Ooh, am I the last one then?

I took the liberty of starting a new thread as this one is almost full.

Too bad we still need this support group!

Here is the new thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/851829-Misguided-Illusion-Part-II-Baby-still-not-sleeping-through-by?rnd= 1256828408450

Ahh, it's great to hear some people having good night's kip.

I'm not so lucky so I'm not going anywhere for a bit; DS woke at 3.30 last night and screamed bloody murder for two whole hours until I took him into bed with me and fed him back to sleep.

He's being a right little bugger about sleep of any description at the moment - presumably cutting teeth - but it's tres wearing, especially when I've dosed him to stop the pain but he carries on crying nonetheless.

It's all a phase, these things shall pass.

JGM and staines obviously really pleased for you both but very very jealous . Hope it lasts for you both.

Just realised staines still had to do 3.30 feed. But still, not bad, not bad at all.

our thread is nearly done! i had a moment of panic when i couldn't find it and thought everyone had gone off and left me.
things are temporarily improved in the staines massif - don't let ds hear me saying that.
he slept in his own room last night from 7 to 6.30. ohhhhh happy day. of course, he woke at 3.30 for a feed and i couldn't go back to sleep, but i am starting to believe that it just might happen for us. i am sorry, i don't wish to be one of the smugs that i've been hating for the last 10 months. and i reserve the right to reappear sporadically to moan about sensory hallucination, and hating my dh as soon as the next load of teeth appear, but what a relief to find out that my ds can sleep for longer than 3 hours in a row. and thanks to this support thread for helping me feel that i'm not alone, and i don't have to leave him to cry if i don't want to.

i've had two glasses of wine btw, so am a bit gushy. mwah.

Well well last night DD slept from 9.45 til 6.15 this morning! I dropped the last nap and got her into bed by 6.15. Have done similar tonight so we'll see what happens. Thanks for advice ladies. Am hoping that we are getting back into a routine since our holiday and now the cold has gone we're just gonna have to deal with teething. Hope you all have reasonable nights.

I feel your pain superdanovi. I was sobbing the other day when I accidentally woke ds up part way into his afternoon nap.

Thanks feralgirl - sleeping lying down hasn't seemed to be working its old magic when I tried it a week or so ago. We had a nice cuddle one day, but no sign of sleep. Thought it was worth an ask in case I was missing something.

Can't decide whether most recent sleep/nap upsets are due to a) teething, b)constipation, c) cold or d) all of the above. Or e) nothing in particular.

oh and no, DD isn't back on BM - that was an act of desperation on my part to try and get her to sleep. It's the first "feed" she'd had in about a week - I've resigned myself to the fact that she's self-weaned, grr! [bottle-hating emoticon]
disclaimer: I have no problem with bottles/formula, I just hate the faff of cleaning/sterilising/boiling water/letting it cool/mixing/shaking/swapping lids/cooling again/feeding/rinsing and repeat...argh!

JGM DD goes to bed at 5:30pm, sounds early but it works for her. She's 11mths and has 2 naps. Someone in the dim and distant past told me that it's best not to let them nap after about 4pm because it throws them off bedtime. Often DD is extremely hard work between 2pm and bedtime but she does go to sleep pretty quickly at bedtime. Maybe you could try dropping the last nap and bringing bedtime forward like feral suggested?
superd I really hope things get better for you, sounds awful!

Oh, superd, I didn't see your post. Sorry you're having such a hideous time.

This might not be what you want to hear but it took DS at least a couple of months to get from being able to self-settle for his naps to being able to do it at night. He can do it now though. It'll happen, promise!

Isitmeor, I was still on mat leave so I'd just feed him lying down in my bed and we'd curl up and have a lovely kip together for a couple of hours. If he woke up then I'd just feed him back to sleep again.

Now that I'm back at work if his naps have gone a bit haywire during the week then I do the same at the weekend and he's fine by Monday. I'm usually ready to do some good daytime sleeping by the end of a busy week teaching!

JGM, DS used to do 3 x 2 hour naps a day until we realised that he was thinking that his 3rd nap was bedtime and we were having to wake up a very grumpy baby to get him fed and bathed and back to bed. We moved his bedtime forward from about 8pmish to 6.30ish and he cut his third nap out no trouble.

Sadly still here, but usually too depressed and tired to write anything down. However, seeing that naps are well and truly the bane of my life, I thought I'd add my two cents worth.
We're currently on 2 naps a day; at 10 and 2 (give or take depending on whether her wakes at 4, 5 or 6 . Since ditching the dummy (under strict orders from Sleep Consultant du jour), he's not slept for longer than 40 minutes each. By the late afternoon, he's in a foul mood and quite impossible to deal with (as am I). Last week, my cousin mentioned that her LO (6 months) has a morning nap AND a 2.5 hour siesta and I burst into tears. Yup, sleep envy is rubbish.
Anyway, Sleep Consultant insists that once his fragile self settling skills are sorted out, his daysleep (and heinous early waking) will improve. "WHEN DAMMIT WHEN??" is all I say. We were making some progress with his night sleep but then he came down with a cold and now he's teething so we're back to square one. Bollocks.

JGM know what you mean about 5 being quite late. What time is bedtime?

How long are the naps? Just that the gap between 9 and 2 seems quite long.

Thanks Feralgirl & Isitmeor, was after a guide as at mo dd has naps around 9, 2 and 5. Trying to not have the 5 in the hope she'll sleep a bit better at night. Her cold is better today but the teething worse poor bunny Am co-sleeping from about 2am til, well 5.30 we started today. Think co-sleeping naps brilliant idea, haven't done that for months!

Hi feralgirl - sorry if this is a daft question, but how does co-sleeping the lunchtime nap work? I mean the logistics - where does it happen, etc.

DS did a good nap this morning, but no joy with his post-lunch nap.

Chulita, has baby chu decided she like BM again then? That's good news. Feeding to sleep doesn't work with DS any more either. Bum. It was my only sure fire trick too!

Grrrr, DS's day has started at 4.30 for the last 2 mornings

Dunno why coz on Sunday he slept until 6am so we can't blame the clocks.

JGM, with naps, DS went from 3 naps to 2 between 7 and 8 mo. He now goes 3 hours(ish) between sleeps so we don't live by the clock because sometimes he's awake at 4.30am and other times he sleeps until 6.30am

He goes through phases when he gets a bit rubbish at napping and then I spend the weekend co-sleeping them with him which is lovely and seems to reset his body clock back to his usual 1.5 - 2 hour long sleeps.

He was crap at napping until he was about 4mo so I just co-slept his lunchtime nap with him every day for about 6 weeks!

jollygreenmama hi, we're still trying to find our nap slots, but I resorted to writing out a timetable on Sunday as I was so desperate, but forgot that was the day the clocks went back...

I thought it would make most sense to try and pace them through the day, so it seems to be working for DS to have his first nap starting at around 10am (yesterday it was a bit earlier, but he did wake at 5.30). Today he work at 5.50 and nap started just before 10.

Afternoon nap I was trying for around 2pm. Worked out okayish yesterday, except that I managed to wake him up 25mins in, which neither of us enjoyed.

I had wondered if Chulita's timings might be more "normal", but I suspect there is no such thing.

We've been doing a mini wind-down pre-nap routine since Sunday and it seems to help, as DS is a shocker for not having proper sleepy signs at the mo. We read the same book with him while having a cuddle - very busy spider as it finishes with her going to sleep - maybe twice if he seems keen for it. Then walk around cuddling him until hopefully he seems quiet/yawns/starts to grizzle (this is the only reliable sleepy sign!). Then up to bedroom, shut blackout blind and curtains, then cuddle until quiet if grizzling and then put down. If he's quiet I try to put him down straight away and then wait on the top of the stairs. He usually fidgets and chats for a bit, then I go to him if (when at the mo, but we live in hope of self-settling) he starts making unhappy noises. Yesterday afternoon he shouted after 10mins (you know what I mean by angry shouting rather than distress crying?), so I pretty much tucked him back in and returned to top of stairs. 5mins later he was tired crying, so I rocked to sleep, put him down and he stayed.

HTH.

Morning all! I've been up for over 4 hours already - thank you DD...haven't been on here in ages but we haven't graduated yet So, we've successfully dropped the night feeds but haven't quite cracked the wakings. We get about 3 full nights a week with 1 or 2 wakings the rest. Usually DD just wants a cuddle and will go back to sleep with a bit of grizzling. Last night she was crying for over an hour and a half with me sat on the landing popping in and out trying to calm her down. I eventually resorted to bfing even though she hasn't bf'd for about a week, good old boobs still have it in them...didn't work though she was quiet til she stopped sucking and then started up again. Strangely though when she sleeps through she wakes up around 6:30, when she wakes in the night she's awake about 5:00 - how does that work?
Her naps are pretty good at the mo, one from 8:00 til 9:30 and one from about 12:00 til 2pm so I do get time to put my feet up and eat biscuits do housework

isitmeor hi, am interested in what you said about two naps.... DD still on 3 tho they are usually no longer than 30 mins. What time do you plan them for, I'd you don't mind me asking? Hope you're having a better night.
We've had teething teamed with our first cold, lastnight and tonight, DD wide awake, trying to rock her back as not interested in milk. Didn't eat much today either and only had half her bottles, trouble breathing and feeding I think. Don't think the change in the hour has had much affect but hard to tell with teeth and cold. Hoping she feels better soon so we can see where we are again.

Thought I had better update on the naps situation, as had a bit of a eureka moment yesterday after giving him only two naps again, but this time with much less stress all around, as had gone in only expecting two naps.

Anyways, consulted two of our many sleep books last night, and found that, from 6 months, babies are only really expected to do two naps a day, so DS at almost 8 months is a little behind in shifting to that pattern .

Two naps have successfully been acquired today, despite much confusion, mainly on the part of me and DH, about quite how to cope with the clocks going back .

Feeling a lot less stressed today as a result of all this. And am encouraged that DS at least seems to be "maturing" sleepwise, even if a little later than average.

New nap pattern also means that I can see how to try out the idea of BFing every two hours during the day to try and discourage night feeds.

Have also agreed with DH that he'll have a week off in a couple of weeks to try to drop one/two night feeds by stretching the gaps between them. Last time we tried DS had WAY more stamina than we did, but sadly that isn't saying much [Tired old people emoticon].

Thanks for the sympathy yawningbear - sleep envy is a bad thing, isn't it?

I had managed to get DS to nap pretty reliably so long as he was in his cot, with blackout blinds AND blackout curtains (DH is a tad obsessive about blocking out every scrap of light...). But DS seems to rely on sucking his thumb to get off to sleep in addition to the above sleep cues, and every time he has any kind of stress (e.g. cold, teething, constipation, etc, etc, there always seems to be something at the mo), he loses his thumb, and naptimes have become hellish.

So sorry that it sounds as if you have it even worse, as at least we have had a better patch when he knew where his thumb was. Oh where, oh where has that little thumb gone...

Night was much as usual for these days - three feeds, and DH had to rock him to sleep four times. Tempers are short in the IsItMe household.

Ahhh, IsItMeOr I feel your pain, I really do, have nothing whatsoever to say that can help as you could be describing my DD though it does help me to hear about someone elses naptime nightmares rather than the sickening RL conversations I have been having where folk are moaning that their LO's nap for so long they can't get out of the house . Here's hoping you have a better night.

Just popped in to complain that DS seems to have given up on naps at the moment. Bouncing/rocking to sleep is no longer working . So I tried holding in for 10mins after he seemed to have first nodded off this morning, but he still woke up again, as soon as I moved, let alone tried to put him in cot. So I gave up until after lunch.

Tried again, bounced until stopped crying, tried to put down in cot - full on crying - tried again, now full on wailing and no sign of stopping. Ended up feeding him to quiet him down, and he did his old trick of sleeping while feeding, so we were there for about an hour and twenty.

Approached afternoon nap with apprehension - sort of hoping he might just not get tired . Nothing doing with the bouncing. Then realised I could smell something, so changed nappy. Then decided just to try leaving him in cot for a bit. Happy enough for 10 minutes, but no sign of sleep, then started to cry again. So tried bouncing again. Nothing doing. Ended up feeding to sleep again, and holding him there until he woke up about 40mins later.

ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Thank you!

Dycey- I reduced the feeds one at a time, I had been co-sleeping and we weren't in a 3 hourly routine, think she just used to latch on whenever really. We moved to other side of world when DD was 3 months old, which was a tad stressful and any routine we had been in went out the window. I started with the first feed of the night and extended the time by half an hour or whatever felt possible. Was a pretty slow process and it did not go down well with DD, much time was spent bouncing her back to sleep or holding her until the time had passed, but after a few days (sometimes more) she adjusted and I moved the time forward again. I just focused on dropping one feed at a time. She does still wake up now at random times but we can usually get her back to sleep quickly without getting her out of the cot. This probably dosen't help you at all if you have 2 set feeds a night. One of books I had read talked about setting your goal and then working backwards from that in baby steps, maybe reducing one night feed at a time and giving LO a week to ten days to get used to the change before moving onto the next one. Have to say although it was a bit of a slog has made a massive difference and though there was some crying it wasn't heartbreaking. I'm really rubbish when it comes to hearing her cry and although I know lots of people in RL think I just need to leave DD to it I just can't do it! Oh, just remembered the other thing that really helped was getting DP involved in settling her. Good luck

Ah thanks Feralgirl - sorry about your night. I will be going back to teaching in Jan and need to sort the sleep before then...

I can't see how else to stop feeds except cold turkey.. the whole reducing by a minute each night just sounds too complicated and unlikely to work. Spacing them out risks being confusing I think. Tepid water is a good thought. I did once try not to feed him (months ago when he woke one hour after his last feed) and he yelled for 40 minutes til I gave in and fed him, which really has given me cold feet about doing it again. Maybe he'd be quicker this time now he is more used to crying!

I dread it but it will probably be easier than I think. He only wants two feeds though and it's managable when not working.

yawningbear - how did you stop the feeds.

Am such an obsessive about sleep and night weaning - must shut up and get on with it!

Hope you all have relatively good nights tonight.

Ahhh, d'you know? I honestly thought that I'd be able to come on here and smugly proudly announce that I can graduate off into the land of the living after having the very best night's sleep in nearly ten months on Tuesday.

Then DS woke at 3.20 this morning, did a screamathon for DH, pretended to go to sleep and then spent an hour buggering about in his bed just loud enough to keep me awake, even through my ear plugs and no monitor It then took me eons to get back to sleep. I feel like complete crap today and I've been a rubbish teacher which means that approximately 60 other children have suffered because my ONE child is a little sod at night!

Bah and pish.

Dycey, re stopping night feeds, DS is a bit of a wimp when it comes to CC or anything like that. He's got no staying power at all. We did go cold turkey - I just stopped his dream feed which he didn't seem to notice. Then when he was a bit grizzly at his second feed time of 2.00ish, DH would go to him. We found a bottle of body temp water and lots of cuddles did the trick. Probably took about a week.

Staines for DS's "mum"; how exciting. I'm trying to convince myself that feralbaby's mamamamama means me and his dadadada is DH rather than the indiscriminate babbling that it clearly is.

That said, DS is clearly a genius. He'd bloody better be. There's got to be some pay off for ten months of sleep deprivation!

Hi dycey - no experience on the formula, but I do have a ds who likes to stand, stand, stand.

He will be entertained for ages if I prop him in standing position with his little hands holding onto the seat of the sofa. We have carpet, so he can fall without hurting himself, but he honestly doesn't much. After a few days of this, letting him get the Sky remote helps to sustain interest. He will play like this very happily for 20+ minutes. This is my favourite as you get to be hands-free and MNet.

I have also bought him a vtech first steps baby walker off Amazon (they were on special offer last time I looked). That means you need to hold it while he stands against it, as it doesn't have any brakes. But ds loves to do this for ages too.

HTH.

Thanks jollygreenmama and dycey, put up tin foil in her bedroom windows a while ago, we are in a rented house just now so don't want to get new curtains, sure the neighbours think I am up to something dodgy, and it worked really well, until I had done that I had never been able to get her into her cot at naptimes at all. I'm not sure which formula would be best dycey as I have never been able to get DD to drink it at all, despite much trying. I think that if they are eating well during the day and are a good weight they are supposed to be able to go for a good stretch at night without milk by 8 months but I know that DD was still waking for feeds several times a night at that point and I was certain she was hungry. Looking back I now think it was just habit, but its hard to know for sure.

Hello all - I was feeding to sleep for naps but stopped that because at night DS would insist on a feed when he really didn't need one. So I started rocking / cuddling / bouncing in a darkened toom. The darkness really helps as DS gets overstimulated andwants to stay up and play otherwise...

Hope nights not too bad.

Ours was usual but am a bit disappointed that my top up bottle of formula has stopped working its magic - he has decided it's the same as breastmilk for staying power. A friend tells me the first stage milk lasts the best in babies tummies - any thoughts?

Can't do anything any more as he just wants to walk round with hands held - less time to MNet. Gone is that lovely time of examining objects v v carefully for hours on the floor. He is tugging at my dressing gown now so better walk....

Hi yawningbear , just fed my dd again, she nearly went back to sleep without but I did it to make sure she slept. As in previous post have sick hubby to deal with too!
I have to rock my dd to sleep at nap times and she only goes for about half n hour, she does however get in 3 usually during the day. I read and some friends have said that blackout curtains are essential for some babies to nap during the day.

hello, think I need to join you all if thats Ok. Am new to MN, first post, too tired before now to type. Have a 11 month DD who has been hyper alert since she was tiny and a terrible sleeper from day one. Ended up co-sleeping as could rarely get her to sleep in her crib. Have managed to gradually wean her off the night feeds, which were frequent to say the least, and she does now settle herself to sleep, more or less, but she still wakes alot. Naptimes sound very similar to Kiwipanda and IsitMeOr experiences. She will only nap if totally fed to sleep and then only for 20 minutes or so, if I try and put her in her cot drowsy she becomes instantly hysterical. I feel terrible as she is so tired all the time whilst I seem to be surrounded by friends babies who sleep 12 hours at night and have great big 2 hour naps during the day. Anyone had any success in stopping feeding to sleep at nap times? I am typing this from the other side of the world so you guys should all be in bed just now, I hope so anyway.

Hi all, think we're into our pre holiday routine of two night feeds, times have varied last night 10 pm and 4 am tonight first one is now we'll wait to see what the next one is.

I like this theory and it makes perfect sense!

Have hubby being sick since this afternoon. There is a bug going around the city with many off work. I thought I had food poisioning last week but must have been this bug. Stay away from Portsmouth girls!

i am a firm believer that only the very best babies are night owls. in terms of intelligence, sociability, charm, beauty, the list is endles....ds is 10 months (how, how did that happen?) and last night was not as successful as i'd hoped, woke from 10.30 to 12 and just wanted to feed all the time. then through til 5.30...which could be worse.

i have a confession to make - this is terrible parenting - when ds wakes in bed with me any time after 5.30 am and will not be persuaded to go back to sleep i put a teletubbies dvd on the massive tv in our bedroom, curl around ds and let dipsy and co babysit my precious first born for as long as he'll let me carry on sleeping. am fairly sure you won't find that in any baby manual. and he's definitely going to have square eyes.....

Hello again dycey - thanks for your advice on my other thread re cc. Did you see that one of the other posters had an approach for dropping BF, of cutting from two breasts to one for the second feed, for several days (week?), then dropping entirely and shhing to sleep. Then repeated for the first feed a little while later.

How do you think he is doing for food during the day? I believe that my ds is far from getting what he needs during the day just yet. But he's doing so much better now (we're BLW), I wouldn't be surprised if that changed in the next month or so.

Agree the babies on this thread are v clever. That's my Mums theory too. Alert babies wake up a lot. Not quite so relaxed because they are so very, very clever.

My nights gradually getting better after months of being woken every two hours - now just two night feeds - four hours apart. So much better than 5 wakings - where we were last month. I never knew picking him up and rocking him would encourage him to wake up again the next night for the same... seems so odd.

Question is - how do I stop these two night feeds? 8 months old - do they still need any or could he manage 10 hours without milk?

Sospan - on your theory - MIL had exactly the same theory when she was round yesterday .

DS threw up spectacularly all over me when I was giving him his bedtime feed - he was straining to produce a grape-sized poo at the time. Was a bit worried this would mean he wouldn't settle, but the little lamb conked out when I thought he was looking about. Our latest pet theory is that he can only settle on his left hand side if he has found his thumb, and on his right if he hasn't. I had got into the habit of always putting him down on his left side, so I tried putting him on his right tonight, and so far he is still asleep (he'd normally wake after about 10mins for DH to settle him).

Better go and get ready for bed as likely to be needed for first night feed any minute and somehow it feels better if I'm in my pjs so can crawl straight into bed afterwards.

Good luck everybody!

Bah - still knackered here too... Had 2 acceptable nights and then back to random wakings throughout the night. Am only doing dream feed + 1 other though, I don't care how much he cries (well, actually I do or I'd just leave him ). He went to sleep at 7.15 and has woken 3 times already, brilliant.

Anyway, Staines - hurrah for DS saying mum! How old is he? He sounds very clever. In fact, I am convinced that ALL the babies on here are very clever and that's why they don't sleep very well <ridiculous theory emoticon>.

I have tried to force DS to watch tv on more than one occasion but he just won't have it. Kiwi - he's not much of a sitter either. He's just never still, you'd think it'd wear him out wouldn't you?? No chance.

Sigh, dreading tonight.

Oh Staines that's lovely! I would have screamed / cried too - and no doubt will should DD ever say Mum..! I was reading a story to DD tonight and everytime I said "where's the panda DD?" she seemed to point/ whack the picture of the panda in the book. Could be coincidence but I'm chosing to think that she actually UNDERSTOOD me

Mom Must be separated at birth.. hope DD follows the pattern and sleeps ok tonight! I put her to bed a bit early cos I think you might be right about overtiredness, and she barely napped today

IsItMeOr I would TOTALLY resort to TV if DD would sit still.

She won't sit. Literally, will not do it. I know she CAN because she'll do it if she has to (i.e. balancing on something) but she never ever does it of her own accord. Do you think that's normal????

