fine because I am in the chair. The problem is that now between 6 and 10 PM anytime he’s wakes him self he starts screaming for me. It’s been getting pretty bad. What we are going to do is start honly respond during that time. It’s like our version of sleep training. Hopefully it will be an OK transition. After that, we will transition to patting and maybe not responding at all in that timeframe. He has his own room, so that makes it much easier. I generally don’t nurse him in the middle the night either.
My son was also not a self soother, would not take a pacifier and needed to be nursed/ bounced/rocked or bottle fed to sleep. I envied my friends who had babies that would just lay down and sleep unassisted. We tried sleep training for several weeks (both "gently" and Ferber) and found that our son could scream for hours night after night with no improvement as all the books promised. We concluded that there are some children who just don't respond well to sleep training and it wasn't worth it to us to break his spirit in order to teach him to sleep alone. We continued nursing to sleep and co-sleeping into toddlerhood and it has worked out fine. At 26 lbs you won't be able to bounce to sleep much longer so you'll need to start a new routine. What about nursing laying down, no bouncing? My son liked rhythmic pats on his back or bottom. Sometimes I would lay him on my chest and gently jostle him up and down while I was laying down in bed. You could also try leaving the house and having your husband bottle feed expressed milk. If you're not available he may be able to develop a new routine with dad. Looking back, this is one of the sweetest parenting predicaments we've dealt with.They grow so quickly.