Baby with sleep problems - HELP!

[reddog]

Anyone travel to WDW with a sleepless infant?!

We're leaving in a month and our adorbale little 7 month old has some pretty tough sleep problems. He occassionally suffers from night terrors which are extremely nasty. Even if he doesn't have those, he wakes up about 4 times a night, every night, crying (not for food, but for someone to be there).

A couple of things to note here-
1) we've tried the cry it out method (for the regular waking, not the night terrors). Result after a week - hysterical baby - worse than before and terrified of his crib, and parents with extreme guilt.
2) The other problem is that he shares a room with his 7 year old brother (who, surprisingly sleeps through anything).Because they share a room, we reacted immediately to his crying to quiet him. When we tried the crying out thing we rearranged sleeping arrangements,but since it backfired on us, we're back to the normal arrangements.

Anyway, we're staying in a studio at OKW and I don't expect any miracles at this point (although they would be welcome!) so my question is ... if you went to WDW with a sleep problem baby, how did you handle it? I also feel like I should warn whoever is in the next room to us about the night terrors, because there is absolutely nothing we can do when he has those except wait for them to pass! My husband and I are pretty good with acceptance about the situation and not to fight it, but any advice or stories out there would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance - Laurie

 

[BevS97]

well, I am sure my parenting style is different to many, but personally I would just bring him in bed with the both of you. I find that calms my dd down every time, and anything that gets us as a family the most sleep, is a winner for me.

I couldn't try the cry it out method personally, babys cry for a reason = at 7 months they aren't trying to manipulate us.

If he is crying really bad, then maybe put him in his pushchair and take him for a walk (yes, even in the middle of the night), it would give your neighbours some relief, and it generally calms my daughter down to be out in her pushchair.

Bev

 

[all4fun]

Hi,
I agree with the pp. (And I feel your pain!) My ds is 10 months old. He doesn't have this problem, but there have been several times when he has woken up in the middle of the night and when all else failed, sleepy mommy has just brought him back to bed with her because she wanted to get some sleep. It's amazing, he would nod right off as soon as his head hit my pillow

I also frequent babycenter.com. They have a great community forum. I believe there are boards there that address the sleep issue specifically. If you don't get any answers here, you might want to post over there and see if anyone can help with your ds's sleep issues.

HTH,
Cheryl

 

[Jordan's MOM]

I don't have much advice, sorry, but I know that at that age my DS got worse if he was overly tired or off schedual. You might want to try as much as possible to keep him to his routine. You might also ask reservations if there is a less occupied area that they could put you due to your concerns over your infants night crying. I too would do what ever you have to to comfort him while on vacation, put him in your bed, stroll outside ,take your baby swing or what ever might help. I hope that you will not get negative reactions from other guest but if he does in deed cry several times every night, that might really be an issue you will have to deal with. Don't have any answers there either just a heads up. We were at one of the ALL stars years ago and a family had a baby that cried for hours several nights. We had been there, done that so we just dealt with it, but some other guest were not happy at all. Not sure what happened however. GOOD LUCK!!!!!


Jordans' mom

 

[Mrs. Toaster]

I feel your pain! We have also gone through some sleep battles with our son (now 2 years old), but overall he is a good sleeper now. I have traveled and stayed in hotels frequently with my son, as our family lives on the other side of the country. When he was younger, and we were checking into the hotel, I always requested a room away from other guests if possible. I explained that he might wake up crying. Amazingly, the clerks always did their best to accomodate us. I think a crying baby is something that everyone can relate to! Obviously there is no guarantee that they can place you in a studio with noone next to you, but it is worth a try, and at least it shows that you are trying to be thoughtful of other guests.

Also, there is lots of other great travel advice on these boards-sticking to their routine, bringing some familar toys or books from home, etc.. Those all help too!

 

[CEDmom]

I can really empathized with you. We had some difficult sleeping issue with DD until she was about 2. She also suffered from night terrors. She still has them but it very rare now. What we found worked with the terrors was to take her out of her crib and lay her on a blanket on the floor and lay down with her. We wouldn't hold her or even touch her because that just made it worse but for some reason just having me near her calmed her pretty quickly. We also learned that the terrors usually happened when her schedule was really altered or she was over stimulated. These are hard things to avoid at Disney but do you best to keep your DS on his schedule. As far as the night time waking we endured it until after DD's 1st b'day and then we used the Ferber (I think that's the name) method. This involves putting the child down as usual and leaving the room. If he cries wait 5 minutes before going in to calm him without taking him out of his crib. Leave the room again and wait 10 minutes before going in keep repeating and adding 5 minutes. Using this method took 2 nights to cure DD of waking up. The first night I got up to 20 minutes before she fell asleep for good the 2nd night it was 10 minutes. This is with a child that cried for over an hour the one time we tried to let her cry it out.

BTW, I do agree with the poster who said take your DS into bed with you if you need to. Our DD is 4 and when we go away she still sleeps with one or both of us. She now understands this is for vacation only.

 

[Kermit]

We also cosleep with our baby. We have another one due in about 5 months, and that one will sleep in our bed, too. I find that it's just easiest for everyone if I can respond to fussiness before it escalates into something bigger. We've never dealt with night terrors, so I know that the crying that we deal with is nothing like what you have to deal with, but that's what works for us. In our case, I usually nurse the baby as soon as he starts to cry. My 14 month old still wakes up for nursing and reassurance about 2-3 times most nights, but I figure rolling over and nursing him is much easier than what I'd have to do if he weren't nursing.