Isitmeor, I think when you're that tired you worry even more about your 'performance' and get very defensive when asked what's happening by your partner. I have to remind myself that he cares about the situation just as much as I do hence the questions, it isn't a test!

Dysey, thanks for info on your Sis, I will carry on co-sleeping for the mo as at least we all get more sleep!

Stainesmassif, I hoe you do get another success tonight. I think the monitor idea is a great one for the future, i end up responding to little noises for hubby's sake so if we didn't hear them babe might go back to sleep by herself. Congrats on your first mum too!

oh dear, loads of new recruits....welcome everyone, hope you don't have to stick around for long!

i have come up with a new coping strategy - it is acceptance. i refuse to worry that i am storing up trouble for the future, because i am coping ok right now (i have undoubtedly made this assertion several times on this thread) and i am just not paying attention to mil's face when i mention that ds has been in with me or woken in the night with teeth. we are okay. so ner.

having said that, i have switched off the baby monitor in my room, so if he stirs in the night it's got to get pretty loud for me to pick up on it. consequently i slept through from 11 to 7 on Sunday night and 11 to 5 last night (ds having gone right through from 7 to 5 - big cheers all round for stainesminor, hip hip, hooray!)

i am sure to regret posting this tomorrow when i report that he's woken four times tonight.

one final point for me to crow about today, when i picked him up from the childminder we were saying 'oh here's your mum, did you miss your mum' etc, and he said it! mum! with witnesses. i screamed and nearly cried.

i am such a gaylord.

at KiwiPanda. You could be describing my DS for naps. Only managed to have one today, although that was a surprisingly long hour and a quarter. Other than that, much howling, followed by failed attempts to feed to sleep. Fed to sleep okay, but woke up as soon as I tried to put him down. Then for next nap tried feeding lying down when he wouldn't settle, but that wasn't working (he just gazed around bedroom), so then back to normal feeding, at which point he dozed while sucking.

Have now resorted to CBeebies. I'm sure The Large Family isn't intended for 7mo, but he's watching it quietly while I mn and have a cup of tea and chocolate, so don't really care...

Kiwi - Very quickly...we had the exact same over the weekend. Beyond a joke. For two nights in a row literally did not sleep between 12 and 5. Would fall asleep and wake up 10 minutes later crying. Three nights was all it lasted so maybe you're through it?? The only thing I wondered was teeth (but had tried calpol and didn't help), cold (i.e. temperature because the nights are getting chilly and the heating goes off at 11), and/or overtired because he was pulling the same nap shenanigans as babyPanda.

Have been dressing him in a vest, sleepsuit and grobag now and also putting a blanket on when we go to bed. And he had a major nap catch up day on Sunday. He has slept through the last two nights again, fingers crossed.

Re: naps, she could either be overtired (maybe needs to go down a bit earlier due to dodgy nights and teeth?) or undertired and therefore fighting sleep? Or it could just be the way the wind is blowing this week!!!

Hey all. [rubs bleary eyes]. Have had three horrendous nights, with DD waking virtually every hour through the night. Have no idea what's going on - no obvious signs of illness, so perhaps teething but wouldn't daytime be affected to? Though having said that naps have turned into a total nightmare too. She just HOWLS at the top of her lungs, stands up in cot and won't lie down. Have no idea if I'm timing it all wrong but she's howlign now and she was clearly knackered - rubbing eyes, grizzling...

Thanks Feralgirl, and to see that others are in a similar boat. Last night was 7 wakes, (3 for me to feed, 4 for DH to rock to sleep), and as we seemed to guess correctly which was required each time, DS went back to sleep after each of the interventions. So DH and I have agreed this is what currently constitutes a "good" night.

DS still in his own cot - it was such a major achievement for DH and I to get back to sleeping together in our own bed at 3 months, I am really loathe to try co-sleeping, as DH will almost certainly decamp to the spare room. I also don't sleep too well with DS in the bed - I'm not sure why - and not entirely convinced he does either.

Sleep deprivation is just the worst, isn't it.

We have now got 3 new sleep books on their way to us - NCSS and the Sears Baby Sleep Book ordered by me, and the Ferber book ordered by DH. Is it any surprise that DH and I are disagreeing about what to try next .

Does anybody else feel as if they aren't on the same wavelength with their dc when going through this? By which I mean, I feel I just don't understand what he needs me to do? That probably makes me saddest of all . My rational brain suspects that this is a symptom of sleep-deprivation caused depression. Any thoughts?

jollygreenmama - my sister's DS found co-sleeping very reassuring (my DS isn't bothered) and she has found it possible to co-sleep when he is ill / away from home / unsettled and then put him back in his cot and sleep next to him as the transition to putting him in his cot in his own room without much trouble. So I don't think co-sleeping for a while means you can't get back to separate sleeping.

Feralgirl - that's interesting that you stopped night feeds at nine months. I think I am planning to do the same (8 months now). Did your baby cry for a long time when you didn't feed? I am feeding him at 11 ish and 4 ish and otherwise he will wake and cry for a few minutes before going back to sleep.... I used to pick up and rock but after 2 weeks with DH away was so knackered I couldn't get out of bed to rock. In a much better place now I don't have to pick up. How did you drop the feeds? Was it cold turkey?

Hello all
Like many others, I've looked at this thread on and off since DD was 3 months, but hoped, hoped, hoped that I would not become a fully paid up member. But here we are, DD is nearly 7 months and it only seems to be getting worse! DH and I have not spent a full night together in months, he retires to the sofa on the first waking. DD was waking several times a night, but at least spending the night in her cot, but now shes in with me all night, waking 5-6 times, wants feeding every 2/2.5 hours and regularly just awake between 2-3/4. I'm shattered and beginning to lose my sense of humour. She has never slept through, I've not had a full night's sleep in 7 months. No more than 3 solid hours. of DH who is not in his own bed, but is at least asleep. I'm going back to work after Xmas, can't possibly use my brain if it goes on like this...
She's still in with us at the mo. I'm thinking it might be time to move her into her own room. And to try some kind of sleep training, although CC is definately out. But I just need some more sleep!!!
So good to know that there are others out there. All the mums round here seem to have babies who slept through the night from 4 weeks.

Hello all, may I join you? Have peeped before at this thread but have never really needed reassuring as I do now.....
Babe is 6 1/2 months and we've just returned from a wonderful holiday in Ibiza where for the last week she slept thru... Hooray for us all, it must have been due to us all being completely chilled.
She hasn't since we returned and I think there are three things going on. Firstly she is back in her own room so I have been sleeping in on the sofa bed, tho last night I took her into there with me. Second think top front teeth are coming, calpol soothed her for a time, topped up with a bit of gel and some powders. Thirdly very bad wind which wakes her up, I think due to all the new foods she's trying.
She hasn't really cried like she did last night since she was weeks old, so I feel very lucky after looking at some of the troubles some of you have, but she moans which is still very upsetting. Last night she woke at 10pm so I fed her, she slept for about 40mins so I went into her room and after a dose of calpol and a cuddle decided that sleeping with her was the nest option. I don't want to get into habits I can't get out of tho so how should I play it tonite, I naturally feel I will probably do the same but I hear nagging from some of peers that I should let her get on with it....

PS, hi all other newbies. No wisdom really though Dycey, just 9 months' experience of broken sleep (and a glorious month of mostly sleeping through up until a fortnight ago!)

Isitmeor, hi and sorry you're having it so hard. FWIW, I did a wee bit of CC when my DS was about the same age as yours because I decided that feeding every 3 hours was not on so I cut him down to a dreamfeed and then another at 3.30ish. The feralbaby is very amenable to CC though, he's not the type to cry for longer than 20 mins unless he really means it and if he was proper crying then I'd go to him, so it was more a case of controlled grizzling iyswim.

Thing is, it just won't work if they're teething though and could your DS be doing a bit of separation anxiety as well do you think?

TBH, feralbaby was still pretty rubbish right up until he was 9mo and the dr told me to stop feeding him at night, so I did. By then I knew he was eating enough solids during the day (we're BLWing) and he was more confused by the lack of nocturnal boob than upset by it. It only took about four nights I think and, barring recent illness, he's slept through pretty reliably since.

You could maybe try giving your DS some big carby meals in the evening; does he like pasta? It makes a difference to feralbaby's sleep if he's full of starch and full fat dairy!

And CC certainly isn't the only way. Can you co-sleep? Stainesmassive has had great success sharing with her DS and I would still be co-sleeping too if DS didn't think that my bed was the ultimate playground!

You're right though, it's just a phase. These things shall pass, these things shall pass, these things shall pass. Repeat to fade...

May I join as well?
DD is 21 weeks, and has never gone more than 4 hours at night. Normally she wakes every 2-3 hours; Not for anything in particular - no rooting for boobage, not too hot or cold,calpol of no use,just wakes up, has to get out of her cot for a look around and a cuddle. She is then awake at 6 am bright as a button and barely sleeps through the day (2x20 minute naps) I finally flipped last night and put her in the travel cot in the spare room, as she had woken every hour from 9-4am.
JUst feeling dazed and confused by it all - DS slept through from 12weeks, so this is a bit of a shocker

Hello all,
Sorry if this has already been addressed earlier, but just have a few minutes while DH has taken DS out to shop.
7mo DS has never been a great sleeper, although we did have a couple of months from about 3-5mo when he only woke up twice in the night for feeds once he'd settled (which took about 45mins iirc). For the past couple of months, his sleeping has seemed to get gradually worse, and currently he seems to need 3 night feeds. He also wakes up 2 plus extra times when DH is able to rock him to sleep without me feeding him.
We are getting very tired. DS is teething at the mo, and our usually sunny baby has become very whingey particularly at the end of last week. I find that harder to cope with than the night-waking tbh. But DH and I are SO tired, and just keep disagreeing about what to do about it.
DH is now suggesting that we try controlled crying. I really, really don't feel like doing this, so have put in an order for the No-Cry Sleep Solution and the Sears Baby Sleep Book. I've also offered to try doing all the night wakings on nights when DH is going to be at home the next day. My position is that I think this is probably a phase that we just need to survive as best we can.
Anyways, my question is whether anybody knows whether controlled crying is even an option when the baby is still feeding at night (I'd estimate that DS might be getting as much as half of his 24hr intake of milk at night at the mo, as he is so distractable during the day)? My limited understanding of the technique suggests that this would not be compatible with 3 proper night feeds (20-25mins of proper sucking). Does anybody know?
TIA.

Oh Feral, my sleep deprived friend. Thursday night up for 1.5 hours at 2 am - not ideal, but figured it was teeth as he eventually settled with Calpol. Friday night virtually did not sleep between 12 and 5 am (he slept fitfully for 20 mins here and there, I did not sleep at all). Calpol and Calprofen no difference. Saturday night again the no sleep between 12 and 5. Sweet jesus I am losing my mind! He is clearly in some kind of discomfort, but worrying when even the pain meds don't help.

Like you, I went back to trying nursing to soothe him, but it didn't really work.

I am very much a card carrying member of this thread again!

Hi Dycey and other newbies. Sorry you have to join us!

May I join? Been eyeing up this thread since DS was 3 months (now 8 months). He was a brilliant sleeper til 10 weeks when he had injections, a cold and I introduced a dummy - nightmare. He had been going 8/9 hours but suddenly started waking absolutely all the time.

At the moment still night feeding 4 hours apart and extra wakings but things have improved since I stopped picking him up at the extra wakes and started getting him to self settle.

Still - all wisdom and experience from others would be wonderful.

sospan, there is no wrong way to do it imho. If it works for you then it's all good.

For example, DS hasn't fed during the night since the beginning of September and we haven't co-slept for months but he'd eaten sweet FA all day yesterday and was feeling rotten so I fed him when he woke at 11pm. He woke again at 1.30 but wasn't really hungry - but still grizzled for an hour - and again at 4.00 when he was and refused to settle so I kicked DH out and DS came in with me and suckled himself to sleep.

He's eaten bugger all again today and I co-slept his 3 hour nap with him this morning and fed him to sleep this afternoon. He screams if I put him down or leave the room and, like MoM said, it's like having a newborn again.

I'm doing what is absolutely necessary to get by tbh and it is an absolute bloody nightmare. Tonight I'm going to do the same and I'll just have to go through the hell of re-training him out of night feeding when he's feeling better I suppose.

Ah, the greyness of exhaustion; it's all coming back to me. At least I feel like I definitely belong on this thread again

Hope Baby FG is better today. Sorry to hear about your friend and your cat too.

Update on the 'dad settling' experiment over at Sospan mansions... DS seemed to sleep less and cry more each night. After 3 nights DH was a broken man and DS was refusing to sleep at all in his cot . Last night we tried a slight change in tactics: I would dreamfeed at about 10.30 if DS hadn't woken, if he woke before 2.30 DH would settle him, if after I would feed him. I would then only feed him after 6.30, with DH doing any settling before then.

So I did a DF, he was awake (but not yowling) between about 1+2, didn't wake until 4, but I couldn't settle him so fed him at 4.30 then didn't wake until 7.

I'm sure we're doing it all wrong but it did seem like a more manageable night to me. Am knackered today though! Think we will try the same again tonight.

FG oh poor you, how sad. I still miss my lovely family cat who died god, nearly 10 years ago now. Cats rock

Mom DD had something similar with the poo when she was ill and hardly eating anything! Bloody teeth eh? Also, I've found that antibiotics really upset DD's tummy - almost worse than the tonsilitis she had it for...

A couple of weeks ago my DS went back to having fully BF baby poop, like before he had started weaning at all. He just went totally off solids for ages (nearly a full week) - it was so sad because he is like the BLW poster boy! Eventually I knew he was feeling better because he stole some of my pizza and chocolate cupcake!

If your DS follows the same illness trajectory as mine, he was really grim for over a week after starting antibiotics (kept thinking he should have been better), then he got better for a couple of days, then he got another tooth .

Wow, that is a scary stat. We really are lucky aren't we? I suppose my mum had two kids + a MC, as did both my MiL and my SiL.

I reeeally want to start trying for DC2 soon but I am determined to have a year off with the next one and, being the main wage earner, I need to have worked for a while and saved some £££s before we start ttc. I'm in catch 22; I need a bigger wage - and therefore a promotion - but I don't want to have to work harder this year because I want to spend as much time as poss with DS!

BTW, you're right MoM, DS's rash is either because of a virus or as a reaction to the penicillin he was taking for his ear infection. He's bloody miserable and hasn't eaten all day, just wants to BF constantly. Methinks we might be in for a long night.

Feral, sadly, I think MCs are quite common. Seems to be one of those things that happen to many, many women at some stage but are rarely talked about? Some stat I read said that 10-25% of all recognised pregnancies end in miscarriage. Very scary, especially as we're thinking of TTC in the new year.

Poor feralchild! I think rashes are quite a common byproduct of a virus, but good to take him to the doc.

I have tried a few of those 4 am feed strategies and it has never worked, so I guess no fear that my DS will go back to feeding at night! Good and bad points about that I guess....

Ta for all the sympathy guys. Are MCs really common? This is the second friend this year who's had one and my cousin just had one too. So so sad for all of them. Makes me realise just how incredibly lucky I am.

Staines I was totally unprepared for turning into a big wuss too. I cry when animals die on nature programmes now I was really worried that I'd be too soft to go back to teaching scabby teenagers but it seems I can still hold my own in the classroom, thank god!

Things are even worse this morning with the feralchild though. DS woke at 4am and screeeeeamed for ages, wouldn't settle with calpol so I even tried feeding him and bringing him in with us but he was still bellowing.

When I put the lights on full I discovered that he was absolutely covered from head to foot in a rash so panicked and did the rolly-glass-for-meningitis-test and the rash went away so phew! But there's chicken pox doing the rounds here at the moment so we called NHS direct (by which time DS was having a whale of a time on our bed, singing and laughing like a good 'un) and I'm taking him to the doctors again in a minute!

for you fg - one of my cats was run over when I was 8 mths pregnant with DD and I cried for days. I was still wobbly emotionally about a month later. And it's not self-centred at all, it's not as if you're lessening the tragedy of your friend's mc - I hope you can give her lots of support.
We had a nightmare nap day yesterday cos there was no mum and tots activity in the morning (DD always has mammoth naps after a busy morning) so we didn't get a nap in til gone 3pm and she was so whingey I was tearing my hair out. Couple that with us having to wait in for some bloke to finally fix our bathroom door, I couldn't even take her for a walk. Argh!! How come even though DD is sleeping so much better I'm still soooooo tired? It doesn't make sense [confused]
MoM you will survive because you have to and I bet your DS is gorgeous so he's worth the permanently grey feeling!

Very quick to say for Feral. Terrible for your friend. And I would be in hysterics if one of my 3 (!) cats was killed. So sorry for you.

Yet again our DSs seem to be separated at birth as mine was ill for pretty much 1 entire month. From stuffed nose and fever, to ear infection, to stuffed nose, to a couple of new teeth. Really, really bad month. We have just started having good nights again this week - had to do a bit of mild enforcing when we could tell he was feeling better but thought that 4:30 was an acceptable wake up time. But other than that, he has fallen back into good habits in the last week or so. So hopefully your DS will be the same. It was a long month though!

Umm, they're also separated at birth in terms of the hairy back patch and I laughed out loud at the tail comment a few pages back!

Sorry to everyone else suffering with wretched nights. I am a horrible, horrible person when the nights are bad and I just can't see how it will ever get better or how I will ever survive, and then I have two good nights in a row and I feel like I can conquer the world. Hate the manic swings!

Feral - for your DS being ill so long and for your friend. Is awful when friends have m/c I think, as you just want it to go well for them. Hope your DS gets better soon.

DD went over 5 hours between last feed before bed and then first wake of night last night , but then woke 3 hours later and didn't want to get up, but didn't want to sleep in her cot either . Ended up asking DH to go in the single bed in her room and take her into our bed. She then slept until 8.30am!! Is shattered tonight and has not been too good on her food so think maybe she's either finally going to cut a tooth or is sickening for something...

Think it's going to be a while before I would consider stopping all night-feeding, as she's only 7 months (today) and is not yet having what I would call proper food - just fruit and veg purees and chomping on fruit, veg and toast finger food (also had a right good chomp on a sausage piece the other day ).

SoSpan - I would consider sleeping through til 4am good going too, but agree that it is still tough to get up at that time.

Right, off for some quality time with DH, as it is one of his rare nights off.

fg - not at all self centred. i am ridiculously sensitive since ds appeared on the scene. i can't bear anything happening to anyone. my heart bleeds when i see tramps in the street, because they were babies once. it's the thing i was least prepared for before i had ds. i would be absolutely useless if one of my friends was in the same position as yours.

That sounded a bit self centred. My woes are clearly as nothing compared to my friend's. I'm just very very sad for her.

Hi all. The feral household is pretty rubbish at the moment. DS is still ill. Our idiot locum GP told DH to take him to bloody hospital yesterday so that a paediatrician could look at him and say he's fine, just got a bit of a temperature and needs more antibiotics for his ears and throat.

DS therefore is now waking several times a night and not really eating properly during the day so is famished by 5am. The dr told us to dose him with calpol and calprofen every 6 hours which seems excessive so we're not doing it that much, but it certainly helps him sleep, poor little sod.

Sospan, now that I am back at work, DH is doing the night shift during the week; I figure I work twice the hours and earn twice the money that he does so why should I? When DS had the option of me or DH, he would flatly refuse to settle for DH but I guess he's got used to it now.

To add to my woes, my friend has just had a miscarriage and my cat got run over last week

sospan - once you've started don't stop otherwise you'll be back at the beginning. (Unless you don't mind being back at the beginning!) Of course this is only IME and I'm no expert
Honestly when we stopped DD's 3 night feeds 3 weeks ago she took 8 nights to stop screaming at regular intervals. DH doesn't do night settling, not sure why but hey ho, so I dragged my sorry arse out of bed but made sure just to pat/shush and not pick up. She inevitably started crying the moment I stopped patting but then I'd leave her supposedly for 5 minutes although she was usually out in less than one. It was CC but then desperate times call for desperate measures IMO She's only sleeping through perhaps 3 nights a week but I'm certainly not complaining.
Hello starshine welcome back!

I'd glad take sleeping til 4 too (but then I have no standards at the moment).

Just back from a few nights away. Sleep was better but not great. Being in a hotel meant I was worried about noise so shoved a boob in his face at the slightest peep.

Now we're back, we've decided to 'do something' about the 5+ times feeding a night so are going for the 'Dad settling' method too. On the first night we had some crying and some sleeping, and last night we had not much crying but not much sleeping either. DS ended up sleeping on DH for most of the time when he did sleep so I'm not sure whether we're just replacing one prop with another. How many nights do you think we should give it - 3? 4? Poor DH is looking quite drained already...

Did anyone have a good night then?

superd - sleeping through to 4 is cause for celebration in the massif too. i skip down the hall to see him when he wakes at 4....

Thanks for the support all. staines, DS absolutely LOATHES co-sleeping... He's always wanted his own space so getting him in with us has always been a surefire way of causing the mother of all strops. Last night was actually a good night... He slept till 4am and much to our delight, went back to sleep (after an hour of epic patting and whispering) till 6am. God, how low my standards have become.

Not been on for a while, just plodding away at life and not having time to post.
Hi SuperD - sorry you're having such a tough time of it with DS.
Claremu - thanks so much for that article. Is nice to read something pro co-sleeping and bfing that is so nice. Makes me happy and sad at same time - happy that this time round I was confident and able to bf DD and just to co-sleep with her when necessary. But sad that maybe we shouldn't have pushed the self-settling issue (although I'm glad we did). We haven't let her cry-it-out, just done PU/PD and reassurance when we felt it couldn't be food she wanted.
So, for last few nights (think nearly a week), she has gone down in evening round about same time as DS, woken only twice in night for food (at about 4 hours intervals) and then up for day at about 6.30/6.45. I am sooo pleased for this. I think at nearly 7 months she still needs food in night and she wakes up happy too, so it seems to be working for her. I know that give another couple of months when she is properly on 3 meals a day, I will be bemoaning that she is "waking out of habit", but this is a step forward for us, so I'm happy (plus, am sure this too is "just a phase" and it'll all go to pot soon )

Chulita - yay on DD sleeping through, but for her self-weaning of bf. 10 months is still great, but it must be really hard. I know today DD missed her mid-morning bf 'cos she slept through it with an ultra-long nap, so I gave her lunch and then offered bf, which she didn't really take - I felt sad that she might give up (even though she still had 3 other feeds today, plus whatever she takes tonight). Hope she isn't ready to give up bf just yet, for your sake.

right, should be in bed...

