Well, I know that some babies can be trained better than others - maybe you want them asleep from 10 PM to 8 AM - but you might have to settle for 11 AM to 7 PM, and that's close enough. And there are probably babies that will sleep from 2 AM to 5 AM and are mostly untrainable. But I think most kids would fall somewhere between these two examples. You just gotta know what kind you got and which battles you're going to fight - because you'll be dealing with that particular individual for probably the next 18 years.

Actually, if you raise 'em right, you won't have to have battles with your children. But if you do, here's some advice - only fight the battles you know you'll win.

That was a great article. It is always refreshing to read perspectives on sleep that view the baby as an actual "person" and not an animal to "train". I have heard people talk about how puppies learn to sleep through the night after whining and crying for attention and they figure if it works for dogs, it must be ok for babies too. How primitive. Is it ok to keep your baby in a cage? To leave him/her alone in the house when your not there? To potty train him/her after a mere few months old? Obviously these are crazy (and even sick) thoughts. Babies are human beings who are needy and attached to us. I sure hope mine sleeps through the night soon because I am exhausted...but I know she needs me and this is my job right now. Now if I could figure out how to drink enough caffeine during the day and still nurse my baby without keeping her awake along with me and forgoing her naps, I'd be onto something!

I just wanted to say this is a beautiful article. I am a 23 year old mother of a beautiful 6 week old baby boy. My pregnancy was unplanned so I guess I feel I wasn't prepared for all of the changes. Sometimes, I get discouraged when I can't seem to soothe Brayden but I've also developed a great deal of patience. This article really made me think a little bit harder about my actions. I know I'm a good mom but I can always be a better mom. I intend to spoil him with all the love I can give.
Thanks,
Danielle

I really appreciated the things you said in your article. I have a two-month old boy that is doing pretty well sleeping for a four to five hour stretch at night, but will not take naps during the day. Well, on a bed. He can sleep for a two-hour stretch when I'm holding him, but within minutes of being laid down, he will wake up. I read a book that recommended letting him "cry it out", but it was hard on both of us - emotionally and physically. I've decided to hold him for now and wait until he's older to get the naps right. Needless to say, there isn't much getting done around the house, but I have this precious time with my son and if I need to hold him for him to get some good sleep, so be it!

This article was wonderful!!! I have a four month old son, who still wakes many times during the night. I am only 21, so I still feel sometimes that I am so unprepared for this challenge. Me and my husband wanted to wait about 5 more years to start a family, but here he is in all his glory. ;) I enjoy being a mother more everyday, but the lack of sleep sometimes makes me feel so crazy and overwhelmed. This article really helps me remember that I only have so many months to cherish this wonderful stage in his life. This is a great article for any new mom!

My two month old daughter has always been a pain at bed time and during the night with sleeping issues... But recently, she seems to have picked up a bit of insomnia... She only napped today for about two hours total, and still isn't acting very tired... She's putting forth an olympic effort at sleep resistance... She's switching between happy and playful for about 10 minutes, then fussy for about 10 minutes... It's like DR Jekyll and Baby Hyde... Any suggestions on getting her to actually settle down and sleep? We're rocking, walking and just putting her down, but nothing is working...

This was a really great article to read. I have a 6-month-old daughter who, when she was born, would only sleep if held by me. I would hold her for 8-12 hours a day and felt held hostage for most of it. This lasted for nearly 2 months. At that point, she would sleep in my bed with me as long as she was nursing. This lasted another month or so. At that point, she was willing to sleep in her crib. This took a lot of work on both our parts, as I had to learn methods of soothing, and she had to learn that she was safe. The only way she learned that she was safe was to have me come in to soothe her when she cried. After a couple weeks, we were in a routine and she was falling asleep in my arms and then napping in her crib. She still wakes up about every 2 hours at night. I just wanted all of you moms out there feeling like there's no end to what you're going through right now to know that I was in your position mere months ago. In fact, I am still going through my own modified version of it. It's not forever. This happens for a reason. This is how your baby gains trust in you. You are the provider of comfort and reassurance. Don't give up!

Hi, thank you so much for this article. I really needed to read these things, to remember how little time we have with our little ones. I am a single mother of a 4 month old who only sleeps about 20 mins during the day, and wakes a lot during the night. I don't get much of a break at all! My little guy was a surprise arrival too, and I can relate to feeling unprepared for all the changes... I came to a bit of a low point today, feeling very tired and overwhelmed, wondering where that blissful motherhood that I felt when he was a newborn went. Where did the joy that I shared with him in the pure fact that he existed go, when my biggest wish for him now is that he would just sleep more? I cried reading this article, just at the thought that I can't keep this time I have with him as a baby forever, it is so precious... and I can't stop it from slipping away. Deep down, I just want to hold him in my arms forever. That's all I need to remember to keep going. Thank you.

