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Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler.

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Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler.

Sleep

I've really stuffed it up haven't I? :(

35 replies

AllIWant85 · 12/07/2013 22:17

DS is nearly 12 months and has never fallen asleep on his own and never slept in his cot.

Until 10 months he fed to sleep every night, now he feeds, rolls over and goes to sleep but still in our bed. If I get out of the bed he wakes within 5 minutes.

Every evening I go to bed when he does and I get up when he does. Nap times during the day are 20 minutes if I get up and leave him or 1 - 1.5 hours if I lie next to him.

I've never managed to transfer him from bed to cot or even from buggy to carseat if he is sleeping. If I lift him he wakes.

I just feel like I've really messed it up and now I have a nearly 1 year old that can't self settle, wakes multiple times a night and is generally exhausting me!

I tried him in his cot the othe night and I laid on the floor next to the cot. It took 2.5 hours for him to go to sleep and then he slept for 40 minutes.

I don't know what to do. I'm so tired. :(

OP posts:

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RandallPinkFloyd · 12/07/2013 22:27

Hello there stranger

I'm sorry you're having such a rough time. I wish I had some sage advice I could proffer but in all honesty my DS is 2 next month and I'm still winging it.

I got very lucky and have never had any issues with night time sleeping but daytime naps were an absolute fricking nightmare until about 3 months ago. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere it all changed so keep the faith, it won't be forever.

Sorry I can't be any help but just thought I'd say hi and keep you company until someone useful arrives!

Nicknamefail · 12/07/2013 22:35

You poor thing.

I have also stuffed things up. My dd woke multiple times and co-slept. I am now taking steps to address this and am doing a slow gradual retreat. Millpond gave us a month long program and we are on night 5. The change so far is she doesn't feed to sleep and stays in her cot, but waking lots at the moment, and still cuddled to sleep, but hopefully we will get there.
The main thing to realise is that you can't change things overnight. You need a plan, whether cio, gradual retreat or whatever works for you, but then stick to it and accept that the first few nights are going to be hell.
If you lie by the cot one night, have a crap night then go back to your usual you only have that really crap night to come again. When you start you need the freezer stocked with food so you don't need to cook and a variety if friends to cone in and play with dc for an hour while you sleep.
Btw, our naps are crap to, must be rocked/walked in pram continuously. I am still doing this ad I decided to couldn't face a day and night battle, and am going to tackle dd napping in cot when I have won at night.
Decide on your plan then set the date and go for it.
Good luck.

Nicknamefail · 12/07/2013 22:38

And I meant to put 'stuffed it up' in quotation marks. Some of us have crap sleepers and we do what we have to to survive. Until a week ago I was breast feeding a 9 month old 5 times overnight. People with babies who sleep well thought I was crazy but that is the only way I could get her to sleep for ages, so that it was I did. It's not your fault your baby wants to sleep by your side!

AllIWant85 · 12/07/2013 22:39

Thank you for keeping me company :)

I feel like I've failed. All the parents I know have wonderful sleeping children and I don't understand where I went wrong.

I've asked them how they did their first night home with the baby and they just say they put them down and they slept. Then when they woke they fed them and put them back down again.

That never worked for us. The first night we paced the landing until 3am with a screaming baby until he gave in. If we put him down he woke straight away and screamed again.

OP posts:

AllIWant85 · 12/07/2013 22:44

What is Millpond?

Also how do you do it when you are so tired you could just curl up and cry yourself to sleep? I am a rubbish sleeper, it takes me about 2 hours to go to sleep, always has. I can't sleep during the day and I can't sleep in other people's beds so there is no chance of daytime naps for me.

OP posts:

Nicknamefail · 12/07/2013 22:49

I am in the same position. Except for one, all my baby friends have great sleepers. But a quick look through this sleep section shows you how many parents are struggling. We can't all be failing! I firmly believe there are just bad sleepers. How can those who had babies who just slept when and where they were supposed to have succeeded as opposed to our failures? They didn't do anything! They were just lucky. My dd never wanted to be put down and would sleep well in arms but screamed if you put her down, it is just one of those things.
It's exhausting isn't it. One day we will sleep through and it will be the most amazing feeling ever! It WILL happen.

RandallPinkFloyd · 12/07/2013 22:51

Just have a read of your last post and take a look at the irony. It's not the baby's fault at all, you passed on all your faulty sleep genes!

I feel so sorry for you I really do, if I remember rightly I think Millpond is a poster who is a bit of an expert on sleep training. She sounds like just the person you're after.

Nicknamefail · 12/07/2013 22:53

I am lucky in that I can nap I the daytime and have started my dd's sleep training on a week that do has off so we can take it in turns.
Millpond are a sleep clinic who give advice on sleep training for children. They are very expensive and haven't told us anything ground breaking, but I felt more comfortable talking though things with an expert. We emailed a sleep diary and a questionnaire to them, had a long chat and they explained the program we were going to follow and I can email her for support, and we have 2 more phone calls for review with her.
I know a friend who devised their own programme using a book which I will go and check the title of and cone back and post on a minute.

AllIWant85 · 12/07/2013 22:54

I'm not blaming the baby :(

Maybe it is because I'm a bad sleeper.

OP posts:

ILovePonyo · 12/07/2013 22:54

Hope it gets better for OP.