Hi all
Only just started reading this thread from beginning so have no idea how this fits in with current posts - anyway this is an article someone sent to me...

http://drmomma.blogspot.com/2009/10/sleeping-with-baby-breastfeeding-night.html

I have a nearly 13 month old daughter who currently wakes 3 times for a BF after going down at 7pm.
I have read all the advice and considered many tactics but have never felt committed to doing anything, however being back at work for 2 days is taking its toll a bit..

A friend who I know from my 'alternative' mums group (all met through a sling group) has recently got her daughter (same age) to sleep through by enlisting her partner while she went and slept in the living room for 4 nights. She protested a bit and was only offered daddy's comfort and water but got through it - I am considering the same tactic...However my DD screams like an abandoned orphan that's been left naked in a newspaper in the pouring rain after about 30 seconds of being denied the boob and boy can she go on...

Hello superD, sorry to see you here
I spoke to a lady today who still co-sleeps with her 4 year old who regularly bfs during the night I just couldn't do that for 4 years!!
Glad you cleared that baby-flinging up staines

having re read my post, i really hope that none of you have come away with the impression that i actually do fling stainesminor across the room. i do not. but i am starting to teach him the meaning of the word 'no' in quite a hurry.

oh dear superd. i do feel for you....can i ask a stupid question? does ds sleep in with you? i find it's the only way that i can cope with ds waking in the night, though he does sometimes give me a big treat and sleep til 4 or 5 am. i realise it's not for everyone though.
no such luck last night, bloody, bloody teeth. yes, ds has discovered that teeth can be used to bite things, namely my nipples. ouch. and i had been dreading giving up bfing, but now i'm just not so sure. but i am. but i'm not. when it's going well there's nothing better, but my god, i could throw him across the room when he decides to really bite down. not deliberately, it's like an involuntary reaction.

Hey all. Superdan poor you, that does sounds grim. DD is still absolute nightmare when it comes to naps and completely erratic at nights - the only thing we can be sure of is that no two nights are ever even remotely the same.. If it makes you feel any better to hear a tale of woe, one of my best mates has a DD who wakes up between 4 and 5am every day, usually towards the former rather than latter, and is good to go for the day. Apparently the other day it was 3.45. She is NOT looking forward to the clocks going back...

My DD woke howling at 11pm last night which is most unlike her as she usually saves her howling for the early morning. Dunno what the problem is/was but this morning's nap was a screamfest too. Teething, maybe. GOD I hate teeth.

Is it just me or does having babies seriously make you question evolution? I mean someone PLEASE explain to me the evolutionary advantage of being immobile and VERY loud. How on earth did we survive as a species? DD would have been sabre-tooth tiger food within seconds

Hello fg, chulita, kiwi, staines and everyone else.
The veterans among you may remember me from the 4-5 month thread, which I'm sad to say, I graduated from with merit, honours, dinstinction etc. etc.
So DS is now just uner 9 months old and is STILL a nightmare sleeper. Since he's been 6 months old, we've stopped feeding, done cranial osteopathy, spoken to not one but TWO bloody sleep consultants, we've picked up and put down till we've blue in the face, implemented every sleep plan known to mankind, we've read just about every sleep book possible and STILL sweet FA. WHY WHY WHY? I'm broken with exhaustion (and broke). He insists on waking up at night (for no apprent reason, at least 3 times), and refuses to go back to sleep on his own unless we intervene by patting or the like. His naps are all over the place and to add to the fun, he staunchly maintains that 0530 is a perfectly acceptable time to wake up for the day. My god I feel terrible... and its hard to find clothes that don't clash with grey skin and red eyes. Sigh.
Anyway, just popped in to say hello, and have a good moan with people who understand how crap it is to have a baby like this. In my circle of friends I'm the only one with these problems... everyone else's babies seem to sleep beautifully (and the mothers have the glossy hair and clear complexions to prove it). Must have done something truly appalling in a past life.

Hi to all noobies to the thread. Sorry it's tough at the moment but it does get better, honest!

Chulita, I am for you. Since going back to work I am really missing the daytime BFing. Fortunately baby fg makes up for it by attaching himself pretty much when I walk in through the door and not letting go until he's asleep at 6.30! But I love BFing so much, it was really grim when DS was cutting his top teeth and howled and bit me whenever I offered him boob. DH and I had one of our worst rows ever when I was upset about it and he just said "well, you'll have to stop breast feeding then, won't you?" I hope baby chulita comes back to you soon.

The latest from casa fg is that DS's new habit is to spend about an hour from 3.30 onwards going "aaaaah aaaaaaah aaaaaaah" just loud enough for it to keep me awake, even with the monitor off and ear plugs in. He's not even properly awake ffs. It's driving me nuts.

Right. DD has been sleeping through for a week now. She has a little whinge around 1am ish but she re-settles herself. I think dropping the night feed made a huge difference but it did take a long time and a lot of crying. Just the fact that she doesn't expect feeding now is brilliant.
On the downside she doesn't really want to bf any more so I've been expressing like a loon cos I really don't want to quit til she's 12 months. Last night I tried to feed her to sleep but she flatly refused and just cried til DH produced a bottle. It's odd but I feel totally rejected...

I've not read all the posts on this topic (bit long!) but just wanted to post to let you know what happened with us.

DS is 15.5 months old. Breastfed and I went back to work when he was 12 months. I stopped daytime feeds at 11 months to prep him for nursery (switched to cow's milk) but continued feeding him before bed, whenever he seemed to need it at night and first thing in the morning. Stopping breast-feeding during the day was relatively painless.

Since about 14 months the night-time feeds were getting further apart, so he was starting to go 6-9 hours from being put down, but would definitely seem hungry in the early hours. I'd feed him and he'd quickly go back to sleep. Only breastfeeding worked. However when his 4 molars started coming through we seemed to be back to 3 hour feeds at night. I think the sucking soothed him. Calpol/ibuprofen didn't seem to make much difference nor did offering water or cow's milk. A couple of weeks ago we went on holiday and we decided to try cold turkey on night feeds. Our plan was that DH would try and settle DS and I wouldn't offer milk. It wasn't helped by us sleeping in the same room when at home DS has his own. Still, the first night DS cried for 40 mins as my DH tried to soothe him and then woke for a second bout of crying. We found that I had to leave the room or DS wouldn't settle at all. It got gradually better until after a few nights, DS was able to be soothed by either DH or me, without milk.

Since we've been back home, he's been almost completely sleeping through. He still cries about 1am but it seems to be in his sleep and the last time I was able to shush him to sleep by standing outside his door and it only took a couple of minutes. I have to say we've had some earlier starts though - between 5:30 and 6:30 am. My aim is to only offer milk after 6:30 am but I caved in for a quieter life a couple of times! He's still got lots of teething pain, but I think we've broken the expectation of milk at night and it means that at least DH and I share the night time duties. I've always felt DS would find his own way, and resisted pressure from others to force the issue, but when we seemed to be going backwards I had to do something - the constant disturbed nights were impacting my work. In the end it wasn't as bad as I expected and DS seems to have adjusted well. Long may it continue!

Hi Jules, welcome. fg, i'd say you still qualify. anything before 6 is still night time as far as i'm concerend.

before i had ds my best friend told me not to worry about anything because as soon as you get used to something you can guarantee they'll change what they're doing. she's right. ds is back to waking at 12 and 4 (i think - i sleep through that one if i can) and awake for 6.30 / 7. we seem to have sleep patterns that last for a week. unfortunately, not a single one that went through the night!

Hi Ladies
Can i join you all.
I have a 6 month old DD who for the last 5-6 weeks has kept me up, waking every couple of hours, sometimes for a feed (BF) sometimes she just needs settling and sometimes i am sure just for the hell of it
I am slowly losing my mind and rapidly turning in to a grumpy old cow.

I am so glad i have come across this thread.

sospan, hi and I LOVE the shush-patter. I'm in. And you're honestly not doing anything wrong imo. DS's top teeth took bloody ages to come through and caused us all no end of bother, biting and belly-aching. I still feed him to sleep most evenings and he's perfectly capable of self-settling and, after having been ill at the beginning of the week, has gone back to sleeping through so it's done him no harm.

BUT he does wake between 5.00 and 5.30 every morning which is doing my head in and I think just about justifies my presence here still?

I was talking to a colleague today whose 2 year old daughter refuses to go to sleep until 2am and then wakes up at 5am and has done that every night since she was 6mo I felt awful saying that baby FG is now a reasonably good sleeper. Poor bloke.

Not getting much chance to post - sorry everyone having rubbish nights at the mo. Same here although think DD is ill/cutting teeth. She slept lots yesterday (despite being in pushchair, going to nursery to collect DS, then being transferred to car seat and only finally waking when got out of car seat at Baby College. Was so upset/angry last night she was sobbing, so ended up feeding her more than usual - she would only feed to sleep, no chance of taking her off half asleep. Although when I put her down at 10.45 she did have a huuuuge burp and then slept until 3am but then up and inconsolable at 4.35am again. Is happy when awake, but was only awake for 1hr 45mins this morning before wanting to go back to sleep and needing to feed to sleep. Wish she would cut just one tooth and then I would know how she is when cutting a tooth and then be able to distinguish that from being ill/hungry/a pain in the ass about going to sleep !

Sospan, your argument with Duncan Bannatyne did make me laugh - sounds a great invention btw - how much you looking for investment-wise?!

Am giving DD a break from the whole self-settle business until she's back to full health (she is currently fast asleep in her puschair, so I'll let her off!)

Right, should really be ironing before nursery run...

I think I may have found the cure for sleepless babies - it's one or more of the following:
1. Take said baby for 4 mile walk in the rain in the afternoon.
2. Cover her bum in barrier cream at every nappy change.
3. Offer her boob everytime she yawns throughout the whole day.
4. Have MIL and SIL round for the afternoon/evening - let DD get over-excited, put her in bed at usual time after Nurofen-ing, let her scream for approx. 1 hour, take her downstairs and let her play til 7:30 then put her in bed again after Calpol-ing and have a 20 min shower to drown out her cries.
Et voila! Cue DD sleeping from 8pm, little whinge that I ignored at 4am and wake up at 6:45. Oh yes, I put her in a spozzie last night so I could smother her little bum in barrier cream without clogging up my BGs.
I'd like to mention that I didn't sleep the whole night through due to DD's monitor going off at half midnight and me tiptoeing in to reset it (I'm a bit paranoid about her monitor - I need it way more then she does ) and DH pushing me out of bed around 3am, cue me clawing my way back into snuggliness and shoving him back on his side of the bed.
So, that's what we did yesterday and she slept like a little angel. [sigh] I could get used to that.
sospan - feeding to sleep isn't wrong, sometimes they really need it. If DD's ill I feed her to sleep because it's like the ultimate comfort! Your DS's pattern sounds just like DD's up until about 3 weeks ago. We've only just knocked it down to one wake-up a night...
And...baby Chulita has bf'd twice today! only little ones but that's twice more than the last 3 days - hooray! [over-excited emoticon]
kiwiP, I hope your LO was a happier baby last night!

Oh hello Kiwi! Urgh, sounds like a rough night too.

Seems all the babies are generally snotty, miserable and possibly teething.

As threatened promised, here's how it went here last night in all its glory:
- Fed to sleep at 7. Woke 3 times before I finally gave in and fed him at 10.30, each time he was more upset and took longer to settle but did by shush-patting. Not a promising start to the night...
- Woke again absolutely screaming at 12, tried to settle but he was just getting worse and worse so fed. Didn't settle though, took 30 mins of walking around and shush-patting. Finally back to sleep at 1.15
- Woke again at 4. Too tired to attempt to settle so fed but decided to try and keep it brief which resulted in an hour of screaming, feeding, screaming, etc. Finally took him into bed with me at 5, fed again, he fell asleep and I lay there worrying about smothering/squashing/overheating him until I risked putting him back into his cot.
- woke for the day at 7.30 (the only good bit).

That's a pretty standard night for us at the moment . What am I doing so wrong? (I'm only feeding him to sleep 'cos he's ill and has been so unsettled).

Do you really think it could be teeth? Could they disturb him for 2 months but still not appear? Maybe they are coming all at once and he'll wake up tomorrow with a full set and then start sleeping through <hopelessly clutching at straws emoticon>

Hey all, hello Sospan! DD's been good recently but has regressed spectacularly and last night was howling at 2,3,4,5,6... Think she had a stopwatch on. No idea why, no obvious signs of teething and just has a mild cold. Sob.

oh and forgot to say thank you everyone for the welcome - it's strangely comforting to know DS isn't the only one.

Oh poor baby Chulita and poor you... Here's that coffee and muffin (extra choc chips and slug of brandy in the coffee). I had a rubbish day yesterday too. In my sleep deprived confusion I even phoned the HV for advice. Her offering was that "At 8 months, he really doesn't need feeding at night" - really???? and there's me feeding him every 20 mins at night 'cos I thought he needed it.

Another rubbish night in the Sospan household. If I get a minute later I will post the sorry details in the hope that someone can tell me where I'm going wrong. Couldn't even sleep when DS eventually did as I was having an imaginary argument with Duncan Bannatyne (sp?) about an invention that attaches to the cot and shush-pats babies all night. How's that for losing the plot?

fg - she could be teething - the fumes from her nappy this morning actually made my eyes water, she drenches a bib in less than 10 mins, her nappy rash is so bad it's actually bleeding ... She has just cut her two top teeth, one came through after one evening of screaming, the other one was a right bastard and took over a week with her gum really swollen, constant crying interspersed with screaming when the Calpol wore off. I was hoping for a bit of a break til the next ones but maybe not. I can't see any about to break through but the pain starts way before you see anything.
Nights aren't getting any easier - if anything they're worse. I'm losing the plot. You know how somedays you think you're ok and other days you know you're not? [sigh]
How's everyone else doing?

Lol at our worries. I worry that the hairy patch at the bottom of baby FG's back won't have gone by the time he's 4 and he'll be bullied at school for having a tail.

Sospan, sorry things have gone so pear-shaped for you but I betcha it's teeth. DS screamed about his for ages before they came through. His toppers were hell for months.

Chulita, could that be baby Chu's BFing problem too? Baby FG can get a bit bitey when he's cutting a tooth. A couple of weeks ago he made me cry he bit me so hard . Then he cried It was no fun.

Lol at the pints of snot though; DS is the same at the moment. After a shocker of a night on Sunday, I got home from work yesterday, took a screaming DS out of DH's arms and the child was like a bloody hot water bottle! He had a temp of 39.7 so did the paranoid mother bit and harangued our GP into seeing us without an appointment and got some antibiotics for the ear infection that was obviously his problem.

Honestly, DH was just sat there going "I dunno what's wrong with him, he's just screamed all day." but he hadn't thought to take his temperature or anything. AIBU to think Mr FG's a bit of a div sometimes?!

lol staines , so, so true!

sospan - one mug of coffee and a chocolate muffin coming up. None of us have any ideas but it's good to know that we're not alone... < rescues DD from doorless bathroom again >

oh dear sospan, you may be over qualified! but seriously - just cause you can't see teeth, he could still be getting them, couldn't he? every time ds has pints of snot a tooth appears shortly after. maybe he's doing them all at once.

i really don't have a practical solution to offer, i am in danger of becoming world's softest mum. i always give the boob, i always bring him into bed after midnight, i've got so many rods on my back i could be a chimney sweep. isn't it funny though, (in a not very funny, really staines, kind of way) that we all worry about everything all the time? i am currently worrying about weaning ds off the boob in a couple of months when he's one. chulita's worrying cause baby c's gone off the boob already. i also variously worry about his first day at school, is he eating enough finger food (definitely not) when will i start potty training, will he and his as yet non-existent siblings get on, will the world just go into global meltdown before he reaches 30..........does my mum still worry like this about me?

Bleurgh... really didn't want to have to come over here (no offence!) but I can't deny it any longer, lack of sleep is taking over!

DS (8 months) has always been a rubbish sleeper (had colic as a newborn, so awful evenings of screaming) but has now graduated to bloody awful.

At 6 months, we were doing really well (for us anyway), had ditched the dummy, bed at 7.30, dream feed at 11, a brief waking at between 3 + 4, patted back to sleep within 5 mins, awake at 5. I'd even stopped feeding him to sleep.

Now though it's all gone totally wrong. Without warning he started waking up screaming every hour or so. He was totally inconsolable, only boob would settle him. We then went on holiday which made it even worse - he refused any sort of daytime nap and would only sleep cuddled up to me (we'd never co-slept before).

We had 1 good night when we got home, but then he got ill (croup, then cough, now producing pints of snot). He's now waking several times before the dream feed, takes ages to settle afterwards, then chaos reigns. On a good night, he'll wake every hour, on a bad night, every 20 mins . Feeding is the only thing that calms him down. I've tried not to, but he absolutely screamed for an hour whilst I cuddled him.

What can I do? When will it stop?

He doesn't have any teeth so am never sure whether that's causing any problems. I know I just have to ride it out until he's better, but I know it'll still be hellish.

Must have read every sleep book going. Why doesn't it work then??

Really feel for everyone on here!

staines, 'residence' sounds a bit posh, I've moved from Gloucestershire where there were shops on the doorstep to a 1960's prefab in Dorset where the nearest 'shop' is 3 miles away...no more real shopping for DD's clothes DD still hasn't got the idea of sleeping through yet. Last night I very nearly caved in and fed her but didn't (hooray!) DH hasn't been very supportive because I think he finds it easier when I get up to feed her. Now that we have a good 20 mins of screaming every night he finds it a bit wearing - it is.
I'm a bit worried that dropping her night feed has encouraged her to drop bfing all together. When I try and feed her now she just bites and won't drink. I've been carrying on even though she didn't really want to bf but the night feed was the longest. Now I'm thinking we might have to stop and do formula for the last 2 months. I wanted to bf the whole year but DD just doesn't seem to want it
DD seemed hungry at night but she gets through fine and in the morning she isn't ravenous. I'm glad I've dropped her feed but it's not easy yet...we'll see how long it takes her. So I'm still knackered!
Sorry, that's monstrous - I don't know anyone here, MNers are my only friends!

Hi Chulita - long time no see! how's the new residence? and how's it been with the cold turkey? i still haven't dared try it - he just seems so hungry at night....but then it is a vicious circle. and i can't stand crying.....

DD is settling in alright thanks fg. I've gone cold turkey on the last night feed for the past two nights and she's actually disappointed me in that she hasn't put up as much of a fight as I thought she would. The first night she woke up around 2am, pushed the water away and then screamed like I'd chopped a limb off for about 10 mins, off and on for 40 mins and then asleep again til half 6. Last night she woke up at the same time but only screamed for about 3 mins and then off and on for around 20 mins. fg inspired me by saying how baby fg didn't need feeding at night so I reckoned it was time I showed DD that she can actually last all night without milk!
DH has threatened to sleep on the futon in the living room tonight because he's tired...bless...he's not the one who's been getting up all night for the last 10 months but he's the one who's got the right to be moody and tired. [sigh] I love him but sometimes I want him to be the one doing all the feeding just so he knows what it's like...
Anyway, off to bed now, hopefully 3rd night will be the winner!
Goodnight ladies!

Hi leen you have my thoughts and sympathy, you really really do. It is awful, my DD was still waking 2 times a night when I went back to work. I cured it by giving her water and it worked, but not til she was 15mths old. Does she have something to snuggle? How is she with naps, does she settle herself?

My DS was a little better last night, slept for 5 1/2 hrs then fed, then 3hrs and 3hrs, which is much better than the 2hrs and 1 1/2hrs.

feral - my cat is currently scary for halloween but I reckon he'd be a tough one to beat on the bastard front

Lol at the DHs being rubbish sleepers. Mr FG gets VERY annoyed when I try to shush-pat him.

The irony that it is him that keeps me awake rather than DS drives me barmy. And why is it that they have no idea whatsoever about volume control? He is completely incapable of being quiet but not as bad as my mother (gobby granny).

Agh, it's soooo true that pride comes before a fall! There's me, boasting to everyone about my brilliant sleeper, and on Friday I had to go to work having been awake since 4.05 By the end of a full day of teaching yestersday, I honestly thought I was going to die! Not so bad today (back to 6am) but we did have a 45 minute hysterical screaming sesh in the middle of the night.

Hi leen, sorry it's been rubbish for you. It took DS a good two or three days to adjust himself and eat more solids when I cut out night feeds but since then he's been pretty good really. We did a bit of controlled grizzling at 7 months but stopped for teeth when necessary. I know now that if he's not settled after 20 mins then it's teeth and he really means it and I bung him some calpol and cuddle him until it's kicked in. Not sure that there's anything you can do really

Hi Chulita, how's DD in the new house? Settled in OK?

And hi to mycat, love the name, but I reckon that my cat might be a bigger bastard than yours

Leen - many sympathies I am back at work already with a tiny insomniac in tow. With DS2 I find if I do give him meds in the night he will go to sleep if it is teething causing it (try to shush him down a couple of times before then - if it doesnt work will try bonjela teething gel and meds) - so maybe when she wakes crying see if some nurofen for children or calprofen helps her settle?

Have to join this thread!!

Ok so we're all in the same boat, but where did I go wrong?

I did the whole evening sleep routine thing from about 6 weeks (post colic nightmare evenings) going down after a feed by about 7.30. Waking for about 2 - 3 feeds a night and going straight back to sleep till about 6.30

Then at 4 months we went to Australia for a month. No daytime routine and arrived back at 5 months with a child who couldn't settle herself to sleep at all in the day - she became queen of the micro nap - 20 mins!! and only settled at night with a dummy (which I loathed, but was necessary with the jetlag/longhaul flights)

So we've moved her into her own room, I've just cut out the night feeds and she's on solids. so far, no luck with sleeping through!