I really liked this artical. It really made me look at things for a different perspective. I am a 21 year mother with a 5 month old daughter and she is my first baby. I have been very lucky, she is very good and she never cries, she's such a sweet baby. But she always wants me to hold her and nurse her all the time. I usually have to hold her while she naps after falling asleep nursing or she'll wake up or won't sleep very long if I put her down. So I usually hold her so I can have a break and so she can get the rest she needs. But I now realize I got to change my routine so she can sleep with out me. Also she goes to bed very late 12 pm or later and here lately I have to put her in bed with me just so I can go to bed without trying to get her to go back to sleep. Well then my boyfriend has to sleep on the couch and thats not fair to him. After reading this I know it won't be much longer before she's one and soon enough she'll be wondering around and give me some free time. It seems like she's growing so fast and I just miss when she was first born and so little. So I'm going to enjoy this time with her and make positive memories with her or else I'll look back and regret it if I don't. Thanks and good night cause I'm going to bed.

Stacie

hi

i have a 7 month old daughter, who from seven weeks old slept right through the night, but following my recent return to work the past few weeks have been a nightmare, she is waking up all the time, sometimes 5 or 6 times a night, can u tell me if there is any known reason for this or is she just feeling a bit unsettled with the change in her daily routine

OMG!! I really thought in the bottom of my heart that I was most probably one in a million mothers going through this crisis. I was spending so much time at the Pediatrician, I thought I was going insane, and all he could tell me was that my daughter had autism and that my daughter had skin sensitivity and and and. All I did was explain the same thing over and over. MY DAUGHTER CAN'T SLEEP, for longer than 45 minutes at time. He never once suggested anything sleep related. I know now what to do. Take my daughter for sleep therapy and be the best mother I possible can. I love you little Layla

Besides the fact I share many issues with this alleged advice-requestor, as a general reviewer I have to say that this was a lot of writing without really answering anything.

This went on and on poetically about how you just have to put up with it, and it's a "short time" (some people don't have even that bit of time, due to medical issues or other grave matters) and you should cherish it, etc. 5 pages of saying essentially the same thing over and over.

And apparently ignoring the letter; albeit it was short and not full of details, I gather the woman cannot get the child to sleep no matter what - she doesn't even like the holding! Yet the same old things about how you should rock her, walk her, she's made to be held, etc. In other words, you didn't listen to the letter much less really answer it - in a good concise manner, no less.

Dear exhausted,

It sounds like you've tried everything under the sun and are still facing each day with a baby who will not sleep and each night without sleep for yourself. If this is indeed the case, it's time to break out the big guns.

While baby needs a different doctor - especially if the doctor you've already seen dismissed your concerns - a lack of time, money and energy often stands in the way. There is a way around that and I highly recommend it.

I was a single mother when my daughter was two years old and my son was three. I couldn't take any more of her gasping, crying and shrieking. For two years I was told it was colic, that I was a bad mom, that she was a bad child, that she was allergic to something, that she was something-sensitive. (Different doctor, different "sensitivity." What the hell ever.)

It is now 20 years later and not one professional has been able to tell me what was/is going on with my child. I was too tired to give anything else to my son other than the basics, much less spend quality time with the one who kept me up all the time. I was at risk of abusing either of them both as well as being at risk of sleep-deprived depression.

I took my then 2 and 3-yr old to Social Services. I banged down their door and begged them to help me - even after they told me they only help those who have abused their kids, not those who have not abused their kids. I was relentless (I was so tired; what did I have to lose by staying put in their waiting room where the air conditioning was free?)

First they told me they only help those who are, well, basically criminals (child abusers). Then it was that no one was available. When I still wouldn't leave and take my crier out of their building ("She's upsetting others," they said. Can you believe that?!), they launched an attack on me. Fortunately, they told me stuff I'd already heard (and knew wasn't true) so it did nothing to dissuade me when they said she was a bad kid, I was a bad mom, etc.

I finally told them I was too scared of hurting my child to take her home and do another two years of this when no one could explain or help me with her, so I told them that if they weren't willing to help, I had no choice but to leave her there with them. By that point I was bawling (from anger, frustration and a lack of sleep; and frankly, I should not have been operating a vehicle at that point, either). I knew I wasn't going to leave my child there, but they didn't know that.

Lo and behold, they found a social worker to help me out. The first lady was a complete nimrod and admittedly knew nothing about small children. I wasted no time (one hour) getting right back there and insisting they give me someone who knew what they were doing.

A woman named Beth Honse showed up at my door with a book (The Difficult Child), two baby gates (I couldn't afford one), a list of foods she wanted me to stop feeding my kids and a list of foods she wanted me to start feeding them. We stacked the baby gates, one on top of the other. She taught me (and my daughter) a whole different sleep routine that involved weeks of training her (and me) how to associate lower light, relatively low sound and the pillow with resting time. Up to now, both of us had associated this with hostility. It wasn't that she didn't want to sleep; she was clearly tired, often overtired; it was that she couldn't sleep. It was as frustrating for her as for me, but I had words to describe it where she had none.

