She just don't fucking sleep!!!!!

[littleoralot]

I have a almost 1yo dd. She's never been the best sleeper but in late November got poorly with d&v and didn't really sleep at all as she was so sick. Only way we could get her to sleep was rocking her in the pram. Then she got rid of that and got a cough. Then hand foot and mouth. So this whole period of illness she didn't get much sleep and only slept in her pram.

Well she's been absolutely fine since Christmas Eve and she still won't sleep in her cot 😭😭😭. We have played white noise for her to sleep through since birth. I've tried rolling towels up underneath the bottom sheet to make it more cosy. I've tried putting her to sleep on the feeding pillow in the cot. Doesn't work. I've tried everything I can think of. White noise. Pitch black. Little lamp. Holding her hand. Stroking her face. Giving her a comforter. Putting one of my tops in there that smell of me. Nothing seems to be working.

She usually falls asleep on my lap after a bottle and I used to put her in her cot once asleep. Now she wakes up sobbing the minute her bum touches the mattress no matter how much I try. She then takes a decade to resettle again and get back off to sleep. Im talking hours.

She's still having 3 bottles in the night occasionally 4. She has CMPA so is on nutramigen milk they don't do hungrier baby version of it. If it's not milk she's woke for it's a dummy or just a cuddle. She's slowly Getting worse and worse. Her routine is dinner bath pjs story and bottle I don't know what else to do. She eats plenty during the day. Lots of filling healthy food 3 meals plus snacks and water.

I've been to my health visitor who was absolutely useless. I don't have the money for a sleep consultant. But I'm dying of sleep deprivation and beginning to lose my shit. Pleaseeeeeee help me before I go nuts.

Thank you all for the replies.

Her daily routine is something like this:

9am breakfast. Usually toast and fruit

Then Washed dressed. She plays whilst I tidy make beds etc.

11am bottle and nap until roughly 12-12:30

Up and out. Whether it be visit family/ friends with babies. Or soft play. Or walk to the high street. Or run errands. We're out every day even if it's just for a walk through the park and a coffee.

1:00 lunch. Pasta and veg or chicken cut in to strips with cucumber. Tomatoes etc then more fruit or rice cakes a bottle before or after lunch.

She has a snack in between lunch and dinner. Something like buttered bread which she loves. Or baby crisp. Or carrots and hummus.

Dinner at 6 then bath pjs and let her wear herself out until 7-7:30. She will have a bottle and usually fall asleep on my lap. I will wait for her to fall in to a deep sleep and put her in her cot. If she doesn't wake up crying straight away the maximum time she'll stay there is no longer than an hour and that's only if she's absolutely knackered.

If she does wake up
Crying I pick her up. Rock her in my arms she will go back down I try in her cot again and then that's it. She's awake and gets upset. Then it takes ages to resettle her sometimes hours and I'm up to 2 in the morning because she thinks it's time to play. Regardless if it's in pitch black white noise or just ignoringnher. She ends up getting the hump and gets herself all worked up.

We've resorted to putting her back in the pram until we're ready to go to bed and try in the cot. Same reaction.

We've tried holding her hand through the cot as it's right next to our bed she can see me through the bars. There's a night light on in the bedroom it's warm enough but not too warm. She's clean got a dry nappy and a full tummy. She still wakes untold times a night for milk/dummy/cuddles and if she wakes up in her cot she won't go back in it for love nor money so back in the pram she goes.

We've cut out her afternoon nap this last week too. Not made a difference except she's miserable by 4

Is she getting over tired? I know you've cut out her afternoon nap to help but if it's making no difference, try reinstating it and going for a longer morning nap even by just 10 minutes. There's a theory that a nap should be no less than 40 minutes due to the rem sleep cycles. I can't remember exactly but google might be able to help.

One of mine was a sleep demon until she was over 3 - morning and afternoon nap when not in preschool. If she didn't have them she would be an overtired and very cranky monster at bedtime.

Otherwise pop a hot water bottle to warm the bed before you put her in (obviously taking it out when you put her down).

Sleeping bags were hugely beneficial to mine although again, another needed a small pillow to sleep on from much younger than accepted - we used to put a thin toddler one under the mattress cover so he couldn't wriggle under it. Though with the pillow he slept like a log.

Otherwise you need a pick a routine and stick with it for a really good amount of time. It takes little ones quite a while to get used to a new routine and sometimes we give up too easily (been there too).

We did a gradual retreat sleep training thing and it worked quickly, got DH to do it and it wasn't fun but overall less crying than DD waking several times a night.

It's easy to feel like the kid's in control but in reality you are. You shape what they expect to happen when they wake in the night. Decide what you want that to be, then stick to it, be consistent and it'll reshape her expectations within a week or so. She'll be pissed off to begin with then get used to it and form new habits.