I now have a six month old who won't settle herself back without a dummy and is waking up on and off from 2- 4 times a night just to moan. Always the killer hours, from about 2.30- 7am. And I'm back at work next week full time,

So do I just try the hellish, letting her cry herself back to sleep for the next few days and nights? I'm tryin to muster the energy,but worried that I'll crack. she's teethy, but I don't know if I'm just re-inforcing the night wakings or trying to give her pain relief. But then I don't want her screaming her head off in pain, as opposed to screaming her head off because she won't settle.

any advice welcome!!

Welcome MyCats. Hmm, well DS2 slept quite well last night - DH tried to dream feed him at 10.30 which he was having none of (tried explaining to DH that DS2 is not a bottle fan but he was not listening) so had a little screamathon then, then DS2 woke at 1 for a feed and would go to sleep if I lay with him and cuddled him for a bit and then woke at 5.50 today. However today he has had a grand total of 4 oz of formula so am dreading how tonight is going to pan out... wish me strength.

Hi Staines - DS was a bit better last night - 3hrs instead of 2hrs after midnight. I'm hoping we're starting to see some improvement [deluded emoticon]. Its such a hard slog!

Hello everyone! Just marking my spot, have to go and haul DD out of the bathroom...we had to kick the door in on the first day and now it doesn't shut. She can't keep away from the shampoo [crappy army house emoticon]

hello CatBastard - excuse truncation of your name, i picked my favourite words - you have described ds to a t. now he's 9 months he seems to have developed a new sleep pattern - 7pm to 4am, wake for a feed - that seems to last for an hour and a half, though i wouldn't trust my judgement - and then we're up for the day at 5.30.
in reference to yesterday's cry for help, i put his bedtime back by an hour last night, he subsequently let me lie in to 5.30. so i'm going to keep pushing it back a bit til we get to a 6am wake up call. that's civilized.
mom, kiwi, my dh sleeps like FG's baby. not a peep.

Hello - can I join too? My DS is 7mths old and settles himself brilliantly for naps and first sleep of the night. Then, after anything between 4 and 6hrs sleep he wakes for a feed (he's a big lad and I dont mind one or two night feeds), BUT, he then wakes every 2 bloody hrs.

I cope by bringing him into bed with us (yes, I know it is probably that which is making him stir but I have tried putting him back in his cot and it just involves me getting out of bed every 2hrs instead). He does go back to sleep but it means I never get more than 2hrs sleep in one go.

He is easier than my DD who was a bloody nightmare til 18mths, but I just wish he would sleep longer the 2nd half of the night. It feels like everyone I know has babies that sleep for hours on end and it is pissing me off!

Any advice, comfort, alcohol greatfully received!

Oh Kiwi, I hear you. Many many times I have hissed "are you f(*&ing kidding me" at DH in the middle of the night. I sometimes hear DS peep and I lie there frozen, afraid to breathe (yes DS is in another room, but I swear he can hear us!), when DH suddenly decides to THROW off the duvet and thump his way down the hall, past DS's bedroom, and noisily flush the loo. If it's not DH, it's the flipping cats chasing each other from the top of the house to the bottom and screaming outside DS's door.

Hey all. DD not being too bad at the moment (though not brilliant) but I have a new project: Can I get DH to sleep through the night? At least once a night he's up, blundering his way from --his cot-- the bed to the loo, tripping over things, waking up both me AND DD (who is in the other room) and generally being a nuisance. I plan to start CC on him tonight. Yes he'll sob and wail and whinge but it'll be for his own good.

Hi all, Staines, 4.30 is just wrong isn't it? 6.30 bedtimes are working beautifully for us and DS isn't going to bed tired as a result (and he's therefore sleeping until 6am ish) but it all depends on what they've been up during the day I suppose.

I've spent so much time saying "it's just a phase" about his crap sleeping habits and I've just realised that I'm beginning to get used to his new good habits when they too are almost certainly "just a phase"!

I'm going to have to stop posting on this thread aren't I? I feel like a bit of a fraud. I reeeeeally don't want to tempt fate though coz I went back to work today.

Thanks ladies - definitely needed to hear it is just a phase. He was waking for 1 or 2 feeds before I went back to work - but would go straight back to sleep after them - its this 2 hours of being awake after them that is killing me. DS2 was awake again for 2 hours last night but think it was teeth as he didnt want to feed and finally conked out after some nurofen infants and bonjela teething gel being applied. Pesky teeth - why cant babies be born with a set of dentures they can just pop in?

Staines - DS1 was an early waker - I'd go for the 7pm bedtime and your boy should sleep to nearer to 6am.

Hope everyone else had a much better night last night.

Hi Staines! We're having the exact same dilemma here with the early wakes. It got a bit better - 5:10 the last 3 days (!). I might try that "wake to sleep" thing, where you set your alarm and go in an hour before they wake to try to disturb the sleep cycle? Long shot but worth a try.

aargh, i just posted eloquently on everyone's posts and rounded it off with my own update and lost connection. so i am just going to moan on my own behalf now.

have brought ds's bedtime forward from 7 - 7.30 to 6 - 6.30. very successful, he goes down happily, awake, whereas before it was a bit of a struggle, always feeding to sleep etc etc. however, he has consequently brought his waking up time forward for me. 4.30 today. i could cry. he's still tired. rubbing his face, yawning, resting his little body for a couple of minutes. but he will not allow me to persuade him to sleep. i even bf him for an hour between 4.30 and 5.30. that was nice - i now feel like i have frozen shoulder.

so what would you do? persevere with early bedtime or go back to a 6am lie in? i could cope beautifully with 6 - i was happy. at 4.30 i just think about how much i hate everyone in the world, starting with dh asleep in the other room.

P.S. Feral - wish I could only retain that calm attitude at night when DD is awake! Could feel myself wanting to shout at her yesterday evening, when I'd been trying to settle her for nearly 2 hours - just wanted to go to sleep. Instead, I found myself cuddling her and whispering "just put your thumb in and suck yourself to sleep, it works for your brother, it could work for you... just put your thumb in, etc..." - think this is officially sending me mad!

MoM - thanks for your way of viewing it - all babies having their strengths and weaknesses. I really like that. DD's strengths are smiling, babbling and crawling (at 6.5 months, she's off at a speed!). Weaknesses are sleeping (obv!) and taking to solid food (when compared with her brother). Hey, I get good smiles from her, so I can't complain.

Hope you all get the good night's sleep you definitely deserve.

Dinky - sorry you're having it so tough at back at work too . Have to say that once we'd ridden out the 26 week growth spurt I have gotten tough on night feeds too and will only feed her if she's gone at least 4 hours since last feed. Still not getting great sleep, but trying to balance her and DS' bedtime. Have seen some improvement on the whole being awake in middle of night thing, once she realised I wouldn't feed her back to sleep. I am lucky in that I have a bed next to her cot in her room, so I can just lie there while she's busy "Being awake" in the middle of the night and just let her be and then reassure her when she gets upset (was picking her up, but now I'm just reassuring her and only picking her up if she gets really upset). Feral is right - is just a phase and he will adapt, but is pretty tough when you're going through it. If you refuse feeds at night, he will take the milk during the day - he'll have no choice and he won't let himself starve. If he has still been having the odd bf during the night before you went back to work, then I would still do that, but no more frequently than you were. This week, DD has been doing her "I'm wide awake" about 1 hour after she's gone to bed in the evenings, so this evening I changed things round and fed her before DS' bedtime stories and then put her to bed after them and made sure she fell asleep on her own - we shall see how this goes.
On repeat: This is just a phase, it too shall pass...This is just a phase, it too shall pass...This is just a phase, it too shall pass...This is just a phase, it too shall pass...

Oh Staines, congrats on the ttc mission! How exciting. I am desperately doing some calculations to see whether we can afford to have another sooner rather than later. Once I've got my sums right then I'm going to start in on Mr FG. I've made a couple of pointed comments but he doesn't really do subtlety so we'll see how it goes. The XBox versus DC2 thing may well be a problem in our house too...

Dinky, I reckon it's all just a phase. Your DS will get used to you being back at work and soon he'll probably start eating more solids during the day anyway. I stopped feeding DS at night at 9mo - and he's slept through 90% of the nights since - but he was still having a dream feed and one more feed during the night at 7mo. I would just turn off the monitor and put in ear plugs when he started the 3am operatics! Can your DP do some night shifts for you? Sending sympathy and hopes for a reasonable night.

Hello - can I join (was on the 5 month sleep thread but DS2 now 7 months). Never slept through - but used to just wake once or twice a night for a quick bf and back to sleep till 5.30ish when he's ready to start his day. Went back to work 2 weeks ago and since then he's been refusing bottles during the day time and reverse cycling at nights - AND everytime he has a breastfeed being awake for up to 2 hours warbling away at the top of his voice. Am shattered. Can any of you lovely ladies give me hope that this is indeed just a phase and will pass?

well hello there sleep buddies. things are definitely improving here, we've had a few sleeps from 6.30 til 4am, which is a very favourable pattern here in the massif.

unfortunately, this seems to be accompanied by early waking, which i had hoped we'd left behind. culminating in in a wake up call for mummy staines today at 5am. i have bought some teletubbies dvds - they're the only thing he'll stay still for, though he only seems to like the bits with the teletubbies on, why can't they make a video of just them??? the difference between 5am and 6am is crippling tiredness. but you all know that!!

i am coming to the conclusion that they all get there in their own time regardless of what you do - i certainly haven't changed anything from the magical day that he did 10 hours straight.

hi FG, nice to see you - co-sleeping is still lovely, though he goes down in his own cot and comes in with me when he wakes in the middle of the night - i just don't have the strength of character to settle him at that time. and it's too lovely having a baby in bed! in spite of the 5 am wake up call and being bashed in the face as a cheery 'hello'. In answer to your question - dh sleeps in his lair (the spare bedroom)- which suits both of us and i think may well be the secret to a long and happy marriage! we have started 'trying' for our second - i hate trying for stuff, so will just say we've ditched the condoms - and he asked where we put another baby - i think he's worried that he'll lose his boy's bedroom!

hello to everyone else - i have my fingers crossed that we all get the good night we deserve tonight!

Hurrah for your DS, feral! 4:57 here, but he has started having amazing naps all of a sudden! Over an hour in the morning and 1.5 hours in the PM for the last 3 days - and both in his cot. So nice!

Because he always has been a bad napper, he ends up going to bed really early (like 6:00 or 6:15), so on that basis 4:57 is actually quite reasonable. But hoping with the better naps and later bedtime, mornings might start to stabilise a bit?! How can I get my DS to understand that I will accept anything after 5:30...it's not asking that much is it??

Hello all.

Ha MoM, I lose! DS slept until 6 this morning and wasn't up until gone 7 yesterday .

Starshine, I think your attitude is spot on. I reckon that, hard though it is, you've just got to roll with the punches until the DCs sort themselves out. It was 2 steps forward and 1 and 3/4 steps back for us for a very long time. And I'm not convinced that doing anything much makes a difference either. I'm not sure who it was a couple of pages back who said that babies all have their own strengths and weaknesses and it just happens that we all have kids whose weakness is sleeping!

Staines, hi! Lovely to see you dear girl. How are things? How's the co-sleeping? (Still btw). I'm curious, does Mr Staines sleep in with you? I never trusted Mr FG (who's a big lad) in with me and DS. Also could never have tolerated both of them snoring down my ear'ole all night.

RE our intelligent babies; I'm an English teacher and my big big boss at county hall says that non-sleepers are geniuses in the making and she must know what she's talking about!

PS hi Alysonpeaches and gentleotter, hope you had better nights last night?

evening all. just bookmarking

Thank you Starshinetiger.

We are going to try him in a proper single bed tonight (in our room as the spare bedroom is very unsafe for a toddler) and one of us will lie with him for his stories.

Other things I have tried today are chamomile tea and a run around the fields - he played outside for several hours but does not seem at all tired!

He does not seem in pain/ hungry etc, he just does not sleep. It is quiet here so no cars or streetlights to disturb him.

Fingers crossed it is a better night.....

GentleOtter - didn't want your post to go unanswered and maybe this will bump it. Don't have experience of this myself, so these are maybe suggestions you've already tried - our DS went into a bed at 2. Has a bedguard on it (just one from Mothercare) - is that a solution? If so - could he sleep in spare bed from now on?

Baby whisperer suggests if baby does not like cot/bed to lie down in it with them - to start with you lie down and stay there with them and then do gradual retreat?

Am sure someone will come along soon with some more constructive advice. You may also be able to bring his bedtime forward gradually - maybe 10 mins per week? A lot of books say the earlier to bed the better they sleep - could you sacrifice a couple of weeks of going to bed when he does to try to encourage earlier sleeping and get him used to his own room?

Is he teething - DS was really unsettled at about 2.4 and we realised his back pre-molars were coming through.

Hope someone with experience comes along.

Please can someone help?

Ds (2) refuses to settle in his cot and for the last few months ends up in the middle of our bed.
Last night was one of the worst as he was in and out of his cot like a yoyo and wailing the second he was put in to it.
Dh ended up sleeping in the spare room and I have been up since before dawn, ds had our bed all to himself.

This cannot go on. How can we get him to settle?
He rarely has naps during the day and does not fall asleep until around 10pm, sometimes later.

He is outside running about almost every day and eats well - we feel like zombies today, dh & I. Sorry if this is all waffley but I can barely talk and have to work in a little while.

How can we help him to sleep all night?

Feral and MoM thanks for the reassurances/advice from your end of things (i.e. a few months ahead) - sorry for the early waking! I have just resigned myself to the fact that nothing I do will help and for now just to try to pick up on her cues for naps and bedtime. She is consistent on her morning nap and we are now going to work on afternoon nap, so that she doesn't sleep later than 3.30pm, but does have a good nap, otherwise she's tired at 5pm before tea and then won't go down in the evening. Nothing is preventing the night waking, but if I can just try to assure she isn't just wide awake in the middle of the night for 2 hours for no good reason... - pipe dreams anyone

AP - my Mum says that about the intelligence thing too!

New joy is that DS (3) has just started getting into bed with DH in the mornings at about 6.15 (by this time I'm normally in with DD having fed her back to sleep at some early hour!) - he normally sleeps 'til 7. Thing is, he's still tired, so he needs the sleep and he will snuggle into DH and doze off, but we're going to nip this in the bud, as when I am back in our bed for a full night, there isn't room for him! He may only be 3, but he's already got his father's habit down to a tee - lying diagonally across a big double bed! Don't mind him coming in for a cuddle, but when he just still wants to sleep.... the time will just keep creeping earlier.

Ah well, enough waffle. Hoping some of you out there got some sleep last night.

My MIL sympathised because my DH didnt sleep. ~She always said that when the other mothers used to say our so and so sleeps for 12 or 14 hours she used to think well, bless him, thats because he's not very bright, ours are too intelligent to waste time asleep.

If it got her through it, fair enough.

I think I need to join you lot. I cant remember my last good nights sleep. I have 4, the youngest is one this week, I have also a 2year old a 3 1/2 and a 6 1/2 year old. Eldest has special needs (autism/adhd).

At least one child wakes every night. Usually 2. Not always the same 2!!

Nothing we have done has made any difference so we have adjusted our lives to suit. As they get older things do improve, school and nursery tire them out. But there are no guarantees and sometimes in an evening the 6 year old just wont settle to sleep and feels lively at 11pm.

The way we cope is we have a childminder, paid for by tax credits, and when they go to her I catch up with my sleep. Sometimes DH has a day off in the week instead of the weekend, when its his day off, I have an afternoon nap. That way Im not so grouchy. Sometimes DH has to get up at 6am with the baby, when this happens he gets her toys out, makes sure there are no hazards in livingroom (mostly babyproof) takes her downstairs, lies on the carpet, she crawls all over him, he often dozes off, then she sometimes curls up beside him and sneaks another hour.

They all sleep in their own beds/cots, if they come into us, no matter how tired we are we make the effort to take them back (provided we notice of course!). Sometimes we think we have found something that helps, eg new grobag, extra milk feed, dreamfeed, carbohydrates at bedtime ... then our illusion is shattered after a few nights success. There isnt an answer, the only sure thing is that they will grow out of it, but they may be, 2 or 5 or 10 or even 17!!!

4:09.

This is NOT a competition that I'm interested in winning!

Two theories: A. overtired at bedtime (in my DSs case I think this) or B. too much daytime sleep (definitely not my DS's problem).

Who's kidding who. None of my theories ever pan out.

4.30 this morning.

My DS is a bouncing, happy, BIG baby boy at 6 months, who NEVER cries during the day, and turns into a completely different child at night! Crying loudly two or three times a night. Most of the time it's not hunger, unless it's 4am-ish. I gave up bf at 6 months cos I just couldn't take the lack of sleep anymore and thought it might help. It has made bugger all difference! The worst part was when my MIL said "so and so's twins are sleeping through from 11pm til 7am" as if to suggest that I must be doing something wrong!

My only advice is to go to bed at 8pm, get partner to do as many dreamfeeds as possible and to take one day at at time.

Love to all you other sleep-deprived tearful Mums out there!
x

My story is: dd1 slept thro from 5 months. DD2 was fab from birth (sleeping 6 hrs in the maternity home when 3 days old!)carried on the 6 hrs.......but unfortunately never progressed. So when everyone else's 6 month old was sleeping thro she was STILL stuck on 6 hrs! We had screaming tantrums for hours on end if i didn't give her milk or take her out of the cot - and with dd1 at school I couldn't leave her to scream. I did absolutely nothing different with one baby to the other - worked same amount of days, had same routines, same childminder, she was just a totally annoyingly willful baby.
Things I blamed: teething, colds, noise from dd1, noise from dh, flushing the toilet, dogs barking outside, motorbikes, noisy people coming home from pub, not eating enough in the day, eating too much in the day, not having long enough daytime nap, having too long daytime nap.....etc, etc.
Books I read: baby whisperer, gina ford, no cry sleep solution, toddler taming.
For two years and two months she had NEVER slept through the night! The nearest we got was 8pm to 4am which she did three times.
Six weeks ago, aged 28 months, she slept through from 7.30 till 7 for 3 nights. On the 4th night she woke up and asked for milk. I re settled her and she went back to sleep. Ever since that night she has slept 7.30 tilL 7......SOMETIMES I HAVE TO GO AND WAKE HER AT 7.45AM!!!!
Know this is a ridiculously long post but the fact is: I have done nothing different with either child, I tried all the advice / books going in the past. It just happened.
And although I have, without doubt, had the hardest 2 years of my life it's over now. Thank God. And I totally feel for anyone going through the same from the bottom of my heart but one day it really will get better. x

Bah and pish. DS has got another cold and woke up at 4.45 this morning

AIBU to be a bit pissed off that BFing is supposed to increase their immunity and yet he's now having his 8th cold?!

wow, kiwi, how old is she again? Have you done anything different?

Last night we were back to 3 wakings and after the third I ended up sleeping on the sofa in his room for 2.5 hours just to get some kip. It's not the most comfortable sleeping place...oh well, once he is walking I going to make him walk all day long and maybe that will tire him out.

[tiptoes quiet as a mouse onto thread, checks DD isn't listening...]

Two of the last three nights she's slept from 7pm - 6am. She woke up at 6am just now, fed her, and she went back to sleep...

[tiptoes away again knowing she'll be back moaning again soon]

Hi star, we were doing the 5, 10, 15 min check and reassure, pat on the back, but not taking him out of the cot. Except I went more slowly than they said, so the first night I went in every 5 minutes. It seems to be working in that he now settles again for the night on his own and sleeps until around 3am, rather than being uo every hour, which is sheer bliss. I've given up on the night waking because he started teething and I refuse to do it then. I also stupidly started feeding him in the night because he finds it really hard to settle when teething. mom has given me the inspiration to stop it again but we're off for to centerparcs next week so I'll wait until we are back. One wake up is more than manageable until then anyway.

chulita hope you're in the new house and everything settles down soon.

Starshine - Don't tell yourself that if you had done the Baby Whisperer routine from Day 1 you would be anywhere different. I have read every book on sleep out there, had the luxury of dedicating my life to making him sleep (first DC and 12 months mat leave!) and we still have had a long and bumpy road! I think some babies figure sleep out easily and others need more help and time. I religiously made sure he didn't feed to sleep at naps and bedtime and he still ended up addicted to the boob for middle of the night wakings. I walk him in the buggy every afternoon to make sure he gets a second nap, and it is still often only 30 mins.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses, right?? My DS strengths = eating, smiling, babbling, standing. My DS weaknesses = sleeping, rolling, crawling.

Thanks MoM - if it's of any reassurance, DS was an early riser once he started sleeping through, but given that he was then doing 10.5-11 hours a night, it was bliss after the wakings! IIRC he started sleeping 11-11.5 hours a night from about 9 months I think - I was back at work then, so he was with a childminder and I think the days wore him out - plus I was up at 6.15 to get him and me ready, so couldn't really complain at him getting up then too! At the moment, DH and I laugh at the fact that we bemoaned 5.30/6am starts - would gladly trade off there for a sleep through the night!

When he was 2.5 we bought a bunny clock, which allowed us to move his getting up time forward from 5.45am/6am to 7am, slowly over a couple of weeks - he needed it, as he dropped his lunchtime nap the day before DD was born and he goes to bed by 7.20/7.30pm, so needed a decent night's sleep. At least I have a goal that by the time DD is 2.5/3 we hope to have both sleeping 12 hours a night and getting up around 7ish - ah bliss!!! (Hopefully the sleeping through the night will be solved long before then )

Thanks Feral - that's really reassuring. Am thinking I may only bf until she's 9 months old anyway, as I am pretty sure she's dairy intolerant as her sickness and squitty nappies stopped when I stopped taking dairy, so what with all the foods I couldn't eat when pregnant due to sickness and heartburn and then all the things I can't eat now while bfing, think I will cut myself a break and stop bfing when she's 9 months old and just in time for Christmas - probably sounds selfish to some, but each to their own. Am sorry to hear you've had it so tough. I would add that each baby is different and with DS I got so caught up with the books, which told me I should never feed to sleep and teach him to feed to sleep on his own that I was really going by then when he was only 8 weeks old. I was so convinced that this contributed to my lack of success with bfing - he was really (I mean REALLY) skinny that this time I swore off the books. It probably had a lot to do with his severe reflux now. He was however going down to sleep by 7pm every night from 3 months old and although he woke regularly until 5 months old, he then started going longer and was sleeping through by 6 months old and has been a pretty good sleeper since, so I haven't got that to contend with. My DH works shifts, so he's often on a late and therefore around in the evening, so if I've had a particularly bad night, I can sometimes go back to bed when DD goes for her nap (my payout for being the only one to get up to her in the night).
Have to say if I had another, I would probably pay far more attention to the Baby Whisperer book from day 1 - get into bedtime routine from day 1 and going for naps without feeding to sleep from day 1, but would not necessarily go with their frequency of feeding, as in my experience, babies of 1 or 2 months need feeding more regularly than they suggest if they are bf (but I only have my own babies to go on).