Beth also taught me how to teach my child to slow down. When the games called for getting on the floor, Beth (who had to be in her 50's) got down on the floor with us - day after day - until me and my child had mastered the games. The best part was that she involved my other child. I was so tired at that point I didn't realize I'd been leaving him out. She told me what I knew, but had forgotten: the kids and me were a team.

This is significant because I lived in a horrible trailer in a horrible part of town. Beth - nicely dressed, college educated, obviously well bred and articulate - was not above my dirty floor, my lack of money or my screaming meme.

Social services would also come to provide me with monetary assistance I didn't know existed. This went a long, long way toward easing my anxiety about how to provide for my family and still be a productive person.

It took less than six weeks to learn behavior management and teach it to my child - who responded just enough that I was able to get a good six hours of sleep a night. Too, my child learned enough self-control to ease both our burden and was able to convey her feelings to me (pre-verbally, she did it with a kind of sign language which we put words to as she grew and became verbal). We were able to regularly work through whatever was an issue for her at the time. Over the years, the consistent use of behavior management techniques we learned helped all the way through to this day.

This is significant because I was told she would never read past the 6th grade level. Obviously, someone didn't know what in the hell they were talking about and wrongly categorized my child who could not be categorized.

One more thing - a thing I accidentally discovered. I was on the phone with Beth one afternoon and had a cup of coffee sitting on the table. I took it with a bit of cream and sugar at the time. The coffee had cooled (as all hot beverages do when the mom is busy tending to the kids). As I talked with Beth, my back was turned to the coffee. My crier got a hold of that cup and sucked it right down. Within a few minutes she was asleep. To me, though - the mother of a child who had never taken an afternoon nap - she was poisoned. Beth told me my child would be fine but to call Poison Control if I wanted to double-check. I did call them. They told me no one, not even a child, is harmed by a cup of coffee.

I called Beth back and she told me caffeine is a stimulant, and that if my child responded to it by calming rather than becoming hyper, my child was hyperactive. (I'd heard this before - from the doctor who said she'd never read well.) I hesitated to use coffee on my child, thinking it was abusive in some way. (Never minding the doctor who suggested I use Dimetapp to get her to sleep - a suggestion that rendered my child completely out of control, and sooo not asleep.)

At the age of six, my child was formally diagnosed ADHD. I shunned medication, mostly because I couldn't afford it. Too, the coffee, in very small doses, was working well for her. By 8, she didn't like coffee anymore. I allowed her to be started on Ritalin. That worked - extremely well - for several months. Then she began to "crash," which is to say you could see on her face when the medication all of a sudden stopped working. It was as if she walked through an invisible wall from medicated to not medicated. She went from pleasant to pissed in a matter of minutes. They wouldn't up her dose, so I took her off of the medication completely. We went right back to coffee (Starbucks has nothing on the concoctions I came up with to get her to drink it) and behavior management.

The child is an archaeology major, an avid reader and a world traveler. This doesn't surprise me since the child never could sit in one place for any length of time. Of course she would take to the world as an adult; what else would she do? She may fall under the heading of ADHD, but the child is not attention-deficit. She is attention-abundant.

In summary, do what you have to do to find a way to deal with your child. I understand there is no shortage of would-be professionals who would be help if only they were professional. I know it takes weeks and months to find the one who will listen and do something productive. I also know that extreme circumstances call for extreme measures: start crying out yourself and you'll be getting some kind of attention in short order. Don't listen to other's judgment or what you feel in your gut is bad advice (not even your mother, grandmother, other mothers or the "helpful" lady next door). Listen only to your heart and head. What do they tell you to do?

If you have any reservations about seeking help and/or standing up for yourself and your child, storm right past those "I shouldn't / I couldn't" feelings and find help for both of you - no matter how many doors you have to knock on, no matter how many naysayers you have to confront.

Social Services is your best first stop. Don't leave without help. If you get help via some random diagnosis, take the help. You don't have to repeat the diagnosis to your child and you do not have to accept this label. Disregard the label: just take the help and go on your merry way.

If none of this proves helpful, come back here and tell me. There is always a way - and I always find it. If it comes to that, knowing your city will be helpful because I'll need to be able to research the resources in your area - which, trust me, I will find. Over time, it became easy to find resources for my child - even as I was sleep-deprived. I'm not tired now. If you still need help, I will find it.

Thank you very much for this article. It helped me after a night of 6 awakenings with my 4 1/2 month old son. It's 6:00am, and I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep, and reading this has put things into perspective for me once again. So thank you.