The gradual retreat thing involved putting her in the cot and sitting in a chair, occasionally lying her back down or saying 'it's time to go to sleep' but generally not interacting with her. She knew we were there so she wasn't abandoned. Then slowly move chair away until you can put her in and walk out. If she wakes in the night, it's the same routine.

She needs to understand that milk, cuddles and playing are not on tap at all hours. Right now, your daughter thinks they're all night time options so it makes sense for her to complain until she gets something more exciting than a dark, quiet room.

I'm afraid I don't have much advice, but your DD sounds just like mine.
Miraculously she started to sleep through at 14months, there was no logical reason why but we still consider ourselves very lucky.

The only things I can say is your DD is eating a good range of food, it's unlikely she needs milk at night except for comfort, maybe start trying the reduce that. Mine has always slept better in pitch black and still does now at 2.3, does your DD still sleep in your bedroom? Her own bedroom might help too.

Generally though, we tried everything not much made a difference or of it did and we thought we had found a magical solution it wouldn't work the next night. It was really, really, fucking hard and if someone told me then she would sleep through I'd never have believed them

Getting into the cot?? This is surely a joke!!!

She is not having enough sleep. Her lunch nap should be 1.5-2 hours at least. When they're overtired they just can't sleep well. And the night milk needs to stop. It's just one of her reasons to wake up but she doesn't need it

Agree with you Giving don't get into the cot

At 1 I would cut out milk over night. I put my 1 year old in bed awake in the dark and leave. He will generally cry a bit but then goes to sleep by him self, sometimes you need to give them a bit of time to sort themselves out. Are you disturbing her because you're in the same room? Good luck

Op I think your problem is giving milk through the night. At this age she really doesn't need 3 or 4 bottles through the night.

I had a thread on here as my little ones sleep had been gradually getting worse, someone told me to drop the milk and low and behold the first night was pretty bad but night two he slept a full 12 hours for the first time in months! He now only has milk before bed at 7 and again at 7am the next day.

and for you. Been there and it is horrible!

Stopping the night time bottles improved things for us. Worth a try?

Try a Co sleeper cot.
We Co slept for 3 years nealry.
You can try and give her something silky to fiddle with rather than a your hair.

Doesn't sound like quite enough day time sleep to me . I'd expect her to be having a minimum of 2 hours at this age.
Can you leave the housework or get it done earlier and get her out in the mornings so that maybe she will have a longer lunchtime sleep?

Re reading your routine I'm wondering if she is almost seeing bedtime as her afternoon nap hence only really cat napping and then not resettling for hours.

I'd either be making sure she was up at 7, putting her down for a 40 min nap at 9/9.30 ish. Up for a busy morning, lunch at 12 - nap 1-3 and a bottle afterwards then out again for fresh air, dinner at 5.30, bath 6.30 bottle and bed at 7.30.

Or pushing her through the morning if she is not tired at 9.30 and having a nap 12 - 2.30/3ish.

I also co slept for sanity though.

I don't have any useful advice but I just wanted to say, my DS was a frightful sleeper, just as you describe, and 1yr was the turning point for us. We didn't do anything differently, he just seemed to get the hang of sleeping, and, apart from a brief period of night terrors at 3yrs, he has been a brilliant sleeper! Hang in there

There's an app called Huckleberry. You put in their sleep information for three days, then fill out a questionnaire and it sends it all off to a sleep consultant for analysis and to develop a personalised plan of action. It does cost a bit but nowhere near £160. I've heard good things.

For me I would do water only at night and gradual sleep training with no picking up. But I'm probably on the more extreme end of the mum spectrum and could never co sleep (I'm an insomniac, worse after pnd with both).

Ok. She sounds exactly like my daughter (who is nearly 11 months). I lost the plot after New Years and thought something HAD to be done, I’m returning to work soon and I need sleep to function or people may actually die (nurse).

We were feeding to sleep (breast fed) and transferring to cot when in a deep sleep, she’d then wake multiple times a night for feeds/rocking.
So I decided I’d not feed her until 5am, she eats well, I, like you couldn’t do cry it out/controlled crying, I also didn’t think it would work for her. So I went in, sung to her and rubbed her back, every time she stood up I layed her down and said night night. The first few nights, it took HOURS, like actually 3 hours, but consistent I carried on.(headphones with a podcast helped!)

Now, my complete non sleeper is doing 7pm until 5ish most nights, she had NEVER slept more than 4hrs in her life, she even had naps in her cot now, literally unheard of! It took 4 nights of hell, but here we are, all much better for it!

Hi op. No idea where you in the the country but google "savytotssleep". They do Skype consultations and SAVED my sanity. Absolutely brilliant sleep consultant, gentle sleep training.