Am absolutely on my knees and need help/advice desperately

[Pleasehelpiamgoingmad]

I am going 9ut of my mind. DD has just turned 17 months. Never a great sleeper, but we were managing with cosleeping and breastfeeding. She is still in her cosleeper crib but we were intending to move her into her own room in the new year. We were going to put our cot on the toddler bed setting as she hates the cot

We've had a bad spell of illness this past few weeks, and her sleep has gone to shit. The last four nights DH and I have basically taken turns walking her all evening in our bedroom, it's like having a colicky newborn again. She just screams and screams with rage. Settles, then screams when we try to put her down. Two or three attempts later and we can put her down and she will sleep for perhaps half an hour before waking up with piercing shrieks again. One nap a day lasting about an hour.

She's had Calpol and all the rest. I can see DH on the monitor, he's rocking her and shhing her and she's just doing those little quiet hiccuping sobs before letting rip again. When we go to bed ourself she's generally OK and will sleep well, but to be honest I want my evenings with my husband, plus I need to do stuff for work in the evenings too.

What on earth do I do? We're both completely worn out. The screams and clawing at faces and exhaustion is just terrible

DD1 went into a bed at the same age because it was an impossible battle trying to lie her down in a cot on the lowest setting.

She needs to fall asleep lying down, she's probably too big to successfully transfer her from arms to bed. For now can you pretend to go to bed too and extricate yourself later? Then once you've got her bed sorted in her room you can have a fresh start.

Have you taken to the doctor to make sure she hasn’t got an ear infection?

Take back again if you have I kept taking my son to the doctors Thursday he was fine just a virus 🦠 I was told Monday Same again yet by Wednesday he had puss pouring out his ear after his ear perforated 🤷‍♀️ I was Co sleeping with him resting on my tummy )”( laying down is very painful with an ear infection I am told )

He had a cold /cough/ sore throat off food for about 3-4 weeks but once the ear popped little guy was so relieved

I don’t think this will Work while she is ill and you may have tried it ... but I did a controlled crying thing though I didn’t leave son alone in his room
But when he screamed and demeaned picking up I would ignore the minuet he stopped ( even if it was to catch his breath ) I would pat him Stroke him tell him what a good boy he was and how
Much I loved him ... and repeat if after 2 hours he would calm down I would take him downstairs and re set offer a snack or bottle and then head back up
Half an hour later ... had to do this to
Get him back in cot after sickness took about two days and a night but thank god he is back in ... it’s not easy but felt my presence was more reassuring rather than leaving him to cry ( even though I wouldn’t look at him or react / found it was important to stay calm though ) but again different babies different ways around you may just need to get a bigger bed or kick husband out 😂 to make Sleep more comfy

I had this with my daughter too so you have my sympathies on how horrible it is!

Are you still breastfeeding? I found at that stage she wasn't really feeding but was probably over reliant on me for comfort so I gradually stopped which seemed to help slightly. She seemed much better in a cot bed too but strangely still doesn't like to be in a room with closed doors at 6 years old so I do wonder if she was/is claustrophobic.

I started out sitting in the room with her at the bedside, holding her hand and just gently shushing her when she cried - it was the gentlest approach and took a few weeks with a gradual retreat where I used to just sit in the room reading then into the hallway with the door open. It sounds like a lot of hassle but she did settle better on her own eventually.

It sounds like night terrors. They tend to be worse around developmental leaps.

Dd suffered from about 8 months til now, she is 6.5 years. I feel your pain as I don't think I have slept more than 2-3 consecutive nights ever.

Couple of things that have given us some relief...
Soft music, I tried classical stuff but actually nursery rhymes, a Disney CD and my dad's band rehearsal CD work best

A gro light, they fit into the light fitting and give off blue light at varying strengths, she might be scared of the dark

Extra soft cuddly toy ie jelly cat or cheaper equivalent as a companion. Sleep with it yourself for a few nights so it has your smell and then use it to help settle her

Look at the temp in the room, dds waking is much worse of the temp is too high but will sleep through if cooler

Good luck!

You've had some good advice op. If she's not ill, I wonder if your Dd is upset because she wants to be asleep. It might be time to teach her to fall asleep a bit more independently, so that she's got the skills to turn over and go back to sleep herself at the end of each sleep cycle. This might mean reducing some bf. It might mean some sleep training - which I use as a catch all term for lots of different things. You'll need to judge depending on her personality and your personal ethos. Good luck! Sending sleepy vibes.

I wondered about an ear infection too.

This was also the age I put my DD into a toddler bed for similar reasons. She was an absolute nightmare and I still get a bit shaky thinking about how bad it was.

Doing a big girl bedtime worked wonders, letting her go into it on her own and drift off. She was very keen to copy her big bro right enough but might be worth a try.