 

[ValerieK]

We also had our daughter sleep with us. She is 3 and still gets night terrors. She always ends up in our room, although she now sleeps on the floor.

We went to WDW when she was about 8 months and she was still having trouble staying asleep all night, but we found that she was pretty warn out and slept better there than at home. The people next to us said that they didn't hear anything. I guess they were heavy sleepers. Good luck.

 

[riggins]

I second CEDmom's advice on Ferber. Check out his book called Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber, MD. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/103-1936704-1606244?v=glance&s=books It has a section about terrors that you might find helpful. I haven't dealt with terrors with either of my kids, so I can't comment on his advice about that, but his methods for general baby sleep issues worked great for us. When my oldest was 4 or 5 months, she started waking in the middle of the night. I didn't know what to do or what had caused the change (she'd been sleeping through the night just fine for 2 months). I mentioned it to another mom at work and she recommended this book. It saved my sleep and my sanity. I've used his method with both of my kids and at 2 1/2 and 11 months, they are good sleepers. FWIW, he recommends putting your child in the crib and going back in at increments to reassure your baby that all is well. The book suggests 5,10,15 minute intervals. I never could stand to let my babies cry that long, so we used 2,3,4 minute intervals and it worked just as well. I never had to let either of mine cry for more than 5 minutes.

Good Luck and enjoy your trip!!
Leslie

 

[reddog]

Thank you all for your comments! They came at a time where I needed to hear some support. Our now 7 year old didn't sleep through the night until almost a year, but his waking was always to nurse. Our little guy now just goes immediately into frenzied crying and it really started to throw me! He's not interested in feeding. Also thanks for those that gave advice on night terrors - these just started in the past couple of weeks and boy are they weird! I am checking out some more resources as mentioned.

We will rent a full size crib from ABBF as well as a bed rail so we can just have him sleep with us. After all, the point is for everyone, especially him, to be well rested! We also planned already that our evenings will be a dinner out (early - 5:30/6:00) and then if one of us wants to do something with older son after dinner, the other parent will head back to the room by 7:30 or so. We'll have a car, so that will help. Afternoons will be spent back at the room too. We're there for 12 days (major blessing!) and don't feel like we have to be crazy.

Thanks again!

 

[deb305]

Our DS had similiar problems. When we made our arrangements at GF I mentioned that DS does cry loudly during the night. They put us in a room that was away from the main corridor top floor with not two many neighbors. A benefit was the room was very quiet, with minimal noise from the 1st floor open lobby. Have WDW put the note on your reservation, you may be pleasantly surprised with a quiet private area.
BTW, DS is now the best sleeper and his older sister is the pain to get to sleep.
Maybe by the time you go he'll be past some of this. Our experience, when DS had the problem, he wasn't getting enough nap time at his daycare. The better naps he had, the more restful sleep he had at night.

 

[Katy Belle]

You are not alone!

I, unfortunately, have LOTS of experience with night terrors and night waking. With the terrors, my kids were usually triggered by being overly tired. Generally a terror would last 20 min. but we've had some go one over an hour. It was just a really bad, tiring day that triggered those bad ones. Try to work in naps, a high priority.

As far as having the baby sleep with you, I would try it! But, personally that never helped my kids.

Also, I would see if the resort can put you in a room next to a couple of vacant rooms. On our trip to WDW our neighbors had a baby that woke us up a bunch, and frankly, it was annoying, even though I totally understand! Our kids, by the way, slept great.

Good luck! It is still worth it! You will have a marvelous time!

Katy Belle

 

[dijid]

I hear ya on the sleep problems! I was never one to co-sleep as I found *my* sleep suffered even more when I tried it. I also didn't like "the Ferber method" as it's been referred to - but can't say I didn't try it! I found Dr. Weissbluth's book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" to be the most helpful. It goes over the science of sleep a bit and there's charts that tell you what the average bed times, nap times, # hours sleeping are at different ages so you know if your child is out of whack really far. My youngest DD finally started sleeping through the night. We moved her bedtime up to 7-7:30pm and she wakes about 6:15am. But she sleeps all the way through. Before we were putting her down about 8:30 and she was waking several times - but not eating. We just were keeping her up too late.

If that doesn't work - check into medical problems. Is there anything else that makes your mother's intuition question if sleep is the only problem? This was my DS. He had some eczema and was diagnosed with asthma very young. We finally realized he was having problems with dairy. I nursed him and when I cut dairy and soy out of my diet we saw miraculous changes. Now if only I could get the 2 year old to nap on a regular basis we'd be set!

 

[thepoohbear]

A point on the co-sleeping thing: People told me not to do it because you'd never get the child out of your bed. I always brought our son to bed when we woke up crying in the middle of the night and also on all vacations (which was even worse, so I was told.) Anyway, DS is now 13 months and I WISH he would sleep in our bed! He's so into mobility and talking all he wants to do is sit up and talk. Frankly I'm not sure what WE'RE going to do on our next Disney trip. I'll have to start a new thread about babies who won't sleep in beds in motels on the drive down!