Anyway, we are where we are - I do feel a bit stupid being on this board when I've got 2 - you'd think I'd know what I was doing - but all babies are different

Have slept in DD's room last two nights from about 2nd waking onwards. Last night was an improvement, as she went down (after Calpol - she is really struggling with teething) at 7.45. Woke at 9.30 (but as I hadn't fed since 6.30pm, I fed her then). Then apparently, she woke at 11pm and I went in and settled her really quickly - I don't actually remember doing that . Woke again at 1.15 - so I changed and fed her then am pretty sure she went through to 5am, but may have disturbed for a quick reassure ca. 3ish - am so confused by looking at my clock at night then up at 6.15ish. She has napped horridly this afternoon, so was in bed by 6.10pm, so let's see what happens. think Holby City and ironing is calling me....

Am so glad to hear it is improving for you Feral - We're doing a combination of BLW and purees here, but DD prefers finger food, so that's good, am just adding a bit of purees while she gets used to finger foods, as she's really hungry! Also, is slow going as am being cautious with all allergenic foods as we have lots of intolerances/allergies in our family.

Right - wishing all a good night's sleep!

Hi Starshine! Yes, hold out hope. My DS was 9 months on 16th September and he has slept through 90% of the nights since I stopped feeding him at night just before he was 8 months. I did lots of stuff from the No Cry Sleep Solution to reduce night feeding in the months leading up and then finally did cold turkey on night feeding once I felt he was eating lots of other food (BLW as well). Just sent DH in to do the settling for 3 nights.

We've had some bad nights in the past couple of weeks as DS had a cold and just found out today also an ear infection/fever () but even a bad night is a couple of wake ups in the evening and 1 or 2 after my bedtime (and early wakings, yes....but he goes to sleep by 6:30, so wake ups in the 5:00s are pretty inevitable).

I don't plan on leaving this thread anytime soon as between illness/teething/early starts there is still a lot of room for improvement!

Starshine, feralbaby is coming up for 10 months and has been regularly sleeping through (if you don't count the early waking) since I stopped feeding him at night 3 weeks ago (pretty much on his 9 month birthday).

He was HELL before that though and at six months - like your DD - was only just beginning to improve on the thorough crapness that had gone before. I think those of us whose DCs are a similar age have seen a very similar (and painfully slow) improvement, no matter what we've done.

For me what made a big difference was moving DS out of my room when he was about 7 months because we used to wake each other up all the time. Also doing a bit of controlled grizzling to get him down to one feed a night helped. Right up until this he would religiously wake 3 times to feed - sometimes more - often waking just to have a play for an hour or so

I definitely wouldn't have done the CC before 7 months (we had to have regular breaks for teeth) and I wouldn't have stopped the night feeds until 9 months becasue we're BLWing and I was never really sure how much solid food he'd eaten.

It's been bloody hard going and my sympathies are really with you, especially since you've got 2 DCs which must make catching your breath during the day nigh on impossible. I honestly don't know how you manage. I really want another DC but I am absolutely petrified that it will be as crap at sleeping (or worse !!) than DS has been and I don't know how I'd cope with a toddler and the exhaustion from no sleep.

It will get better though. If you had the time and the energy you could scroll back through the desperation that was us on the 4-5 month sleep thread and you'd see that we are much more normal now than we were just a few months ago!

Glad to hear some are making progress with sleeping and thanks for all the welcome and encouragement. Feral - sounds like a great night last night. Baby Whisperer does say, early to bed does mean a better night. Do you mind if I ask - how old is your DS, how bad was the sleeping and what have you done to improve it?

Well, DD had rubbish nap this afternoon and is sooo tired, she's in bed already, but was so tired by feed time she almost fell asleep feeding and didn't have a great feed, so I don't hold out great hope for tonight, we will see....

Just DS to get into bed and then I can relax for a bit (I hope I haven't jinxed that now).

for you Chulita, hope DD is better tonight and settles in nicely for you once you've moved. And congrats on your new house btw!

MoM, weird isn't it? The parallel lives that we lead! I convinced myself that DS had mimicked me saying hello the other day. And that mamamama means me and not the cat, a toy, his dinner, the washing machine etc. Today's babble is dadadada which DH was v excited about until he realised that DS was doing it to everything in sight

Re the early waking, I followed some advice I read on here and put DS to bed at 6.30 last night and he slept through until 6ish this morning which is a huuuge improvement. I'm going to try it for a week and see if it was just a fluke. It means making sure he's up from his afternoon nap by 3.30 though which is a pita.

Hello!! Sorry I've disappeared, we're moving house and it's an absolute nightmare. Last night DD slept from 10pm til 7am...aaaaahhhh!!! Amazing but...that was the last night in our house. Now I'm sat on the hotel bed with her in the travel cot grinning at me. We're not getting any sleep tonight and we've got another night in a hotel tomorrow before settling her into our next house. [sigh] what a waste of a night's sleep. DD has been waking at midnight since we got back from the holiday and one night of sleep and we're back to the nightmare...
How cute MoM!! I love it when DD says 'hello' it's sooooo sweet

Argh, Feral. Why are our DSs in cahoots? 4:45 the last 3 days. He will faff around in his cot for a bit, but by 5:15 he is definitely ready to come out. But I try to remind myself that I'm not complaining if he mostly sleeps through until the 5s - except last night he was up 3 times before my bedtime and then again at 1 am...hmmmm. Still miles better than he used to be though!

Teeth are a major misery here. The top ones have taken ages to actually cut through, and I think there must be other ones on the move somewhere because he has flaming red cheeks, dribbly, more fussy than usual during the day, etc.

But I swear today he has started saying "hi" everytime he sees a picture of a human in any of our books. Is it possible or am I just an overexcited first time mum?!

Staines - It sounds like you are doing fine. No need to DO anything as long as you're chugging along. Co-sleeping has never worked for us, since DS was about 3 weeks old (he gets too excited and keeps playing), but it sounds lovely!

It's getting darker in the mornings these days so why are the DCs waking earlier??

Blee to early morning waking. 4.50am this morning

But about the fact that DH said yesterday he'd give me a lie in this morning. Bet he was kicking himself when DS woke up. Ha ha ha.

Staines, if the idea of CC is a stress, just don't do it! You couldn't do it now when baby staines is teething anyway and co-sleeping is just soooo lovely; I am very of you that you can do it successfully. I tried to have DS in with me for a nap this morning and he just thought it was the most exciting thing in the world. Mummy's bed is clearly not for sleeping in any more so I guess our days of co-sleeping are over now

I really miss it. I wish that I could have the combined loveliness of sleeping through and co-sleeping but I'm pretty sure that DS would never have done the two together. Maybe when he's bigger. The NCSS suggests putting them in their own bed until sleeping through is secured and then having them back in with you if you really want to co-sleep (which I do). Although I am just getting used to having DH back in with me. Maybe we'll just have to get a king size bed

peculiar step back tonight - ds has refused solid food most of the day - i am (again) putting it down to teeth.

Priyag - i do appreciate you are trying to help, but must confess I found your advice a little simplistic - I'm fairly sure that most of us having reached 6 months of interrupted sleep have already considered the benefits of getting solids in and naps in place, but for various reasons we are all finding it isn't as straightforward as we hope.

Well that's me, anyway. Every day i add up how much food has gone in and total the amount of naps plus activity spent and promise myself that tonight will be the night where we've got everything right and I will be rewarded.....and end up feeding at 12 and 4 at a minimum. and getting up at 6. on a good day!!

i know what i need to do - stop giving ds the boob every time he murmurs and stop co - sleeping eventually. i 100% empathise with starshine when she says "Every day I go through the... I should give up Bfing and go to FF, I should have done Gina Ford, should never have let DD feed to sleep.... am exhausting myself with all the regrets let alone the lack of sleep. Just really want to be able to enjoy DD and these early months..." - this is exactly how i feel, though i've pretty much come to terms with the lack of sleep, it doesn't bother me nearly so much any more, but i am spoiling my own enjoyment of this time by stressing over whether or not I should do cc. at the end of the day, it's my choice, and pointless to worry about it! just thinking out loud here really, which is where this thread helps so much!

starshine, while I agree with Priyag that solids helps, I'm with Kiwi here too. At 6 months, DS still needed milk at least once during the night. Now he's 9 months he has suddenly started properly eating 3 meals a day.

I don't think it's any coincidence that he's also started sleeping through at the same time as eating more. He's always been a brilliant napper which has saved my sanity.

Kiwi, glad to hear you're better and good luck in your contest.

We shall overcome,we shall overcoooome...

starshine BabyPanda was very similar at 6 months, despite a recent regression she HAS got better so chin up! priyag if it's not rude, I'm not sure that solids are really all that much of an answer, especially at 6 months when most babies are only just starting them. My DD eats like a (small, cute) pig and still demands feeds at night, because she wants the comfort rather than the food. Oh but I realise now you may be saying that if they eat enough in the day you may have confidence that they don't NEED to feed at night? Ah ignore me, I'm too knackered to think logically!

After the mastitis (thanks for all the get well wishes, better now at last!) and terrible nights we've bitten the bullet and gone for some CC. Last night DD woke at exactly the times she'd been feeding previously (so I'm sure it's habit not hunger) and went back to sleep after 35 mins the first time, about 25-30 the second (which DH managed to sleep through !!). Then slept in her cot for morning nap for the first time in about 3 weeks! For 1 hour 25! more . Night two tonight... fingers crossed it's not worse. I WILL be strong I WILL be strong (repeat to fade).

I feel I am having a contest of wills with a 9 month old. I cannot be beaten by someone so small.

evening all. ok, i think we need to set up a new thread for the successful nights, cause i feel sucky posting on here when things go well, but i want my sleep deprived buddies to know when they do....it's a paradox.

kiwi - sorry about the mastitis, i had a bout a few weeks ago - scary how quickly it develops, though it did have the benefit of forcing me to stay in bed and i actually caught up on sleep!!

i'm not going to say anything about last night.

Hi Starshinetiger,

How much solids is your baby taking during the day, and how much is she napping ? If you can work on getting these two things right, then it will be easier to sort out any sleep associations.

Hi All, Can I join you? The OP of this post just about sums me up - DD was 6 months on Tuesday and has never slept through the night. DS was 3 last week and is a reasonably good sleeper, although think he is being disturbed by DD as he keeps calling out in night - he was sleeping through the night by 6 months though.

Am really getting desperate for some solution, so eager to follow how you all get on. Last month I really got desperate as DD started a new torture, whereby instead of waking for food, she also started waking in small hours just to be awake - oh joy!! So, having tried NCSS, 10 days ago we started Baby Whisperer PU/PD technique. 1st night, it took 1.5 hours and then she slept for another 6, meaning she went 7.5 hours between feeds - we, of course didn't!! I was up an hour before she did, checking she was still breathing and couldn't get back to sleep again. Has been a bit hit and miss since then. I can pretty much get her down for a morning nap of about 1.5 hours without feeding - that this coincides with DS having started nursery is absolute bliss!! Am trying to refuse to feed her if she's been asleep for less than 4 hours at night, but I'm so tired, it is hard.... Last night was horrendous. She fed every 2 hours and from 2am I was in with her and then from 4am she was awake (practising her newly learnt skill of clapping ) for 2 hours then back to sleep for an hour and woken by a huuuuuge poo!

Tonight I need nerves of steel, as she does seem to do better if she feeds less often, I just think she's not too good at putting herself back to sleep.

Read your post with interest MOM - I normally just stick the nightlight on in her room when I go in there at night, so I can see what I am doing, but this morning at 6am I eventually switched it off as thought I would have enough daylight creeping through to see - was still pretty dark and she went straight off, so think I will try without the light tonight. Wish me luck...

Staines and Row78 - DD is the same - if hubby goes in, she just screams and screams - she just wants me, which is lovely, but rather wearing. When I was at my Mum's last month DD was awake for 1.5 hours in middle of night, Mum was up getting a lemsip and tried to help me out - lots of suggestions like, just put her in her cot and shut the door (just not my thing at all), then offered to take her, at which point DD screamed blue murder a la DH and Mum said - ooh, she's having a right paddy. Too true, but what do I do about it?

Every day I go through the... I should give up Bfing and go to FF, I should have done Gina Ford, should never have let DD feed to sleep.... am exhausting myself with all the regrets let alone the lack of sleep. Just really want to be able to enjoy DD and these early months...

Sorry for me, me, me post, but is reassuring to hear others in the same place.

Row - what sleep training technique are you using? do you pick up, or just reassure, or something else?

Thanks Ladies.

Hi all,

My lack of posting here is not because I have a sleeping baby, but because I was just too bloody tired and bored of lack of sleep to even talk about it anymore. Reluctantly we have also started sleep training, this is after weeks of being cried at all day, whilst a tired baby rubs his eyes, yawns, refuses food. but overall absolutely refuses to sleep day or night.

So I decided to do it just with the going to sleep for the night part. First night it took half an hour which I was amazed at, but he was terribly knackered. He slept until 2:30am which was amazing and I thought if it only took half an hour last time i may as well go for it in the night as well. 2 hours later I was regretting that decision and wanted some sleep! (To be honest he was only grizzling but he just wouldn't actually sleep). Second night it took an hour of crying and that was really hard, but then he slept through. Third night 40 mins, and he woke up once in the night, but I refused to feed him and he went back off easily. The next night - 7 mins and a sleep through. Last two nights it has been under 5 minutes but he has a tooth coming through so has been up at 3am one night and 4am another, but because I'm not sure if he is in pain I have been picking him up and feeding eventually. So at the moment one wake up isn't that bad, even if it takes me an hour to get him back into his cot, and at least I have reclaimed some time in the evening to relax/eat/have a bath which really helps to give me more energy in the night.

I really feel bad about the sleep training but I was starting to not cope and I had no energy to play with my son, and it was really affecting him with the lack of sleep.

staines it was the same here - when he woke in the evening if the hubby went up he would scream blue murder, he wanted me and the boob, even though he wasn't even really feeding. As he was up so much in the evening I was starting to wonder if I was ever to go out evening time ever again...

mom N's TB jab didn't affect him nearly as much as his other jabs, it was definately a lot milder, fingers crossed!

kiwi - you poor thing, can the doc give you anything for the mastitis?

Kiwi, sending you virtual cake and fine wine. Will that help? How do they know when we're feeling like crap and why do they choose then to be awkward?

Don't listen to this Kiwi but DS slept through again last night. I am beginning to allow a very small chink of optimism to creep in...

Hey all. Things a bit grim here, DD all over the place waking 3 or more tmes again, won't nap in cot and I have mastitis. Sob.

DS slept through again last night! I wish he'd just make up his mind instead of toying with me like this!

Staines, it took me a long time to gird my loins re sleep training but I just knew the time was right and that DS was ready and able. It wasn't nearly as hard on me or him as I thought it would be. He seems to have no will power at all and when I've been confident that he's otherwise OK and CCd he's only ever grizzled for 20 mins max.

I've kind of done it in two stages too, one to get him down to one feed a night and then a break of two months for teeth then stopped night feeds a fortnight ago. I haven't CCd with the night feeds though coz I think that would have been a bit unfair. I did pretty much what Mumormom posted a few days ago.

That said, not all babies are the same; Chulita's always said that her DD is pretty determined and I was talking to a friend today who said that it just doesn't work on her DS (who is the same age as ours and has just started waking 8-9 times a night but also that my baby isn't the worst sleeper I know anymore!)

it's two steps forward and one step back isn't it....or sometimes two forward, two back, or three forward, four back....you get the picture.

am back to contemplating sleep training. it's just not me, but i'm starting to come round to the idea that he may need it. last night he woke at 9 to cry for an hour - he just wants me, or my boob to be precise - to send him back to sleep. and that's not convenient for anyone. i only have two boobs and they have to come everywhere with me. going home to my mum's this weekend though, so no way am i going to inflict any unnecessary crying on her. maybe i'll screw up all my courage and do it next weekend. or maybe he'll just start magically sleeping 12 hours straight between now and then!!!! ahahaha. no doubt i'll keep you posted though.

We've had a shocker too. DS is sick (fever and snotty) and everything is haywire. Two nights ago, REFUSED to go in his cot. Awake every hour or worse. Took turns having him sleep on us all night. Back to newborn hell! Last night was better - we took the side off his cot and I slept on his floor all night beside him. Seemed to help.

Getting his TB shot tomorrow. That should help with sleep?!

Balls. Last night was back to normal; awake screaming inconsolably for an hour and a half from 4am. I knew it was too good to be true...

ooh, well done fg!! so it does happen! you definitely deserve it. big kisses to all of you XXXX

Woohoo!! well done baby fg !! Now delete that post quick before he sees it

Er, I would just like to, very quietly, say that DS slept from 7.30pm until 6.30am last night.

Oh Chulita, that all sounds just miserable. I am so sorry.

This is why I refuse to go on holiday with DS. I figure you're under so much pressure to have fun on holiday - you're paying a lot of money for it after all - and it's impossible to enjoy yourself when you're knackered so I just don't want to risk it. We took DS to a wedding for a weekend about a month ago. We were away for 2 nights and it was sheer hell so I've decided we're not doing bloody anything until he's less crap.

And hi Elsy, welcome. The colic sounds horrendous, DS was like that when he was weeny but thank christ he's grown out of it. Is there anything you can do or do you just have to live with it? Do solids make a difference? I took DS to an osteopath coz he was a really sicky baby and it kind of worked I think.

Just a wee update on our situation. It's been nearly 2 weeks since I stopped feeding DS at night and has it made a difference? Not really. He still wakes up and howls for an hour in the middle of the night; he's not hungry, I pick him up and he goes back to sleep, I put him down and he howls, repeat to fade.

It's teeth, I know it's teeth, but seriously how bad can it be? I've got a recurrent and very painful infection in the gum around one of my pointless rubbish wisdom teeth but I don't keep the whole bleedin' neighbourhood awake screaming do I?

welcome elsy, and sorry you're having a rubbish time with your dd. lack of sleep is absolutely the worst torture at a time that you should be happiest. things really improved for me when i went back to work. though ds still doesn't sleep through - see recent jubilant postings re sleep 7 til 3.45 - that little run's over, btw - the break from all that responsibility has given me a new lease of life. i'm not suggesting you go back to work btw!! but i am astounded to find that i suddenly feel so positive and am still having broken sleep.

the worst time for me was our holiday funnily enough, so full sympathy for you there, chulita. i can't see the point in leaving the comfort of my home if i don't have 100% guarantee that i'm going to sleep a minimum of 6 hours in a row. i've pretty much resolved that holidays will be taken at home for the next ten years.

Hello Elsy, welcome to the group. I know what you mean about resenting their babyhood - people say DD is so jolly and cheerful and she is a very happy little girl but it comes at a price. DH and I while away the wee hours discussing whether we'd rather have a happy sleepless baby or a grumpy baby that sleeps through...we're still undecided.
The holiday was rubbish. We would have enjoyed it had we not gone with DD. We were all in the same room and she decided that she wouldn't sleep for longer than 90 mins at a time. She just started crawling and when she wakes up her instinct is to sit up. Once she's sitting up she wakes up properly and then it takes her ages to go back to sleep. She's also cutting 2 teeth at the bottom and 2 at the top but they've been visible white lumps under her gums for about 4 weeks and they've still not come through so goodness only knows how long they'll be. So we got no sleep and then of course all outings were timed by her naps because she doesn't sleep in the car/buggy/carrier. We had one meal out at lunch but she started fussing and we were both fraught by the time we left cos you don't want your child to be the one disturbing everyone else. The evenings were spent tiptoeing around the flat trying not to wake her and then crawling into bed as quietly as possible. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish...we may as well have gone camping - would've been cheaper and we've have got just as much sleep.
So...I'm trying kiwipanda 's idea now of giving one boob at a time at night and I'm going to only feed her once. She deffo doesn't need 3 feeds a night but I don't want to go cold turkey cos I don't think that's fair on her. We'll see how it all goes.
I'm off downstairs to find a glass and I'll drink to a goodnight for all of us

Also, things complicated here at the moment as she's had a dreadful cough for about 10 days that's been stopping her settling back to sleep, as well as (I'm pretty sure) teeth coming in.

Hope you don't mind me joining ladies.

DD2 has been a dreadful sleeper since birth. She's 6 months now and has had evening colic (screaming for 2 hours) since birth too. Thought we were out of the woods when the evening crying stopped for a couple of weeks, but it's returned with a vengeance along with much more frequent night waking. I'm bottle-feeding in the day and breast feeding at night but will have to stop soon as I need someone to do night duty for a while before I go crazy.

Also, DD2 has nasty habit of not going back to sleep after a feed in the night. She frequently wakes at 4.30, won't go back to sleep until 6.30, when her sister wakes up.

Have to say that the lack of sleep and the crying are really getting to me now and I feel very resentful that I haven't enjoyed any of DD2's babyhood because of exhaustion and stress and just want to fast-forward to when she is two and (please god) sleeping 12 hours at night.

Don't worry ladies, no envy warranted over here. DS is taking ages to cut his top two teeth and now also seems to have a cold, so sleep not so good these days. The only good news is that it isn't boob he wants, and DH is as capable of providing nighttime cuddles as I am!

Well Chulita I cursed myself by posting anyway, dreadful night last pm, I thnk BabyPanda is teething though I can never tell really as she whacks me if I attempt to look in her mouth. But she's been in a right grump today too. Ugh. Hope tonight is better for you, Chulita, and us too!