She was given antibiotics as she had the start of an ear infection when we went to see the doctor on Friday. She has been on the antibiotics since then. She seems fine during the day, and her crying at night is her angry cry as oppose to a pained one but I suppose it could still be uncomfortable for her

I just swapped with DH for a while there but had to come back up, I had her all of yesterday evening while he was out and I cannot listen to the squealing any more, it is absolutely awful, like torture. She is smacking me and clawing when I try to comfort her. I just buried my head in the pillow and howled. DH is back down with her. I'm losing my mind completely. She is only quiet when being walked but neither of us can do it for long any more.

I feel like such a shit mum.

I'm on the brink of going and starting to clear out her room ready to move her into it tomorrow, I cannot cope with this anymore and I need to try something but I don't know what. Nothing we do right now is working or helping.

@Briefdisaster and anyone else who moved into a toddler bed now- how did you do it? How did you make the transition and get them to stay in the bed? Did it work

We realised when ds was about this age that it was taking 1-2 hours of rocking shushing and crying/screaming to get him to sleep. Awful for all of us. Did a form of 'lite' controlled curing where we'd go in and shush pat but extend the gap. By the third might he was definitely crying less than out previously hideous rocking routine, by day five down to 5-10 minutes. Wait till the illness is passed before you do anything...

Honestly rocking DD1 was too much for her, she needed to be left alone, awful tho it might sound. We just sat on the bed with her with a hand on her to make sure she stayed lying down.

New bed and new room should break the cycle, at the moment she knows bedtime = time to go berserk.

Reminds me of the days of colic I am so sorry op ... to rule out ear you could do calpol then 2 hours later Nurofen or an ibruphen based pain relief to see if that helps.
My husband is on day 6 of antibiotics for an ear infection and still in pain so could be that.

Otherwise maybe try leaving her if you haven’t yet maybe it’s thinking out of the box time.

So sorry sleep deprivation and a miserable baby really do drain the life out of you it’s so heartbreaking to see.

I've always been anti any type of controlled crying, but she's screaming whether we are there or not so I don't think at this stage it matters. I might give her another few days to make sure she's properly better and things are calmer after Xmas, spend some time in her room during the day then try sleep training and moving her.

I was honestly sitting there just wishing I was dead because then it would be quiet and I could rest.

We've doubled up on the calpol and nurofen yes.

No one ever wants to do controlled crying. You don't have a baby so you can leave it to cry for even a minute. You want to help them and support them. But supporting them can mean different things. It can mean supporting them in learning how to sleep on their own. That could mean sleep training, in a way that suits you all.

I'm only voicing an opinion of course.

Mine used to do this every time they had an ear infection. The dr said the pressure lying down made it more painful and cue a lot of screaming and crying. In fact my eldest was on antibiotics for an ear infection and half way through her ear drum burst.
I’d take her back to the dr.

Soothing music a dark ish room if she is crying whether your there or not I would put her down and pat

I was thinking ear infection from start of thread too.

I wouldn't advise adding another change while she's still poorly, I'm out of the loop on age limits at this age for meds and treatments but after checking with someone medical if ok for her age I would suggest just before bed using something that clears her out - used to use karvol back in the day but I think that's out now? Steam I would have thought is safe enough - steamy bathroom before bed? Certain essential oils have decongestant effect, olbas oil?

We love olbas oil here dd and I both have issues with congestion especially in winter I have bad sinuses and she has trouble with her ears has since babyhood and that's what helped most

Hope you're all getting more sleep soon

Good idea re decongestant. She usually has a bath every night, but hasn't the last few nights because I was wary of getting the ear wet. I'll put her in a big steamy olbasy one tonight.

She probably is in pain, she's such a pleasant baby usually. I feel so bad for being so at the end of my tether. This morning she's been so cute and cuddly. It's just so hard when you're in the third hour of pile driver screaming and I've barely spent more than ten minutes in DH's company in weeks because we're working and tag teaming non sleeping baby.

Sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture for good reason!

I had a midwife who's father had worked in intelligence in wwii and she was eldest of 8, apparently he would "joke" that rather than cells etc they should simply put enemy combatants in a room with a teething baby for 24 hours and they'd likely give up all their intel!

Controlled crying or gradual withdrawal

We had similar with nearly two year old and it turned out that me fussing around, rocking etc was actually making it worse. Putting him into his own bed and going out of the room for five minutes ie just leaving him alone actually helped. It took twenty mins the first night and seven the next, then about 20 seconds of crying each night. What helped most of all though was getting daytime routine right first. He was napping too late in the day and not getting up early enough, and food and milk intake was not right. We used a sleep nanny and she spent a few weeks advising us on those things before we even thought about tackling bedtime. I was amazed that tightening up daytime routine and meals helped so much. Seems our kid loves routine and doesn’t mind being left alone to go to sleep. First child was very different so I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Good luck

OP, I hear you when you say you were anti controlled crying. I was the same but had the same situation as you ie he was screaming even with me, and I was being pawed and clawed at to boot. I figured it was worth a try. Sometimes there isn’t a perfect time, you just have to try it.

Some nights I actually drove him around to get him to sleep then transferred him into the cot, asleep.

We moved to a cot first as thought child would feel safer than in toddler bed after cosleeping...