|
|
|
|
Posted by Steve (Hannah's Dad) on May 16, 2003 at 00:06:50:
In Reply to: How much sleep should a 10 mth have? posted by Setina on May 15, 2003 at 20:06:35:
I sympathize because I have one of those wonderful little ones who don't like to sleep much. Anyone who has frequented these forums knows I'm a veteran of late-night baby settling and have been here asking desperately for advice before! I only have a couple of little pieces of advice and I'm not sure how much they're worth. 1) Maybe it's time to try to start weaning him off of that middle of the night bottle. At 10 months a baby doesn't need feedings like that. Do you ever try to settle him down without the bottle and put him back down in his crib? It will make for a few rough nights but eventually he'll get the idea that he doesn't get fed just because he wakes up. Maybe you could just go into his room, offer him a sip of water, tell him it's time to go back to sleep, and leave the room. 2) If he's a stubborn little "angel" like my daughter you might have to let him cry a bit. Our plan was to go into the room the first time she cried and pick her up until she calmed down, then put her back down. If she cried, we then went in every 5 minutes and settled her. Usually within 15 minutes or so she fell asleep. Sometimes it was only from exhaustion, but she got the idea that she had to go back to sleep on her own. It might break your heart but believe me if it comes to this remind yourself that he won't hold it against you. 3) If you have some calm music that he likes, try setting it up to play all night. You can just put a CD on repeat. We use a Baby Beatles CD that's great. It's a bunch of Beatles songs that have been turned into lullabies. 3) Do you have a nighttime ritual? That's what finally saved us. When it's time for bed, I take Hannah upstairs, give her a sip of water, turn on her music, read her two bedttime books, and put her down. Once she's settled and comfy, we leave the room. It was a struggle for the first week, but after that she learned that when we did those things it was time for bed. 4) Give any new plan a good solid week to work. Babies sometimes take a while to figure out new things. Good luck with all of this. Hannah still isn't a great napper, but her nighttimes are much better. She usually goes down around 8pm and sleeps until 6am. We'd prefer later, but that's a whole lot better than we used to get.
This page