Hello! Clocking in to get back on the thread before going to bed. Got back from the holiday from hell sleep-wise today and as a parting shot DD woke us up at 0030 this morning and we've not slept since then sooooo I gave up reading all the happy sleeping patterns cos I'm just too tired and grumpy to be pleased for you all [grumpy cow emoticon]

Fg Poor you, hope the teeth, cold and tummy are better soon...

fufulina am x 1000... though DD is actually being really good at the mo and I think 2 of the last 3 nights has gone solidly from 8 - 6am, though one night she woke up and wailed at about 2. So she's going 10 hours without feeding, then has feed and goes back to sleep. That seems pretty good really (especially when I look back a few months) but I do flirt with the idea of trying to push her on a few hours. Would that be silly and pointless given she is now sleeping well (mostly) ? If she'd done the dreamfeed thing I guess she's be going through but she's never done that and if I tried I think she'd probably just wake at 6 anyway, I think it's become a habit for her.

Incidentally I say 6 but at home it's usually between 4 and 5 - we're in Germany for a month so she's on German time IYSWIM! Hence me not wanting to get up at that time, especially in winter

Gah. DS has a cold and teeth and I have a stomach bug. It's all rubbish. I was just beginning to get used to decent longish stretches of kip too.

MoM, I've been on the early wakers thread. It seems to be the pay off for not waking in the night. I really need to organise myself to go to bed earlier so that the 5am starts are less of a killer.

Hello all - popping back in again to give you all a baby fufulina update. Last time I wrote she had dropped to one night feed and was getting up about 6. So at the weekend (after a week of only one boob at the last remaining night feed) we went cold turkey on the feed.

First night was quite hard - she was awake for 2 hours from 1. In hindsight, DH and I were both quite wired about not feeding her so stayed in her room with her - which we wouldn't have normally done on a reassurance wake up. I think that confused her. Anyway - she went back to sleep and then slept until 6.

Second night she was awake at 1 and I needed to bob in and out about 10 times for an hour while she grumbled.

Third night she went from 6 until 6. Not a peep. And she's done that for the last 3 nights.

It's weird - it's supposedly the holy grail but I feel all emotional! I think it's the not feeding in the night has sent my hormones crashing or something - and after 8 and a half months, it's odd not seeing her at all in the night. And I feel like I didn't make the last night feed with enough ceremony! But - I finally felt she really didn't need the night feed (we're BLW, so wasn't totally convinced before this) - and it seems she was ready. Now I've written it down, it will probably go haywire again. But there you go.

So - to drop both night feeds I went down to one boob first for a week or so (first the 3ish feed, then the 11ish feed) and then just shushed when she woke. To be honest - I wasn't expecting it. Although I knew I'd not feed her - I thought she might just need a shush or something. I think it's unreasonable to expect a baby to not need you at all for 12 hours - but seemingly she doesn't!

Anyhoo - that's where we are now (and how long will it last...??).

This thread has been a life-saver when I'm convinced my DD is the only baby in the world not to be sleeping through - so thanks all. (She says - what's the betting I'm back here next week...??).

Feral - Meant to say that we ignored the white noise bit too. NEED it. We no longer have an IPOD for ourselves, it is dedicated to purely white noise for DS. It is all about covering up household sounds for us too. Our floorboards are so creaky it is a joke. In fact, now that I think about it, we have double white noise. On the IPOD and we have one of those womb noise sleepy bear thingies that is voice/motion activated.

Staines - I noticed the same thing re: the people from the beginning of the thread being gone. Then I found them all again on a newer thread about early risers! Seems that could be the next challenge. But I still feel like getting up at 4 or 5 is still preferable to have broken sleep (or no sleep) all night. At least you can go to bed at 10 and get 6 or 7 hours in a row, and how could anyone wish for more luxury than that?! Clearly my standards have become very low.

MoM, that's pretty much exactly what I've done! And DS has followed almost exactly the same pattern (give or take a few teethy moans). I don't tap him though, just stroke his back or put a hand on his head to reassure him.

We do use white noise religiously however, and I'm not going to stop. Our house is v noisy; polished creaky floorboards and no carpets and also inbetween two building sites so I need white noise if I want to sleep during the day and us creaking around would wake DS in the evenings without it too.

Last night was an exception to his good week though; awake grizzling about his gums every two hours. Had to drug him back to sleep with calpol and calprofen and gave in and BFd at 4.30 coz I felt sorry for him coz he was so miserable On the plus side, looks like he's cutting 3 teeth at once so hopefully we might get a bit of a break after. He's very nearly got 7 whole teeth, how exciting!

Hello friends! We've been away for ages in Canada. In fact I think I posted near the beginning of the trip moaning about how hideous it was. Things got much better, but not before they got worse.

Sleep went absolutely haywire and we were staying with people the whole time so were desperate. He was waking the whole night, staying up for 1.5 hours in the middle of the night, wouldn't even be boobed back to sleep, etc. Disaster. Action was required.

We had been working on slowly reducing night feeds for a while, which didn't really work because he would go to one feed at 3 or 4 for a few days and then start waking at 12:00, 12:30, again. So I decided to try a bottle of EBM for a few nights for the overnight feed. When he woke at 1:00 the first night, tried the bottle...nothing. Wouldn't drink a drop. Wouldn't go back to sleep. Eventually boobed him back after over an hour awake. Then he woke at 4:00, tried the bottle...nothing. Went back to sleep. Next couple of nights, same thing...would not take bottle (he is not a bottle refusing baby...happily glugs from a bottle any other time of day). This gave me enough confidence to think that he wasn't hungry, so we decided to stop feeding at night full stop (he still breastfeeds 4 times/day and eats more solid food than most kids twice his age).

We followed a plan recommended by a sleep consultant to one of the mums on the Dec 08 Postnatal thread. Plan as presented by the sleep consultant was as follows but we adapted this (care of Artichokes...thanks!):

(1) Room must be pitch black
(2) No sleep props should be used (e.g. white noise) - the training is aimed at teaching the baby the art of self-settling without props
(3) Once you have stopped feeding at night you must not go back. Ever.
(4) You have to accept that some crying will occur. In the first couple of nights your baby may be hungry and angry but within three nights they will learn to adjust as long as you are consistent - and they will never feel abandoned as you are not leaving them alone to cry.

My DS was already going to sleep alone at bedtime so we did not have to teach self settling from scratch. If you are training a baby who can't self-settle at all then you have to tackle that first.

By the sleep consultant's rules, she would sleep in the same room as the baby and wait for him/her to wake and cry. At that point she would sit next to the cot in the pitch black and tap baby's leg very fast but softly with her fingers. As soon as the crying subsided (even if there were still quiet moans) she stopped. If proper crying came back the tapping recommenced. However, she never tapped until baby was fully asleep otherwise the tapping would have become a prop.

We did this a bit differently. DH didn't sleep in the room, just went in when DS woke. DH did a hand on the chest and shhing. He didn't pick up. He had his IPOD on the first night as it was pretty bad! I think this was possible for us as we had spent months doing lots of things from the No Cry Sleep Solution, DS falls asleep from awake at naps (try to at bedtime, but he always falls asleep feeding), we had ditched the dummy around 6 months, had been doing lots of things to reduce night feeds, etc. Also DSs cry was very much angry yelling rather than scared crying or tears.

This thread is much more about comiserations than plans, but I wanted to post it in case it is useful for anyone else.

Am shocked to report that it seems to have worked. Night 1 was pretty bad (DS didn't wake until 2:45, but then DH shhing for 1.5 hours), night 2 was very good (a bunch of peeps, but always asleep by the time DH got there, except for 3 minutes of shhing), night 3 a bit dodgy (45 minutes of shhing at 5:00 am). About nights 6 and 7 there was a regression and I had to shh for about 45 mins at 4:00 am. Since then we have had a few 5:15 starts, and quite a few nights with a peep or two during the evening before our bedtime (seems to be related to teeth), but most nights there has not been a peep from when I go to bed until 06:00! Very scared to even write this, but it has been over a month so I'm getting cocky!

I know that as soon as I post this our sleep will go out the window, so I wouldn't count on my graduating yet. But oooohhh am I not taking even one minute of sleep for granted while I have it.

Hope everyone is coping and don't be scared about keeping up with the Dec 08 thread! Just pop on and say hi every now and then.

oh yorky, i really do feel for you.

funnily enough, i was about to post on here regarding ds's triumphant 7 to 3.45 sleep last night when the sound of angry cries reached me - so looks like we're in for a bumpy night tonight. more teeth.

Hello again, sorry I fell off the thread for a few days. I know exactly what you mean about keeping up with PN threads, I try and post on Nov08.

Good luck with your pattern of improvement Staines.
Kiwi, is it just me or am I wierd for not minding too much a slightly early start if they have a nap during the day so I can get my breath back and have a cup of tea?

Just to rock the apple cart - we had our best night since DD was born last Thursday, I think 11-6! Unfortunately it was a one off but I live in hope of a repeat one day!
DS has developed the habit of coming into our bed in the middle of the night for no good reason that we can see, which he has never done. If he's ill we've sometimes brought him in for a cuddle but he's always chosen to go back to his bed. I'm hoping its because we've got lazy about closing the babygate on his bedroom door and he's just discovered he can, and theta the novelty will wear off soon. If not and we close the gate religiously will he go back to bed or sit in the doorway and howl?

DD is being a little bit consistent (3 nights) about dream feeding at 1030, then waking at 3ish but not feeding (maybe a small drink of water) last night she woke 3 times between 3am and 7 but at least she settled reasonably quickly - no 2hr screaming sessions

7 til 3 again. i am starting to misguidedly hope that this is a pattern. and then he'll go from 7 to 5, and then 7 til 7 and then i'll be like a different person. and i won't be able to post on here any more. what if we have to start a new thread??? funnily enough i was looking at the beginning of the thread the other day and didn't recognise any names - which must be a good thing, right??

Good night for us too! Slept from 8 to 6 then back to sleep after feed till 8.30!!! Mind you I thnk it's cos she's barely sleeping in the day...

DS slept right through from his dreamfeed at 10ish last night until 5.30 this morning

I know I should be please but I wish he could just leave it for another hour or so and get up at 6.30 coz I'm bloody knackered now. He didn't go to bed until 8.30 last night so he's only had 9 hours which clearly isn't enough. <<grumpy, never staisfied emoticon>>

Well done to the Staines family though

wooo hoo! last night was our best since the great sleep through of 12 weeks old. have i said that before??? anyway, 7-3, brief feed, asleep til 6. isn't it amazing how one good night makes you think you're doing ok after all!

kiwi - exactly. i am just too lazy! and self centred. rubbish night last night - two doses of calpol. poor little staines.

Belatedly hello yorky!*

*FG and staines I post on the Dec 08 thread but it is a bit of a commitment - one day away from it and there's pages and pages to wade through! I always feel slightly rude because you simply can't respond to everyone...

Yep, Stainesminor was december baby, and have posted on there a few times, but i find it so hard to keep up with all the different posters - - i never function well in crowds!!! i like to run in and blurt stuff out about myself and then go back to watching big brother.

DH is trying to pressure me into cc this weekend - as i advised him at the beginning of the week that there's no way i'm doing it when i've got work in the morning. however, there's also no way i'm doing it when ds has teeth coming through and it looks like we've got four top beauties about to make a proper appearance. it's difficult - he rarely cries, and is such a happy little guy, but i'm afraid he rarely cries cause he still gets the boob whenever he wants all night long. and then i think there's nothing wrong with it, and then i think, oh god, who cares!!!i've bored myself with it today!

anyway, back to big brother. what am i going to do when it's finished?!

Well, judging from the bumpiness of his gums, I doubt very much that you're going to lose me just yet.

Has anyone ever posted on our December 08 thread? Was Baby Staines a December baby or January? If by some bizarre quirk the feralchild starts to sleep properly I might have to move over there <<scared emoticon coz FG fears change>>

Welcome yorky! and for fg and fbaby. does that mean you'll be leaving us and graduating to the rest of mumsnet???? when will we see you???

Similar again last night; I think the 1am scream is teeth related coz DS wouldn't settle until we gave him a lug of calpol last night, then he had a massive drink and went straight back to sleep. Looks like he's going to do 4 at once so all of this is going to be completely out the window in the next week or so anyway.

He woke again and muttered at DH later on but then slept until gone 6 which was lovely.

I'm suspicious. Obviously he's planning something

Thanks for the welcome chulita and fg, I love this thread already - DD slept 11-7 last night! I can't believe all I had to do was post on this thread and she magically does her best night since birth!
Kiwipanda - your DD sounds like mine, daddy is fine until there's an alternative

Oops! Sorry yorky, how rude . Welcome to the group DD watched me pee for the first time today, I sat her down in the bedroom and she screamed so she had to sit in the doorway and gave me a very quizzical look - at least she wasn't screaming though! It is a clingy time I think!
fg that's great! Gives me hope for tonight, just expressing cos DD hasn't wanted to feed at all today so I'm not holding out much hope for a quiet night but she might surprise me, and if she does I'll try her with a bottle instead of boob. If I can just break that link it'll be something...

PPS Have a lovely holiday Chulita. Come back recuped and rested.

Good news all!

The night before last DH spent an hour pandering to DS's grizzling before doing proper CC. The grizzling lasted bloody ages, the CC was over in 10 mins. When I asked DH what he'd been doing in DS's room he said "trying to get him to settle on me" and so I gently pointed out that it would have taken a fraction of the time if he'd just given the water and a nice cuddle and then put DS back in his bed.

Last night I did the deed and, despite screaming hysterically for 5 mins for no apparent reason at 1am and muttering a wee bit at 2.30 and 4.30, DS didn't wake at all and certainly didn't want a feed until he woke for the day at 6.20 this morning

So was that him sleeping through then? Did it really happen? That long-searched-for holy grail of parenting? I'm a bit freaked out by the possibility that he actually did a 'normal' night's sleep and I don't believe for one second that he's going to do it again tonight.

PS Hi Yorky Sorry you're having a tough time. Feralbaby is going through a very clingy phase at the moment too, we have some full on separation anxiety going on I think. I even have to take him with me when I go to the loo which is a new thing in the last fortnight. A massive pita but hopefully over soon.

It never works though...I'm as strong as an ox before bed but I just can't summon the energy at 2am. I managed at 05:30 this morning, after 30 mins of ignoring her crying I fell asleep - I'm not ashamed of it though, she was a horror last night and I was sucked dry and absolutely shattered by that time so it's her own fault I couldn't get up
I'm off to France for a week tomorrow so I may not get on to find out how you all did. Fingers crossed for all of you lovely ladies!!

chulita I'll be chanting that to myself under my breath at 2am....

Yes, fg, tell all...kiwi and I are in the same boat - last night was awful and we're going to be strong tonight and not feed her during her night time crying sessions much at all. We will be strong, we will be strong, we will be strong

staines I dunno, DH has always been around LOADS since she was born, is a really really hands-on dad so you wouldn't think that would be the case.. it's more like she adores him, loves spending time with him but the minute she sees me she's all "ooo you went away mum how dare you I'm going to make you pay now"

Ahem

FG am on tenterhooks to see if DH/water worked at all - last night was grim and we're thinking of trying that tonight

Why has it taken soooo long for me to find this thread?
Hello everyone

DD is 9mo and not a good sleeper, DS is 2.5yrs and was the ideal trainer baby! Last night she woke at 3 and screamed intermittently (whenever we put her back in the cot) for 2hrs, when DH took her downstairs to watch TV! She is a big time mummy's girl velcro baby which doesn't help him settling her as she pushes away from him looking for me.

A few weeks ago my Mum had DS to stay with her for a few nights so we could break her of her frequent night feeds without her crying disturbing him, and she is waking less since then, but....

good one fg, we will have a huge bonfire for all the baby books in the manner of the olympic flame. hope last night went okay?

ds seems to have given up having drinks from anything other than boobs in the last couple of days - never had a problem before, so naturally now i'm worrying that i'll still be feeding at age 11.

kiwi - maybe she's just more comfortable with you? that's what i'd tell myself - she's just being herself! i sometimes see ds gearing himself up to give an old lady a smile when he's really knackered in his pushchair - he's damned with my innate desire to please people. not good!!!

How'd it go fg??

Can we have ritual burnings of hvs weight charts too please?

I actually did CC a few months ago to get DD to this stage (she was feeding about a zillion times a night). She got through to about 4am and then I would give in and feed her so that's her current status quo, except she's now throwing in a regular earlier wake up too. Sort of reverting I guess. And is having truly spectacular stops when I put her down for morning nap. Sigh.

I swear she's much happier when she's with DH than me. I just went out for a run and the moment I came back she started grumbling, whereas DH said she was on great form with just him. She ALWAYS seems to be on great form with just him. What do I do wrong or what does he do right??

Cheers for the support my lovelies. The plan tonight is for DH to deal with the 3am waking armed with some water and lots of cuddles. I'm not sure how much CCing I'll withstand before I BF though. We'll see. I'm guessing it means I'll be up at 5am when DS wakes for the day so will be off to bed v soon.

Commune fantasising would definitely help Staines. Ritual burnings of Contented Little Baby? Sponsorship from Ikea in lieu of the many Antilop high chairs we'll be needing? Chickens?

evening all - how peculiar, we have had the same conversation this week - dh said 'we' have to start doing cc soon - i said i'm just not ready for it yet - teeth being the current excuse. still crossing my fingers that it will happen naturally <hollow laughter>

sorry to hear about the pnd fg. or should i say well done for doing something about it?? do you think a little commune fantasising might help? i'm thinking library, vegetable garden, creche, oohhh, swimming pond! for adults.

fg Yes that's the book, hope it helps, and good luck with getting tough at night, I'm thinking I ought to do the same thing, too. DH and I are away for the month in Germany so now would be the obvious time to do it... DD has good nights and bad nights so it's hard to know what to expect TBH! Her napping is awful at the moment but I don't think being in a car for the best part of three days helped, she's probably forgotten how to nap in a cot and I'm not sure she likes the travel cot much, she keeps trying to climb up the sides Any ideas what technique you are going to try?

Sorry to hear about your PND fg, hope you get lots of helpful help
Let me know how you get on with being tough on the night feeds...I keep saying I will but DH's work always gets in the way. I won't do it on a 'school night' but then at the weekend I just want an easy life. He's got 4 weeks off starting Friday though so we may have to try. Good luck!!

Oh, Kiwi, was the book the 90 Minute Baby Sleep Program by Polly Moore? I've just bought it from Amazon.

Hello all. Lol at Kiwi's understanding of the inner working of our little geniuses' (genii?!) minds! Will be looking for the book too, sounds good. DS Naps beautifully if DH or I co-sleep with him, otherwise it's strictly one sleep cycle then screaming.

I'm going to really upset DS's plans if he has been carefully checking my diary coz I just got signed off for a month with PND. I've been feeling so rubbish and everyone's been on at me to talk to the dr and I've just been telling myself that it's all down to sleep deprivation but I finally realised that I was just avoiding the obvious. Feel much better for starting to sort myself out.

Dr said I've got to be tough on the night feeds and to stop doing it; he actually recommended GF (but I'm not sure I'm that desperate yet!)

I figure no time like the present so I'm going to try really hard not to feed DS after his 10.30 dreamfeed tonight. We're down to one feed at 3am ish and it's only ever a very quick one so we'll see whether we can survive without it.

chulita - same here, ds screams his head off, unless i turn the light on and then is all smiles. beautiful, heartbreaking smiles! do they love us this much???

i think 4 teeth are coming through at the top,and am telling myself that that is why we still haven't repeated the magic night when slept 12 til 7 at exactly 12 weeks old....i'm thinking it won't happen again until he's exactly 12 months old....

PMSL kiwi ...so true - they're far cleverer than we give them credit for. DD screams like she's teething/getting a cold/got wind/done a huge poo that needs changing cos it's giving her nappy rash/broken every limb and I rush upstairs to pick her up and fix it and she actually bursts out laughing ...sucker? moi? Maybe I should start telling her the story of the boy who cried wolf

fg good mantra. they will pass! i can see ds's two top teef just poking through his gums. no wonder he's pissed off. i hope they appear soon, as he just wants the boob all night long. he was in with dh and i from 10. 30 last night - dm stayed over in dh's boy bedroom, so we slept en famille last night.
though it was lovely to all wake up together. so although i worry that i'm creating a monster, he's such a lovely monster, it's hard to say no to him! oh god, i'm going to be one of those over indulgent parents who calls their offspring's pooh smeared bedroom walls 'self expression', aren't i.

I'm demob happy, DH has just started a MONTH off work and we're off to Germany. Hooray!! Now, if he can just master BFing I can have a month of 8 hour sleepfests

at kiwi - you're funny before 7am!!!!

Poor fg, hope tonight is a better one. I've had some success with naps using the NAPS plan book (can't remember exact title will check later if you are interested). Its written by proper doctor/sleep researcher and basically it's about using the baby's natural cycle of 90 min, so you put them down in multiples of that. 3 hours for DD in morning, 3 hours after that for next nap etc. Seems to work for DD but dunno if it's too obvious / you've tried already?

As for how he knows you're going back to work, reckon he's looked at your diary. Just like DD sets her alarm clock every night for the 4am feed (she sets it for 3.59). They may play all "oh i'm so innocent and helpless look I can't even blow my own nose" but the minute we're out of the room they're on the internet researching sleep deprivation torture methods, googling online milk providers and going through your email. You mark my words. I just had to catch her at it...

Yeah, so much for my night off.

DH and I went out for dinner and had an argument in the restaurant because I suddenly proclaimed "I don't want to leave DS tonight" and DH told me I was being ridiculous (which I was but it was the way he said it).

So I ended up somehow with DS in bed with me all night, at our own house, because he woke at 10.30 and screamed for half an hour refusing to settle anywhere except in my arms.

Naps have gone out the window as well. DS napped for 20 mins this morning (after having woken at 5am). His afternoon naps are now a charade of feed, settle, wake up after 20 mins, SCREAM until fed again, sleep a bit, wake, SCREAM and then just be awake and tired and evil for the rest of the afternoon.

WTF is going on and why has he started being a little sod the week before I go back to work? How does he know?!

