# 11-month old tossing and turning - Mom & Dad need sleep!



## EnchantedMamma (May 19, 2008)

We are at the end of our rope. CIO actually *sounds* attractive (well, the idea of 'forcing' DS to sleep does, but I can't bring myself to actually do it).

Here's a rough sketch of one night:

8:30/9:30 he nurses to sleep and goes down in his crib.
Sleeps for 2-4 hours
Sometimes I have to nurse around 11ish, other times I get to sleep until around 12 am or 1 am. Sleeps in family bed.
Nurse back to sleep for another few hours in family bed.

Here is the problem: Around 4 am (usually 4:30ish or later)- DS starts tossing and turning while fussing as if frustrated. I've been trying to cut back night nursing, but if I don't nurse for a rather long time at this point (several minutes, usually on both sides) he DOES. NOT. SLEEP.

I know we've cut out a lot of nursing sessions recently, so maybe he's trying to make it up. And he also had a poopy diaper tonight. Once we changed it he fed and fell asleep. He'll sleep till 7 am when I get him up to get dressed.

So I'm sure there are *some* legitimate reasons for his tossing/fussing. But it almost doesn't matter.

DH and I can't take it anymore. We NEED more sleep.

What to do? I don't feel like it's reasonable to expect DS to STTN. But it's also not feeling reasonable for us to go on without more sleep. I can't reconcile these two things.

We've tried having DH pat him to sleep. This sometimes works for the first wake-ups, but not this tossing/turning/fussing stage. We've both held him, and tried letting him sleep on our chests (again, works for the earlier wake-ups, but not now).

Any BTDT advice? Should I nightwean him and expect him to deal with it? Should I hold him and let him cry? (DH says he won't 'hold him all night if he cries'







)

At first I felt like Cosleeping and everything we've done so far was the right thing, but now I wonder if DH is right that we should have just bit the bullet and sleep trained earlier...

We co-sleep.


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## kcparker (Apr 6, 2008)

Oh yeah, I remember that time. First, mama, hugs, it is so hard. But it DOES get better. They need so much when they are little, and I remember bouts of being jealous of people who did CIO and got their sleep. But now, my son is such a happy, outgoing, loving toddler; perserverance through the nights of waking pays good dividends.

Your baby may be tossing and turning because he is hungry. If booby is what he needs, then that may be the only solution for right now. You could try giving him a bottle, but you'd still have to be awake for that...
If hunger is the reason, nightweaning wouldn't keep his belly full, neither would sleep training solve that problem, nor would just rocking him while he cries. If you can tough it out for another two or three months, he will likely round a corner and start sleeping a bit better. Can you try tanking him up on solid foods at dinnertime too?

Also, maybe needs to pee or poop. We do EC with our son, and for a long time, he would get restless and thrash around when he needed to pee. We could take off his diaper, pee him in a potty, rediaper him, and we could all go back to sleep. Now, he just sleeps through the peeing...

You and DH could sleep in shifts in another room so that both of you get some period of unbroken sleep. DH can take the shift where the pat-to-sleep works, and you can take the part where only nursing will get him back to sleep.


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## jennchsm (Jun 24, 2008)

My son is 12 months adjusted age, and he has been doing the same thing lately. I assumed it was a phase and that it would pass, as all his weird sleep phases have. I hoep other people will post to this thread to verify that!

It's better now than it was a few weeks ago. Every now and then he has a rough night, but it's now one or two nights a week instead of EVERY night, like it was for a while there. Hang in there! This too shall pass, or so I'm told...


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## ~PurityLake~ (Jul 31, 2005)

It will pass. It is hard not getting enough sleep, for all of you.
It sounds to me as though he is hungry or has some gas or indigestion. I would think more snuggles, singing to him, while nursing should help you through this. Singing helps ease your frustration, as well (I know this from experience, even when I'm soooooo sooooo tired and upset about my loss of sleep, if I made myself sing to them, it ended up relaxing the both of us).


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