This may be crappy/useless advice, but have you tried putting your ds to sleep on his tummy when you pick him up from pram to move him?
My dd was the exact same, she woke as soon as I put her down unless I put her on her tum. Fwiw she is 2.5 now and can settle herself, she just refuses to stay in bed

ILovePonyo · 12/07/2013 22:55

Oh and I'm a great sleeper but dd wasn't how dare she! Don't think you can pass it on

Nicknamefail · 12/07/2013 22:57

Book is 'teach yourself baby sleep' by Andrea grace.

RandallPinkFloyd · 12/07/2013 22:59

I was only joking!

Of course it's not your fault. It's just shitty luck, and also it could possibly hereditary but that's still just shitty luck.

None of us have any mythical sleep producing secrets, despite what some smug knob heads might think. We all just muddle through the best we can. If my great night time sleeper was all my doing how do you explain the fact that every single daytime nap for the first 19 months was fought with the strength of a tiger?

RandallPinkFloyd · 12/07/2013 23:01

X-post about Millpond. I'm sure there is a poster who has helped people with sleeping though. I'm sure she gave them some sort of plan to follow. Maybe I've made that up

CalamityJ · 12/07/2013 23:05

Baby Whisperer. Some great advice and surely never too late to teach a young 'dog' new tricks

Flibbedyjibbet · 12/07/2013 23:05

Mill pond is a sleep clinic

nestee · 12/07/2013 23:06

I did exactly the same with my first. Finally when she was one I did the controlled crying method that I read about in Christopher Greens book 'Toddler Taming'. It worked like a bloody dream, within 3 days she was settling herself and sleeping through. Saved my life.

AllIWant85 · 12/07/2013 23:10

Sorry Randall I am a little sensitive and weepy at the moment, it's been a rough few days. I just feel so down about it.

Thanks for the book title Nickname I shall look it up. Sadly if Millpond is expensive then it won't be something I can look into too far.

Front sleeping, back sleeping, side sleeping makes no difference to DS unless I'm laying next to him!

OP posts:

UnicornsPooGlitter · 12/07/2013 23:12

Andrea Grace is fab - we used her for DS when he was 7ish months old and DH and I were unable to think straight any more. It was all phone / email based, and she really went above and beyond what she needed to.

Good luck everyone .

AllIWant85 · 12/07/2013 23:13

Sorry, what is Baby Whisperer? Is it a book?

With the controlled crying, I don't think I'm mentally strong enough to do that at the moment, it would probably break me!

OP posts:

ILovePonyo · 12/07/2013 23:13

Aw sorry OP, you've obviously tried the different sleeping positions! It was the only thing that worked for us. And it didn't work all the time!

I think at your sons age it could still be worth trying sleep 'training' we never did. Wish we had though good luck with everything.

Flibbedyjibbet · 12/07/2013 23:14

I do think you get a sleeper or you don't, ff or bf babies either sleep or not. DD1 woke every 90 mins, sometimes she stretched to 2 hours till she was 18 months and even then it wasn't like a full nights sleep. Now at the age of 3 ( we do have to stay with her till she falls asleep or she'll be out of the bed till midnight) she sleeps 8 - 6 and occasionally till 6.30, bliss.

Dd2 now 8 months old lulled us in to a false sense of security and could be put down at first and did 5 or 6 hour stretches and even some 8 hour stretches. However she had terrible terrible wind for the first 3 months and so fed or nursed for comfort pretty much continually. She has always been a daytime sleep resister despite me saying I wouldn't be able to stand another child that I had to walk in pram or pushchair/drive or nurse to nap here I am again.

The big difference this time round is that I know that it will end, I have been through it once before and so will you and I promise you as tough as it is now you do forget the pain of it.

Although I have had the rage tonight as DD2 didn't go down till 10.20

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UnicornsPooGlitter · 12/07/2013 23:20

For those that don't want to use controlled crying, gradual withdrawal worked really well for us. It takes a bit longer, but you (hopefully!) get there in the end. Andrea Grace's book had a description of it, and some sample sleep plans IIRC.

Nicknamefail · 12/07/2013 23:25

Another risk of x post but the baby whisperer is Tracy Hogg. She has a book. Maybe books.

LauraPashley · 12/07/2013 23:26

I'm on my 2nd "bad sleeper" here - massive difference between this one and the 1st one is my chance of attitude - I am chilled out, resigned, too tired to care, whatever you want to call it! But I am not as angry, upset, stressed etc as I was 1st time round. I just have the mindset of I am knackered, I will be knackered for some time now (dd slept through at almost 3!), but it will pass. And rightly or wrongly I have devoted NO time at all to trying to "fix" dd2's sleep, as I don't have the energy and it didn't work with dd1 anyway! So we cosleep cos I am too lazy to get up in the night, she stopped daytime naps around 16mths as I couldn't be bothered to "fight" with her about it. She occasionally drops off in the afternoon when I'm feeding her. I am no less tired than I was with dd1, but I'm not worrying about it AT ALL! Does that make sense?!
With dd1 I lay on the wooden floor next to her cot and tried to calm her down cos I thought she should learn to sleep in there - now I think what the actual fuck was I doing?! When we could all have been asleep?!!
Maybe controlled crying or similar would have "sorted" them sooner but I don't agree with it, so for now it is the path of least resistance!!
Agree also with those who have said, you either get a sleeper or you don't! Not much you can do either way imo!

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