Repeat the mantra:
These things will pass
These things will pass

<<fg sits in corner of room, rocking with head in hands>>

staines don't let him bully you you're bigger than him.. oh who am I kidding - DD is clearly the boss of me...

I was exhausted yesterday, DH was out at the football so I was planning a REALLY early night. So, DD in bed at 7pm - I was just snuggling into my duvet and then she woke up screaming at 8.30 and wouldn't go back to sleep for nearly an hour. I have NO idea what the problem was - I changed her, cuddled her, gave her calpol for teething pain... eventually gave in and fed her even though it was a whole 90 minutes since her last feed. Sigh. She woke again at about 2 but went back to sleep after a cuddle from DH then slept til nearly 6, fed, and slept till nearly 8. Random.

The only thing I thought was that it was like she'd had a nightmare.. can babies have nightmares?? (she did have loads of cheese for dinner )

Staines, we're in the same boat - it's been ages since DD cried like this and I'm not used to it. Feralgirl, DD is doing exactly the same thing as your DS. 9 months is a massive time for a schedule reshuffle I think, she's been a sleeping nightmare this week. We had her sat on the bed while we hoovered around her the other night because she just screamed unless she was either latched on or being cuddled. I don't know why she's doing it but it's a freaking PITA.
FG, I hope you got some sleep - no luck for me, DD has never taken anything at night except boob, EBM is only a daytime drink quite how I'm going to get her off boob by 12 months I have no idea!

that sounds so pathetic in the cold light of day - 20 minutes!! i gave in though and gave him the boob. it really is a battle of wills, and i'm becoming afraid he's going to win!

oh i have been listening to ds cry for 20 minutes - might not sound long to hardened cry listeners, but am fairly sure it's the longest i've left him. he really doesn't want anything other than the boob in his mouth. and not even that really. he's knackered. why won't he go to sleep???? can someone else come and listen for me??????

FG I hope you got some rest at your mums. I know we still get so desparate for sleep we had a week last week that felt like it was when my DD was under 1yr. I used to feel so guilty if I wasnt on call 24/7 when she was <1yr old. Now I cut myself some slack and my DH and I work more as team taking it in turns to do the nights. Sometimes its even I do the first couple of hours (11-2am)and then he unplugs his ipod blocking out our DD crys and he does the second part of the night (2-5am). We didnt do this when DD was very small and I took on most of the nights and days exhausting myself completely. Now we try to agree before we go to sleep who is doing what depending on what we have the next day. Not sure if you guys have that option.
SM - Yep sorry to depress you my DD was the one into everything from a young age. Vquick mind thank god for nursery she loves the stimulation. And 6hrs sleep seems to be all she wants, not the same as what she needs which is prob 10hrs.

fg - good for you! you should probably have done that a while ago... (i am a fine one to talk) and i hope you feel fully refreshed tomorrow.

ssmile - welcome! i dread appearing on supernanny in 12 months time....

Hi ssmile, sorry your DD's giving you stick. I have a nasty feeling that DS is going to be similar in a year or so. Even now he's the only baby at our BF group who's crawling all over the place, stealing other baby's toys and pulling their hair

Tonight I have told DH that I am leaving him some bottles and EBM, taking the breast pump and going to sleep at my mum's.

I have had enough.

Forgot to say even though this may not be popular my DD sleep improved when I stopped BF her at 9mths, it was very noticable she slept longer than 6hrs in a row once my boobie was not on demand. Plus it gave me back a huge amount of energy (once I had recovered from the Norvo Virus that took all my milk..another story). I think sleep problems are a lot more common than people think but you only hear about the 'good' ones not the ones like ours that are increadble hard work. I have friends who are having 2nd babies ie 2yr age gap and I am in disbelief but they all had 'sleepers' for the first ones and are not still walking zoombies like me.

Yes YES some other normal mums having trouble with sleep. Mine DD is 2.5yrs and we have never had easy sleep. I just posted a thread to find out if others have tried dietry changes to see if that will help. She was 9mths before she slept 6hrs+, 12mths before we got the odd 10hrs in a row and now she is in a bed its hell again. She is up 30times in an hour, last night this went on for 3hrs. Sometimes I just feel like one of those desparate mums on supernanny, which prior to having a child I thought how can they let it get THAT bad. Now I know! I dropped out of the mums group I was in because I was SO exhausted all the time I couldnt 'do' coffee at 2pm was such a zombie from lack of sleep / felt a failure. MN only thing that kept me semi-sane ;)PS we have done everything sleep routine, quiet time, lots daylight, I finally found some 'inner peace' by just accepting that she was a lively one and adjusting as best we can too this oh and going back to work for a rest! She loves nursery and never stops all day they say.

Fufulina, that is so true. There's something about sleep deprivation that knocks every ounce of optimism out of you.

I was OK today really though, I've had worse. But I got really irked by DH whinging that he was tired, esp since I left him to have an extra hour's lie-in and he'd kept me awake snoring so I'd spent half the night in the spare room

DS had his 8 month check today and the HV asked about sleep and I just couldn't be arsed talking about it TBH. I get really irrationally annoyed with anyone suggesting anything or offering advice (with the exception of MNers ).

Oh fg - that is rubbish. So sorry. How has he been today? I think one of the worst aspects about sleep is that when DD does something awful - I convince myself that's what she's going to be like for ever and spend the next day in a sleep deprived mess worrying about everything. And then she's all angelic and we're fine again but I never worry that good sleeping is here to stay...

BTW, Fufulina, that is fantastic. I am vvv

Uhhhh, last night was possibly the worst night since DS was brand new. He bounced around, bobbing on and off the boob until 8.15 last night. Woke at 9 (just as I was sitting down to my dinner) and then screamed like someone was pulling his arms off for two whole hours.

I was actually quite worried and got to the point where I stripped him off to check he hadn't been bitten or stung and moved all his limbs to make sure he hadn't hurt himself.

Gave Calpol, gave gripe water, took his temperature, changed the sheet on his bed, sang, rocked, fed, cuddled; he'd drop off on me and then HOWL as soon as I put him in his bed. Took him into bed with me and he just played. Left him to yell a bit and he just crescendoed until he started choking.

He finally exhausted himself at 11pm and then woke up again and screamed 45 mins later. Went back to sleep, did the same 1.5 hours later. Then did a couple of hours of proper sleep, then woke at 4am and screamed for an hour before going back down until 7.30.

All three of us are somewhat shell-shocked today! Christ knows what his problem was because he's not teething and he's fine now.

Chulita, DS dropped his third nap sbout two months ago and as far as I can tell, it made no difference at all to his sleeping at night. I think crawling has helped though coz when he's had a very active day he tends to sleep a bit better.

We were up all night again, teeth or something - that blows the 2 naps a day = a good night's sleep theory.
[stumbles off to put the kettle on] coffee anyone?

Hola all - just checking in again. DD has reliably gone down to two naps a day (a long 1 hour 40 in the morning and 40 mins in the afternoon), can now happily stay awake for 3 hours between sleeps (a miracle!) and is going to sleep about 6.30 - waking about 11 for a feed - and then getting up about 6/6.30. A miracle on many fronts. No second feed in the night - no 5/5.30 wake up call. Bizarrely although am getting more sleep than in the last year - I feel about a zillion times more knackered. V odd.

Flirting with the idea of trying to drop the 11 feed (only giving one boob for a week and then just shushing), but thinking am fine with one feed and let's just keep everything as it is at the moment (coward emoticon!).

So hearing Chulita and Satinesmassif on the bf front. I had no idea I'd still be feeding her at 8 months, and have decided against formula so looks like we're in for the long haul.

Hope all the babies are well

hello - pg hater here too - so many things that i couldn't eat or do - i think i enjoyed months 6 through to 8 and was a miserable wretch for the rest of the time. plus the bloody heartburn.....
i've just stopped expecting ds to sleep through. i have a sneaking suspicion that i'm really not helping as i'm feeling the same as chulita, have fallen in love with bfing and am dreading giving up. (plus i don't want to miss out on the extra calories that i've been enjoying!) and now i'm back at work i can't face a crying baby in the middle of the night, and i just don't want to miss out on that special time with him. oh well. we're both happy. and the sleep deprivation isn't anywhere near as bad as it was. did i say that??

Well...I failed on Friday night but we had a really busy weekend and DD only had 2 naps on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday she slept from 7pm til 4 then 4 til 6:30 and Sunday she slept from 6pm til 1am then woke up at 7 this morning. Today she didn't want her afternoon nap either so she went to sleep at about 6pm and we'll see what happens tonight. One feed a night I can cope with for the next little while. I was planning on stopping bfing at 12 months but I've really come to love bfing, even in the middle of the night! [soppy mum emoticon]
Yea, how do people enjoy being pg? It was miserable, and labour/birth was horrendous and never to be repeated in the same manner if at all possible...I'm really scared of labour/birth since DD's troublesome arrival
How's everyone doing this week?

Chulita I hated being pg too! And I got really hacked off with people telling me how much they had loved it. The checkout girl in Lidl nearly fainted when I snarled at her about how miserable I was. Strangely, labour was alright though.

Had a rubbish night last night. DS was awake at 2.30 for 45 mins, screaming inconsolably for no apparent reason. Then up for the day at 5.30. Boo.

Haha!! I failed to keep baby Chulita up yesterday and ended up with an horrible evening. She screamed from about 5pm til gone 9:30 when DH put her in bed and she actually feel asleep after 10 mins. Teeth are the culprits though, not wakefulness, she's got 2 coming through on the bottom and 2 on the top - poor little mite! The in-laws were round last night and I went out for a girly drink with some other mums. I did feel a bit guilty leaving her crying but there's nothing we could do once she'd been fed and calpoled. DH cuddled her all evening!
I'd like 3 or 4 fg so I don't want to be having babies for the rest of my life. I'm terrified of labour and I hated being pregnant and I was a mess for the first 14 weeks so fingers crossed this one will actually be a bundle of joy. I love DD but she is a tricky one

staines that's pretty much my DM to a tee! Whereas when my MIL came round to rescue me after hideous night (which for her is a 1 1/2 hour trip from her house each way) she took DD out for a walk and her words when she left was "we'll stay out as long as we can!". Bless her. My FIL will be very handy round the commune too, he's a trained carpenter and amazing at DIY, building shelves/kitchens/whatnot.

Only one wake up last night, hooray! And the first night in 10 days without a dirty nappy too (DD has had tummy bug).

ooh, so much to talk about today!
1. the commune - no hv's, but a cranial osteo for every household
2. kiwi - last time i went home i was going through (what i hope was) the worst of the sleepless nights. i had gone home to get looked after.....dm suggested that we go for a walk around an open garden the following day - i suggested that she could take ds for a couple of hours so i could catch up on some sleep instead. 'hmmm. okay' - stunning response. the following day i was eagerly awaiting dm's return home from work. ds in pushchair, ready for walk, dm arrives, makes cup of tea, sits down for a chat, i am absolutely hanging for some sleep. (dm works 9 to 2.30, btw). eventually i asked if she was pleeeeeease going to take him out. 'oh, i wish it wasn't raining' - - guess what - perfectly dry outside! i think she's frightened of being on her own with him.

anyway, i had a wonderful gran too, most of my childhood memories are about spending time with her. maybe they just don't know what to do with babies, but get better as they turn into people. maybe they think they've done their time....maybe they will only get visiting orders to the commune until they pull their socks up.

3. one of the mums that i hang around with has just revealed that she's 3 months pg, her ds is one month younger than mine! am a little bit and a lot !

4. hooray for baby chulita! down with naps!

I want to have the next one in autumn 2011, when DS is coming up to 3yo. I'd love to have another in autumn 2010 but that scares me just a little bit too much!

Thing is, I think I want 3, so I might have to revise my plan...!

lol, I'm too but I really want the first two DCs quite close so no point in hanging around. I do get a frisson of fear when I say it out loud though...

PS Chulita, that you're trying for DC2 next month!!! But actually also quite coz I want another try quite soon too really. I'm still getting my head round feralchild1 who still feels brand new to me!

Aww, I'll retract my comment about MiLs in the light of what you've all just said - mine can apply for a VO for the commune but my parents can have a standing invite coz they've had DS all afternoon so that I could get some "me" time.

What a load of rubbish. Went to supermarket, did laundry, lowered cot base coz DS is pulling himself up, gone to post office, made dinner, did some baby-proofing and DS is going to be home any second expecting his tea.

On the subject of HVs, I don't even know what mine looks like. Haven't seen or heard from her since DS was 6wo I think, she was as much use as a chocolate teapot. The commune will have to have some sort of deflector shield for HVs.

staines It's funny isn't it? You'd think my DM and DF have never had children of their own, let alone two, they are both so clueless with babies! It actually makes me a bit sad because my grandparents were amazing when we were kids, so cuddly and kind and helpful and always taking care of us for my parents, taking us on holiday.. etc etc. Whereas my parents are definitely emphatically hands-off.

Lol, good for your gran

I've just had another breakthrough/brain wave. DD slept from 6pm til 11, fed then woke up at 11:50 - I thought we were going to have one of those nights again - I fed her back to sleep and she slept til 6am When she did her fantabulous one-off all-nighter I'd had her up most of the day and she didn't get her afternoon nap. Yesterday I put her down for her nap but she wittered away to herself for an hour before crying and I got her up...soooo...methinks I see a pattern. (more than once is a pattern right? ) I'm not giving her an afternoon nap today if I can help it, and I'll let you all know how brilliantly it worked tomorrow!

course you're allowed on the commune. you can run the motorbike pool. if you like. and the white noise can help dd sleep. can she go in a sidecar?

my gran married my grandad because he had a motorbike and side car! very romantic, my family

I'll join the commune then if I'm allowed, might have to double glaze/line my tepee though so you don't all hear DD at crazy hours

I don't have anything to say about sleep any more so I don't bother coming on here just to whinge
MIL is trying to get me to stop bf at the mo so she's not in my best books - all "I stopped at 9 mths when they got teeth" even though when I said she was teething a couple of months ago it was all "none of mine got teeth til they were one" yahdeyahda
I'm currently looking at Ergo baby carriers to try and cheer me up. I think I'm having a sad on because I've finally admitted to myself that motorbiking mummies are a silly idea and I'm going to have to sell my bike [mopes around house feeling sorry for herself]

hi chulita! long time, no write!

i gave up on health visitors quite some time ago. it's such a shame - they can only reiterate government guidelines, so any knowledge or experience they might have to offer is completely wasted. what's the point??

i have mixed feelings about mil today. like kiwi my mil is more useful in a hands on capacity with ds than my own dm. and 90% of the time we get on brilliantly. it's just that sometimes she has to let me know that she knows best. which she probably does, but when it comes to ds, and leaving him to cry, i think i'm going to have to get assertive on her ass! dm, on t'other hand is almost completely useless with ds - i was so surprised to find that out when he arrived on the scene! it's just so long since she had a baby (37 years) and hasn't had any contact with them in the mean time.

dh's would be allowed on the commune btw - i just think it might be appropriate for mr fg and mr staines to live in a shed or basement where they can keep all their games and electrical wires.

I may be the only person ever to say this, but I think I'd rather have my MIL visit that my own mother . She's a darn site more useful with DD. Last weekend we had a dreadful night, I got about 1 hours sleep and she came to rescue me the next day (DH had to work) and take DD for a long walk. My mum's never done that. In fact my mum has never been alone with DD, except possible once when I went to the loo

Maybe she can come and live on the commune and babysit for us?

I don't think things get any easier - DD is still up ready for feeding 3 times a night. Helpful HV reiterates that I should try feeding her more during the day so she's not hungry at night cos it's that easy
We had one good night and that's it for DD's entire life [sigh] I'm not miserable really, just worn out. I want to start trying for the next one in a month so I really want her to be sleeping a little better. I'd also like to stop bf at one so that gives me 3 months to wean her off night boob - hah!
She's not crawling yet, sitting and wobbling, I have my fingers crossed that once she gets moving she'll wear herself out and sleep better (another milestone that'll come and go and leave us exactly the same!)
I'd join you on the commune but I couldn't live without DH, he's fab You'd have to ban all HVs though, what a load of rubbish. That'll be my next job I think, all you have to do is be able to patronise people and suggest the patently obvious.

LOL LOL LOL

And MiLs would have to apply for a visiting order.

yes! and there'd be an aibu court with daily hearings, and weekly protests against gmtv bf v ff features.

and we'd have our own organic vegetable garden. and film night. oh, i could go on....and we'd go out on dates with our dh's and then come home to clean houses.....and our bedrooms would all smell lovely without stinky socks all over the place - i've already gone on!!

Ohhh Staines, can you imagine the MN commune? It'd be hysterical Teenage girls would come and do voluntary work with us, like a kibbutz.

I can see it now <<gazes, misty eyed, into a pipe dream future...>>

Though it'd probably all end horribly in an armed shoot out with Daily Mail reporters.

ps, fg - and that is why we need to set up our commune!! i have started to understand why polyamorous relationships work - not because the man is so studly, but because the women all get someone to support them!! com-mune, com-mune, com-mune!

funnily enough, ds has never been particularly cuddly, but now that he's practically crawling - currently traversing rooms at a rate of knots commando style - he occasionally allows me a little cuddle at bedtime again. after we've wrestled for half an hour to get him into nappy, vest and sleeping bag.....i think he's got the outlet to physically wear himself out now. thank god!

princessdb - did you have to do any sleep training prior to last night or did it happen naturally?? i'm still living in hope that i won't have to do anything about it. last night we let ds cry for about 10 mins - and he worked himself into a fury for an hour and a half. he definitely won last night's battle of wills.... - why does it always feel so final? ie, one bad night and i've convinced myself that i'm creating a monster.

Congrats princessdb, well done to you both! DS has also started sleeping better since dropping his 3rd nap.

Aww, Kiwi, I'm so sorry! I feel your pain re the wriggly baby though. I just know that I am going to be one of those parents frantically chasing around shops screaming for my child because he's run off to hide somewhere!

Good lord I still can't even begin to think about the next one. Unless I
get a cast iron promise that it'll be a calmer baby... It's not even the
sleeping (or lack of) that puts me off, it's the fact that DD is so effing
hyperactive, will not be still for one minute. I took her on the bus
yesterday, as per usual started wailing as soon as push chair was still,
had to take her out and spent the next 30 mins trying to stop her launching
herself off me. She's about 10% baby and 90% eel... Oh for a baby that will
SIT! 8 months today and she still isn't sitting, mainly because it would
require her to be in the same spot for 3 consecutive seconds...

Maybe everyone thinks this but whenever i'm with friends and their babies
DD seems so much harder work in comparison to theirs... Other babies seem happy to be in the pushchairs for at least a few minutes!?

Sorry, having a bad day. DD up god knows how many times last night, DH waking me with coughing randomly... am exhausted.

ive posted once on this thread before ages ago and it always gives me a bit of comfort to see so many others going through the same battle as !! but im smugly writing to tell you (cos no one elso understands)that my 9 month ds slept last night from 7pm till 6.30am (popped dummy in) then till 7am for the first time in his life, i was amazed gobsmacked, feel like i shouldnt say it out loud to anyone as i will curse it!!!
he only had 2 naps yesterday, (usually has 3) so once he woke and 2.40pm he did not have another nod till bedtime, he was really whingy and crying and didnt know what to do with himself but he would not have another nap so this must be why!!! im sure its a one off but theres is a tiny glimmer of hope at the end of my very long tunnel x

Ha! I was planning the next one in the delivery room within minutes of DS arriving. DS hasn't put me off, DH has.

ha. and now i'm in the backwards position of looking at my comments two days ago and thinking 'you smug fool....you didn't think it would last, did you?' but i just have to remind myself that it can and does happen. and will do again one day.

and then i come up with my list of excuses as to why i don't have to start doing any sleep training. current top of the list is because i have mastitis, so ds hasn't been enjoying his usual milk. and also that it's really not that bad, look, here i am, eyes open and it's past 9 o'clock! and i haven't shouted at anyone.

letsaveabrew - how you doing tonight?
fg hooray for feralbaby!! have you started thinking about having any more? i have!!!

Sorry letsaveabrew, didn't mean to ignore you there, how rude of me!

Sorry you had a crap evening; did your DS settle eventually?

Hey hey all.

Staines I am just about to write <<whispers>> one of those posts too:

Last night Feralbaby had a dream feed at 10ish, squawked for ten mins at 3am then went straight back to sleep and slept until 5.30. Had a feed and a bounce about for half an hour then slept until 7.15

I feel almost normal today. It's weeeeird...

Yes - I have thought all of those things as ds gets up for 5th time... So glad it's not just us

ps, kiwi - i bought some teetha at a car boot yesterday and the stall holder offered me a massive discount if i bought seven boxes. i turned him down because i couldn't bear to think of that amount of tooth pain. poor you and baby kiwi.

Evening all... i think fufu has hit the nail on the head - inconsistency is the key - just as you get the hang of one thing, everything changes.

we have had a particularly good week, a couple of 5 hour sleeps after 12am, which have absolutely restored my sanity.

i even like dh. a bit. though i was supposed to meet a friend in town yesterday for a day out - i was so excited, babysitter in form of sil, bottles of expressed milk in fridge, and then just as i started to get ready, oh, my boob hurts, and then by the time i had gone two stops on the train - oh my word, i've got mastitis, and it's horrible! it came on so swiftly, i was actually quite frightened, and was worried i wouldn't even be able to drive home from the station without passing out.

lovely sil took me to the walk in centre and we got antibiotics, and i'm feeling much better, which i'm sure was helped by going to bed last night at 8.30 and not getting up til 7am. darling, sweet ds has started sleeping in til 7 at least most mornings. (don't tell anyone i said that, i'm sure it'll jinx it) and it makes a world of difference. though he still wakes a couple of times a night, what a difference to being awake at 5am.

see, i've just written one of those posts that would make me green with envy a few months ago, but i am starting to believe that it does get better, just by degrees,and sometimes you do have to take a couple steps backwards before you realise you've been making great leaps forward.

fg Interesting, several people have suggested that today, I didn't know that it was better/more effective than just giving one. I've done it today - gave her ibuprofen this mornign and calpol at bedtime so I'm trying not to give her TOO much. She did seem a tiny bit less miserable this afternoon so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and touching everything wood in my house that it's a slightly better night...

