How can you use techniques if your baby is a screamer?

[BrianAndHisBalls]

17 month old dd has 'interesting' sleep habits and DP and I are about to a. lose the plot, b. lose our jobs and c lose our relationship if we don't get some sleep!

The problem is she either goes down ok at 6.30/7 pm but then wakes at 11ish and is then up off and on till about 4am, or she goes down at 6.30/7ish wakes up screaming 20 mins later and then screams and screams (with us holding her, rocking her etc etc) until about midnight when she then sleeps till around 5am.

I have an older dd and did a shush pat method with her, but dd SCREAMS and I mean SCREAMS. We've left her tops about 5 minutes because she just doesn't stop screaming. If you go in and try shush pat it makes her even more angry and she goes mental. Even after 5 minutes of being left sobs will be racking her body for the next 30 mins at least.

So, if you do do shush pat with a baby like this how long should you be leaving them to cry? I hate doing it and really dont want to but neither of us can cope anymore with the lack of sleep.

I wouldnt mind cosleeping but when we try taking her into our bed she just screams more and more.

We live in a semi so are very conscious of the neighbours. We've now got to the point where DP is taking her out in the car every night to get her to sleep but she just wakes up when he brings her back. She had reflux but is on lanzropole so it definitely isnt that. Shes also not hungry, she just seems to want to sleep but be fighting it and gets really annoyed when she can't.

Any suggestions please, please, please

[SquishyCinnamonSwirls]

You might have to give controlled crying a go. Get your parents/inlaws etc to have your older dd for the night, warn your neighbours in advance of what you're trying to do (so they don't think you're murdering her or call ss :) ), get your resolve ready and have a good bedtime routine.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture so you have to do something to get it sorted out.

[BrianAndHisBalls]

Squishy, I nearly burst into tears then that somebody had answered my q. I think Im losing it, weak

What worries me about cc is that dd goes hysterical if you don't get to her within 5 minutes and has even screamed so much that she's thrown up.

Im going to google cc now and have a proper read but I think that when we go back in the room it'll set her back to square 1 each time as she goes more hysterical when you first go in. I think if we went in and didn't pick her up she'd be rather 'cross'

Will go google x

[Anchorwoman]

Oh poor you, can't really help with this one but offering oodles of sympathy. I spent last night trying new tactic (tactic number 103 out of a possible series of 000's?!) of sleeping on our 2.5yr DS's floor from 2am while he screamed to be allowed into our bed. I have tried controlled crying but like you have close neighbours and DS is LOUD and can keep it up longer than my resolve/nerve lasts out so have had to revert to trying anything to keep him from getting hysterical or getting into bed with us which usually results in nobody sleeping at all. He still goes down at 7pm like a dream, until he wakes up and wants to play with us and then all hell breaks loose.
Hope you find sth useful on google and do share!

[narniesarnie]

life without sleep is truly awful.... you poor thing.

My first one was a really crap sleeper. As she got older and could communicate with us we realised that she was extremely sensitive to external factors such as smell, sound, touch etc which I believe made her such a screamer/bad sleeper.

Often it could be someting so tiny as a scratchy label in her clothes that made her unhappy or the smell of our food. check that her physical environment is calm and soft, it may make a difference....

hope things improve soon, I know it is hell =)

[LyraBelaqua]

Hiya, can I just give you 1 word of warning/advice about CC which is by no means meant to put you off because it was the only way we could get our very stubborn/noisy DD to sleep.

We started to do it at 6 months when she moved rooms and wouldn't settle and had to contniue for 6 MONTHS which none of the books ever mention.

We would go in at 2/3/5/10 then 20 min intervals until she went off to sleep which could be a good 2 hours. It was stressful and upsetting and we often wanted to quit but in the absense of any other way to get her off to sleep we continued. Our HV was helpful and just kept reiterating do NOT get her up to cuddle her if she needs her nappy changed do it but do not speak to her or make eye contact just put her straight back to bed. We always did this.

Eventualy, another HV said have you tried putting her to bed later. We put her to bed an hour later that night and she has been as good as gold ever since!!!!! Can you believe it.

So maybe its worth trying that too because she has naturally brought herself back to her original bedtime of 7.30 and if she is not tired enough she just lies in bed talking to herself.

Good luck to you and dont worry it will resolve itself somehow and when your DC is a teenager you will not be able to get them out of bed :)

[BrianAndHisBalls]

thanks for all the messages, its cheered me up hearing other people are going through it (sorry!)

I read google on CC and I just don't think we could do it, even 5 mins of her crying and I'm running in there. I know with her personality (she's stubborn and has a pretty bad temper) it would be far longer than 5 minutes!

I read something on here about missing their window of sleep, so tonight as soon as she started getting really tired and whiney we put her to bed (was about 6pm) rather than trying to drag it out till 6.30/7. She went straight off and has been asleep ever since. She's had 1 cry but it stopped after 30 seconds. Hopefully she'll sleep till at least 3am so we can get a good stretch in unbroken.

We've also made a drs appt for Wednesday to see what they can recommend.

Also my parents are back from their 3 week holiday tomorrow so we can ask them to have dd1 for a couple of nights if we do decide to go down the CC route.

Will keep you all posted.