Sleep Training

Hello ladies - just wanted to pop over and ask for a bit of advice.

I had this problem with my first son and now with my second. This one is 5mo. The first son eventually developed a sleep association with a blanket and started sleeping on his belly on his own at around 7mo and it really helped things...Unfortunately, because I have the other child (who is 22 mo older and very very spirited), I don't have the luxury of napping "when baby does" when I need to catch up on sleep and I'm getting a bit crazy.

So, I have been swaddling BECAUSE when I don't, within 10min of baby going to sleep, his arms start rising (the left more than the right) and slowly slowly over the course of a few minutes those arms get higher and higher and get in his face. Within 30 second, they are in his eyes and all over his head and he basically wakes himself up from sleep because of those hands.

It is so so so frustrating. I'm thinking about sleep training because I haven't slept more than 4hr since his birth (and rarely that) and I'm just running out of steam. The problem is those HANDS! I don't feel right sleep training with him swaddled because he can't do anything to soothe himself nor have sleep associations or anything. He also doesn't roll that well (he'd rather sit and watch big brother) so putting him on his belly isnt' really a good option yet since he can't roll off of it.

BUT I can't get the "hands in the face" to stop waking him.

This child REFUSES a pacifier of any sort and also refuses any bottles - like he'd perfer just to cry for several hours rather than take either of these things. He does nto really suck on his hands but he does put them in his mouth from time to time and that seems to help sometimes.

So, I was really wondering if anyone else had a kid with hands like that and what to do wrt sleep training.

Meg

i know how you feel - kayla was the same way when she was younger and we asked the doc if anything was wrong because she seemed to be a very 'fidgety' baby - she would writhe in her sleep, hands always flinging everywhere and always seemed like she was moving even during sleep. we swaddled her as well because of the constant arm movements.

but the night we began ST we stopped the swaddle and every thing else. no paci, no rocking - nothing - just her in her grobag and that was it. when we started ST, we took everything away because we wanted her to learn how to self-soothe and believe me, i too, was terrified that her hands would constantly hit her in the face and she'd be awake all night. her hands/arms would jerk herself awake but over time she became accustomed to not being swaddled and eventually found her thumb - that took a while but it helped her go to sleep. so i agree with you that it's not really fair to ST and continue with the swaddle and if he is showing you some signs that his hands provide some comfort, chances are he will most likely suck on them or find his thumb to self-soothe. what i can say is that as scary as it is to unswaddle and just put your baby in his crib with arms all over the place, he will adapt and he will learn to self-soothe as long as you're consistent in how you ST.

GL and HTH!