Hi all.

Kiwi have you tried alternating Calprofen and Calpol? Obviously drugging is not ideal and I hasten to add that I only do it when desperate but it does work ime.

Fufulina, I was talking to my aunt the other day and apparently my cousin didn't sleep through until she was 3 years old + <<terrified emoticon>>

Staines, I understand perfectly, however DS has now made the decision for me in that now if I try to have him in bed with me, well, obviously that's PLAYTIME!!!

He woke at 4am for a feed, went back to sleep, then woke again at 5am so I brought him into bed with me whereupon he fed some more and then bounced about so much for the following hour that he was sick everywhere

Incensed, I dumped him back in his own bed while I changed my sheets and decided that I might as well get up and face the world but then he suddenly went back to sleep for another two hours! So in the end I got an unprecedented lie-in until 8am

Also. Any ideas on how to re-set a baby's body clock so they don't do a massive poo at 5am every single sodding day?

Hi all - have been away but thought I'd check in with everyone. Sounds like the babies are doing what they do best - being inconsistent! We're down to one feed a night at about 11.30/12 - but like stainesmassif - she's doing the only go to sleep at bedtime with me in the room. Even down to the hand on chest/leg! It's trying.

But - after her 11.30/12 she's going to about 6. We had a couple of nights of fun and games at 3 for about 1.5 hours, but that seems to have stopped for now. And she's dropped a feed in the day as well - so down to 5 feeds in 24 hours from 7. Must be getting more food down her neck that I realised!

And - having disarmed many parents by being completely honest about DD's sleep - most now admit that it's not until 18 months or so that their DCs sleep through (I consider this 12 hours straight - without a peep) - consistently. Glad I've been expecting that from 12 weeks then... I blame Gina sodding Ford for raising expectations!

DD was doing really well, sleep-wise: down at 7, sleep till about 4/5, feed, back to sleep until 7ish. Last two nights she's woken up howling maybe 10 times a night. I have decided that my least favourite word in the English language is "teething".

She's obviously in pain, nothing seems to help at night (painkillers limited success in day, though she won't let me put her down). How long will it last?? She has all the symptoms of teeth about to come through except that I can't see anything at all in her mouth... so do I have MONTHS of this to go??

and now i've changed my mind again! last night ds woke at about 10 and wouldn't settle without me in the room with my hand on his chest.....mummy leaning uncomfortably over edge of cot? check. close eyes and beautifully imitate one 'sleeping like a baby'. mummy's hand not in cot? commence screaming like a banshee.
so it turns out that i am able to do a little bit of 'controlled crying' - took ten minutes and he went back off for a couple of hours. i felt dreadful!!! however, come 12 o'clock and i am incapable of listening to a baby cry for longer than 5 mins and he was back in bed with me for the night. which i love..... but i guess i can't have it both ways - ds sleeping beautifully in his own bed and self settling, but having cuddles with mum in the night. i want it both ways!!!!

Ha ha! Baby Chulita has finally [plants ear against door] gone to sleep [crosses fingers] after a 3 hour crying session. Yes, it's hot, we're all hot but we don't all cry ourselves into a frenzy now do we?! Poor little thing, she's gorgeous during the day and mutates some time between 5 and 6pm into a little feeding monster! I've fed her to 'sleep' 4 times already this evening and it's not even half 8.
It's so true that you feel way better after just a couple more hours sleep and then you wonder what you were all down about in the first place! It's so good to know that we're all in the same place

i love you guys! i told mil about the cm's notes and she said 'yes, of course, she's completely right' - she is absolutely being nice btw, but went on to say 'you'll see that when you've had 3 or 4' - to which i pointed out that so far i've only had one, and so can only act as if i've had one.
last night ds woke at 12, had a feed, woke at 2.30, had a grizzle, woke at 5.30, had a fairly early breakfast. i feel so much better! i have given myself a good talking to. if i want to feed my baby to sleep and co sleep and breast feed until he's 12 months then i'm just going to do it and if he turns into a monster i'll be very surprised. and i'll deal with it then.

funny how everything depends on how much sleep you've had, though! i feel so much more confident in my own opinion with a couple of good blocks of sleep......

LOL fg, it was a one-off, back to the 2 feeds again last night but still, once is better than never!
DD is the same as yours and staines, I feed her to sleep every night and she's exactly the same as your DS.
I really should cut out one of her night feeds. She doesn't need it! It's just easier at the moment.
I'm dreading the next two teeth, we just got over 2wks+ of cold/diarrhoea after getting the bottom two out [sigh].
Hope you're feeling a bit happier staines?

Oh Chulita congratulations! That is just fantastic! <<starts blowing up balloons and dusting off party shoes>> Big kisses to Baby Chulita and I am going to be having words with the Feralchild tonight!

Staines, it's teeth. DS spent over a month being complete rubbish because of his top teeth. He had a cold for two weeks+ and diarrhoea at the same time. I felt like I should be back posting on the 4 month thread coz nothing had changed.

However this weekend he's cut his two toppers and so I've spent a couple of nights doing some low level controlled grizzling to cut out the 2am waking. I've never bothered with water coz it just wakes him up. He went from a dreamfeed at 11ish last night until 4am this morning and then straight back to sleep until 6.15. Result!

Also DS is perfectly capable of self-settling when he needs to do it despite my having fed him to sleep every night of his little life. Sometimes he wakes as I put him in his cot at night and then sings and bounces about for ten minutes before dropping off. I'm not convinced that it's the terrible habit that everyone makes out and tbh, often it's unavoidable. One minute he'll be gulping away, the next he's sparko and won't wake for anything despite all my intentions of reading him a book after feeding. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

There should be a guilt emoticon.

Hello! I've been away for a while, not even lurking which is unlike me. I got to the point where there was nothing new to say, same old crappy nights, then DD got a few teeth and a stonking cold for 2 weeks so it all went to pot. BUT...and this is a big one, Baby Chulita slept the whole night through last night for the first time in her whole life! What's odd is the night before she woke 3 times, I didn't change anything but she just decided to sleep. Okay, so it's only once and most likely won't happen again and I didn't sleep cos my back is waaaaay too painful at the mo but she still did it! I'm sooo proud of her
[deep breath]
staines - it's teeth and teething sucks. Just when they get over one set the next lot come in and then they get a cold. In the grand scheme of things we lose out on a couple of years months of sleep but we get a beautiful baby. Just enjoy him during the day when he's lovely and remember this is just a stage we're all going through.
Good luck mom!

oh dear...have come on here to moan too....went out for four hours last night and left ds with our cm - she is absolutely lovely but her notes have done my head in! she says 'i think you must try and give him water through the night or nothing soon otherwise baby staines will not sleep day or night without you + he is eating well in the day so does not reall need top ups during the night. what do you think?'

i understand where she's coming from - i had already told her that i'd been feeding him to sleep - this is a fairly recent occurence, and i know it's not ideal. he seems to be having a little separation anxiety since i've gone back to work and bedtimes have become a bit harder work - he's having to go to bed later, in a rush, we're not in the same routine that we'd established during my mat leave.....tonight he's already woken three times since i put him down without feeding to sleep!! it feels like i'm slipping backwards. and becoming miserable...someone come and soothe my brow, tell me it's teeth, remind me i'm just trying to do the best i can?? why does mothering seem to revolve around feeling guilty 90% of the time????

Mom - i have my fingers crossed for you, i keep trying to gird my loins to do the same thing, but can't face it, but don't know if i can carry on - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!

Good luck MoM and sorry baby kiwi is giving grief.

No, DS isn't allowing me to be well rested, his top teeth are ensuring that I am anything but. It could be worse, he woke three times last night but my whole plan of encouraging self-settling and not feeding until 4am has completely gone for a burton.

I just haven't got the will power to try and force anything so I'm just gonna roll with the punches for a while I think...

Well, we are still on holiday and staying with in laws but we've gotten desperate and decided to stop night feeding now and see how we go. This was precipitated by trying a bottle of EBM for a few nights and he wasn't taking ANY of the milk, but still wouldn't settle without nursing. So last night was night #1 of DH going in at 2:30 and shh/patting until he fell asleep without nursing. It took 1.5 hours. Ouch. We're going to perservere now - am a bit scared of what tonight will bring and I'm sure in laws are too!

So did I kill the thread or are you all too sleep deprived to type, or so well rested you don't need to?!

DD has been rubbish last few nights. Waking loads, seeming to go to sleep, we relax and start getting drowsy.. and she's off again. I can only hope that this IS teething because at least then it might pass... maybe. possibly.

Kiwi DS always grabs his ears and back of his neck when he's tired and/ or teethy. If I don't keep his nails trimmed then he rips himself to shreds.

Glad you're OK, hope baby kiwi feels better soon too.

hi kiwi - sorry, no idea, but ds frequently bashes his ears....sorry i can't be more help!

FG - the co is soooooo joining the commune. no home should be without one!!

Hello all, thanks for the support (a few days ago now) when I was feeling rubbish. DD was ill with something, then I got ill with suspected swine flu - I'm almost fine now and it wasn't very serious but thankfully DH was off work. So DD may have had swine flu too but has been fine for a few days. BUT now she's in a bit of a tizzy, keeps wailing today and she also keeps grabbing behind her ears. I thought maybe that was something to do with teethign? Except I thought that was actually their ears, rather than behind them - it's more like her neck almost.

Any ideas??

Staines fwiw, I personally reckon the path of least resistance is the one to take, every time. What did the CO tell you? Glad you're feeling better though. Maybe we should invite her to live on the commune?

MoM, actually just after I posted last night, DS stirred a bit and I took advantage and went in to dream feed and, hey presto, he didn't wake until 4am He did then do the obligatory hour of buggering about after having been fed but settled himself eventually.

My slight variation on your plan is that I do my utmost to avoid feeding between 12 and 4, unless there are serious tears involved. So far I've managed it but I know it means nothing coz next week he'll be doing something completely different anyway...

Chulita, you there? How are things?

ah, don't worry! i went to the cranial osteo again today and she said all the things i wanted to hear. i really love her! and she fixed my neck and back at the same time.

MomorMum - you could go into business doing plans for babies on line - if nothing else a plan gives an illusion of control!

ok, just looking for a little reassurance this morning.

ds's sleep is improving, going through to 6-7am in the morning, couple of night wakings, feeling much better. however, i can't seem to achieve it with him in his own bed. so long as he's in with me, we are all good. am i just wimping out and making things worse in the long run for the short term reward? i know i may be, but i just want someone to hold my hand and tell me it's not a big deal if he's in with me at 8 months old......please???

Hi Feral - Plan seems to be a bit more feasible since the second tooth came through. Though I have dropped the dreamfeed part of the plan too...he still wakes at 2 even with dreamfeed. The last couple of nights he has woken at 2 or 3, which is very good going (have had weeks of that killer 12:00 waking). I have tried to settle him without a feed and he doesn't cry, but he also doesn't sleep. Alot of rolling and chatting, as you describe. So I eventually end up feeding him, after 45 minutes or so, once I am tired of lying awake listening for him to go to sleep. My DH is now around again, so I am putting him on duty for a few nights. I really want to push the feed off until 3:00 or 3:30 because then he often goes back to sleep until 6:30 or 7:00. If he feeds at 2:00 or 2:30 he wakes again at 5:00 and I need to feed him back to sleep.

The newest part of my plan is that we have dropped the 3 pm (ish) breastfeed as I think it was interfering with his bedtime feed (I tried a bottle of EBM at bedtime for a few nights and he wasn't even taking 100 ml). Today at 3 pm I gave just 30 ml of EBM in a cup as a snack. At bedtime he finished his bottle and wanted to breastfeed too.

Am quite sure, like all my wonderful plans, this will have absolutely no effect. But all the scheming keeps me busy, if nothing else!

Staines, lol about our DHs having been seperated at birth, shame they both have symbiotic relationships with their games consols though...

MoM, how is your plan going? I have successfully left DS to settle himself the last three nights - no crying. But he's not up for dreamfeeding as he's sparko at 10pm; he then wakes at 11.30ish, when I've been asleep for about half an hour which is just horrible.

He's still waking at 3.30 for a play as well. Last night I decided that I wasn't going to go to him unless he actually stopped rolling around laughing and blowing raspberries and started crying which he didn't do until 4am. Then he had a proper feed went back to sleep until 6.30. I'm not sure if this is a productive tactic though; maybe I'm just teaching him to wake, cry, get fed, sleep? Who knows.

These things will pass.
These things will pass.
These things will pass.

yes, do it, i am still feeling the benefits of spending a bit more time/money on myself. going back to osteo tomorrow also as back still fairly tortuous.

our dh's must have been separated at birth!

Oooh. I just had a birthday and was given money by an aunt with the express instruction to "go for a massage or something" but floatation really floats me. I'm doing it!

Thank you staines; I am sending virtual girly appreciation of your new hair-do and lovely soft feets your way!

In fairness, DH isn't too bad. It's just that I have to ask for everything and get a muttered "for fuck's sake" because it means he has to unlatch from the XBox.

fg - focus on yourself!! since i've gone back to work the first thing i did was book 2 days annual leave - as ds with child minder anyway, i could spend some time on my own without feeling like i had to rush back.

i have been here - (xmas present from dh) yesterday - it was wonderful, apparently 40 min counts for 3-4 hours sleep and today i went to the hairdresser and got my grey covered up and had a pedicure. i feel like staines again.

am also going back for one more osteo session for both of us on saturday.

it probably won't last, but she did make me think that i'm responsible for looking after me, and it forced me to get really tough with dh - he has committed to cooking dinner for the 3 days that i'm at work. which is quite the breakthrough.....

on the other hand, i look even further from getting ds into his own cot all night!!! but i've decided - one day at a time...when i feel strong enough again i'll tackle it. i don't think i'd realised quite how bad i'd been feeling.

Momormum, I love your plan for the coming month and I am going to hijack it!

This month DS has gone from being a baby who will settle himself every time he goes down for a nap and quite often at night too - and those naps would always be at least an hour long - to needing to be fed to sleep every time. He doesn't settle in the evenings like he used to and is generally being a pita. I know it's mainly down to teeth and having been ill but the second he is better, I am getting tough again.

I feel like we are back where we were at 4 mo and I am a total harridan because of it.

Staines we went to a chiropractor (who said he did the same as a CO) but tbh I haven't noticed any lasting effects. Maybe we'll try a proper CO once I'm back on full pay. I really need someone to tell me to focus on myself and what would make me feel better!

pps FG - isn't having your baby roll off the bed some kind of mum badge of honour? i thought it was a developmental milestone....

I realise this may be old news - but for anyone with a 'screamer' - if you haven't already tried, give a cranial osteopath a go. DS is generally pretty happy, but has a tendency to colic and can be inconsolable in the evenings. We went to a new one last week and she was wonderful - very holistic - asked how i was and made me cry (!) - but it was actually a good thing, as she made me think about how i am feeling and what i can do about it.

if i can't force him to sleep through the night - i can't - i had to think about what would make me feel better, so am trying to focus more on me. and ds is more relaxed since our second session - we went into london on monday and i had the best day with him yet - i had fun, so did he and it is a memory i will really treasure.

round our way, one session costs about 30 pounds - i realise this is quite a lot of money, but i haven't heard anyone say a bad word about it, so if you can, i'd definitely recommend having a go.

ps, i am not on commission from the national council of cranial osteopaths.

pps - FG - communal living still definitely the answer!

Feral and others - Per my post here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/796981-Advise-me-please-before-I-lose-all-sense-of-reason?msgid=16304535 I am in the midst of dark days too. Going on 3 hours now since bedtime and he hasn't fallen asleep for more than 10 minutes. There must be something wrong, poor guy. But Calpol not seeming to make a jot of difference. I basically haven't slept in a week and am also fending off well meaning family who are all trying to "help". Have been without DH for nearly 3 weeks, but he is joining me on Thursday thankfully. Sympathy all around to others having a difficult time.

DS is something else, 3 now and I constantly bedhop around the house. Last night, he had some nightmare and refused to sleep unless he was on top of me - not just in bed, but actually on me. I put it down to a June birth and so being disturbed by all the light.

Hey hey all, haven't posted for a while not because DS is miraculously sleeping through but for the complete opposite reason; I am a zombie who can't focus or co-ordinate fine motor skills as a result of exhaustion. Today I kind of forgot that I'd left DS rolling around and playing on my bed, left the room for a sec and was reminded by the loud thud and even louder screams when he hit the floor like a sack of spuds

Jeez, I am a terrible mother.

DS's cold has dragged on for two weeks, and his diarrhoea is still making its presence felt (according to the dr, they're related) so every morning at 3am-ish I get treated to a nappy full of runny poo and an hour and a half of trying to settle a wide awake baby.

Those fabulous three weeks where DS was only feeding once a night seem like a very dim and distant memory. DH and I have also had the screaming match talk about my not having had a full night's kip in nearly 8 months but he just can't appreciate how that will turn a person into an irrational, snappy cow whose marriage has ceased to be top of her priority list.

Staines I will gladly join you in your commune thingy, but only if my DH lives in a commune far far away...

Last night was like having a new baby back in the house....asleep at 7pm (yippee!) awake at 10.30 for an hour then awake again at 4.00 finally fell asleep on DH at 5.15....and we all get up at 6.30 to go to work and nursery!

I'm hoping last night was partly due to her boosters....but I'm not holding breath

Has anyone heard of the "baby sleep system" by Wendy Dean?

So back to work..

Hi all - 2cats2kids - so sorry you're having a rough time of it. I feel like a fraud because I only have one. Cannot imagine juggling two. So - the long stretch hasn't been repeated [although I wasn't expecting it to be really emoticon], but she's had a couple of good nights - feeding about 11.30/12 and then about 4. Far more civilised. And continuing with the one boob only at the 4ish feed. She's falling asleep after a few minutes so I think we may be ready to try the DH settling at that wake up at the weekend to see if no proximity to milk bar does the trick.

Another NCT baby has started sleeping through - and his mum and I do the same stuff - she's never done CC, or anything like that so am holding out hope that one day, it will happen. Only thing they did was her DH settled him at the weekend. One setlle only and he then slept a straight 9 hours. A miracle!

Hope all the babies are settling well and we're all in for a good night.

Sorry, what I also meant to say was that in the last 12 months she has probably slept through 3 or 4 times......

I love her to bits but at the moment I could happily give her away

Her birthday was miserable as everyone in the house was so grumpy!

At last, just what I need this morning! My DD was 1 yesterday and although we are only up with her once in the night she is awake for a 2hour stretch.

On Friday I got her off to sleep at 5.15 having been up with her since 3.15 and DS who is 3 wwandered in at 5.45 all bright eyed and bushy tailed and wanting to read stories

I'm at my wits end as DH works shifts and he and snark at each other all the time as we are both so exhausted....

aah, kiwi i really feel for you. i've come to the conclusion that it's really unnatural for us to look after children alone in the home.

i'd love to be a sahm, but would want a nanny and a cleaner to feel like i could do it well and enjoy it. it's undoubtedly the hardest job i've ever done - and used to work 80hrs+ in a hotel. alternatively, i think we should live communally so that there's always someone there to give you the 5 minutes that you just don't get when it's you and a baby.

this also ties in with my theory that we really shouldn't live with men, but in parallel communities that we can visit when we like - but that's for another thread!

i feel like i've given up on getting ds to sleep in his cot at the moment - his bed has moved into his room - unfortunately i haven't the willpower to force him to stay in it! neighbours had a party on saturday night so i gave up at 12 and brought him in with me and last night he just wanted the boob at 11.30 and i was too tired/achey to fight it, so another night in with me.

i have grown to hate the phrase 'rod for your own back'!!!

Aw kiwiP - don't feel guilty about not enjoying her, all mums have felt like that at some point. One lady said to me when DD was first born that she always loved her babies, she just didn't like them til they were about 4...I understand what she meant
DD's got a cold exactly like your DD's - (bit of a temp), constantly rubbing her eyes, dribbly nose and sneezes but not as bad as some she's had. She's always jolly though, not much makes her grumpy. Today she wanted permanent cuddles so if I put her down she was grumpy but I spent the day on the computer anyway so she sat on my knee and bashed the table
DH was trying to convince his best friend that he should have a child:"honestly, sometimes she proper pisses me off but she's adorable" don't think it worked...
Last night was alright so I'm hoping for a miracle sleep tonight as a follow-up - I'm shattered at the mo. Shouldn't have had that glass of red, I'm really fuzzy-headed now

Hi all. DD was also much better.. until a few nights ago. I'm actually losing the will to live - she is SO grumpy all the time at the moment. Does anyone else have days where they think everyone else's baby is happier than theirs? No? Just me? Honestly she's just non-stop grumbling at the moment, howls the minute I put her down anywhere. She's got a cold but it really doesn't seem that bad (no temp) and seems to be constantly rubbing her eyes, too. I am not enjoying her at ALL at the moment and feeling guilty about that.

Hello chulita and fufulina - I haven't been on this thread for a while as dd has been getting much better over the last month but I have to report that her sleeping has improved dramatically as the formula has gone up and the bf down. In fact, she had her last bf on her 9m 'birthday' which I feel a bit sad about as she is my last but she is now sleeping through the night. [crosses fingers and toes that she hasn't jinxed it]

Another thing which definitely helped about a month ago was the rest of the family going away for one night which I took advantage of to let her scream - a bit of cold turkey after reducing night time feeds down to one. I don't know about you but I can't help feeling on edge when baby screams at night and was probably getting up too quickly to settle her. Fufulina - i think that the night time feeding is a vicious cycle because they fill up on calories at night so don't take as much in the day and so on and so on.

She now has a 6am cup of milk before going back down till 9 (well, it is the school holidays!) and then one nap around lunchtime which I get her up from after one hour if she is still asleep. She then goes down at about 8.30pm.

I wouldn't have believed this a month ago so do keep trying and I'll pray that this isn't a blip!

Goodnight everyone! fufulina no choccy in the house - I'm on the Blackcurrant jelly cos that's all we've got left

So not too early! Am heading up now with book and Green & Black's. .

Have a good night with baby Chu.

I'm avoiding the alcohol tonight, feel sleepy enough...is half 8 too early to go to bed?