How many times have I ranted about this? I don't know. But friends, the owlet? He doesn't sleep. Well, he sleeps. But not well. I feel like we have tried EV-ER-Y-Thing, and nothing works.
No wait. Something DOES work. Him sleeping in bed with me. This is the only way that we get longer than a 2 hour stretch. Yup. Seriously.
My child is almost 8 months old and he still wakes up almost every 2 hours. I feel like I need to be standing up saying that at some sort of AA meeting like place. What would that be? Non-sleepers Anonymous?
So, you may be asking yourself:" what sorts of things have you tried?"
For weeks, (months?) we have been trying various techniques from No Cry Sleep Solution. Typically, we feed him, bathe him, read him a story, feed him and rock him. Sometimes we let him fall asleep in our arms, other times we put him down when he's almost asleep. Then he tosses and turns and bangs his head and rubs his hands all over the crib and fusses like crazy for about 20 minutes (although tonight it was more like 2 flippin hours...) and eventually falls asleep.
For about an hour and a half.
Then we (or I, usually, since the hubs works nights) go in and shush him some more, rub his tummy some more, beg him to go back to sleep some more, until he's screaming his head off and then we rock until he (and I) are falling asleep, and we start the whole process all over again. Sometimes we do this 50 times a night. (or 6.) Sometimes we do this 3 or 4 times with EACH. WAKING.
"Why don't you just shut the door, plug your ears and let him scream his head off for hours and hours until he just blissfully falls asleep? It worked for me." If it worked for you, then I praise you. Because we tried it. For two nights. Two horrible, gut wrenching, traumatizing nights. The fear in my child's face when we went to put him in his crib was not something that I ever want to see again, let alone know that I caused.
"but you just need to do it for 3 nights and then you'll never have a problem again!"
No.
Oh and also, he slept for 2 hours until he woke up again. So the point of him crying was.... 2 hours of sleep? We get that without him screaming himself hoarse, thanks.
So, I don't know what else to do. I know that there could be a million reasons for him not sleeping well. teething. illness. mommy not spending enough time with him. too hot. too cold. wet diaper. But when all the things that CAN be taken care of ARE, and he's STILL not sleeping, what do I do?
I'm honestly getting to the point where I'm going to spend a small fortune asking one of the sleep specialist people what I should do, even though I can read their advice in a book.
I think, in the meantime, that the owlet will just have to come to bed with me in the middle of the night. It beats me falling asleep standing up leaning against his crib.
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