to leave my dd2 to cry herself to sleep

[igetmorelovefromthecat]

She is fed, she is changed, there is nothing wrong with her. She just wants me to lie next to her with my nipple in her mouth all night I've had enough of it.

She is 7.5 months old. I haven't had a decent night's sleep for 15 months (crap pg).

She is bawling her head off upstairs. I feel really crap but I can't take it anymore. She wakes up at least 10 times a night and I have had enough.

I feel really evil though.

Loads of people will probably tell you you are wrong. I'm not one of them. SHe is clean, fed, not thirsty, not in pain. She needs to sleep, and so do you. YANBU. I bet you won't have to do it tomorrow (or at worst, Sunday).

give her a dummy?

YABU. Go and get her. She's still really little.

Haven't got any dummies...tried one when she was very small but she wouldn't take it.

Only left her for a couple of minutes and kept going on, just been up because she was going really mental and stroked her head for a while which calmed her down, now she is doing low level grizzling.

I don't agree with leaving babies to cry either and I never thought I would but I am going to snap.

*going in

I would try the dummies again then... chances are she will be ok with them now..

YANBU. It is for tonight, because we all have an end point and tomorrow you might feel differently. You also need to have enough sleep to be able to be a mum. There are no hard and fast rules, you will find your own way and one night of being left a little (two minutes the OP said!) will not actually harm her in any way. Trust your instincts.

She is asleep! Less than 2 minutes after I stopped stroking her head.

Thank God for that!

My ds will wake up in about an hour and the not settling, not feeding (just nibbling every now and then), not sleeping for hours will start. Tonight is my first night of cc.

I am going to offer him his bottle when he wakes and that is all he is getting because I'm not convinced he needs it but I'm scared of starving him! I will let him drink what he wants for the first feed then he is going into his cot and it's cc from then on. Needless to say I'm dreading it!

Glad your lo is asleep now xx

Would you like to be left to cry yourself to sleep tonight? Even if you were warm, clean and fed? I wouldn't.

How old is your ds Shiny?

He's 7 months, must be something in the air :o he used to be so good at sleeping too, although he has never slept more than 6 hours in one go he used to go straight back to sleep.

It's funny but before I fully appreciated the torment that not enough sleep can cause I vowed I would never use CC, ds would co-sleep and eat when he wanted and everything would be great.

However the reality is that co-sleeping with ds means I sleep on about 2 inches of mattress, being constantly kicked, pushed and headbutted by ds who likes to wake up at all hours and try to play in our bed (mainly the game is "Lets see if I can climb over mum/dad before they wake up and stop me from falling off the bed for the 8th time tonight") Everytime he moves I wake up and I permanently have a stiff neck or sore back from sleeping in awkward positions.

I'd just like to add that he hasn't yet managed to make it off the bed but there have been some close shaves! Hence the strict sleeping in the cot rule being enforced tonight.

oh Georgi, that's not very helpful.

Learning to self-settle is an important life skill for any child to learn. It's not cruelty to help them learn that at an appropriate rate. At 7.5 months they're still working out which sense is which, and pretty much respond to every unsatisfactory sensation with a howl - it doesn't necessarily mean they are howling with misery! Don't interpret a baby's reactions by adult rules.

OP's baby got off within 20 mins, so sounds like a perfect introduction to self settling. maybe she's like my DC who always had to have a cry before nodding off. No cruelty involved, she just didn't like the idea of relinquishing her hold on consciousness.

Wow Shiny your ds sounds EXACTLY like my dd!

She has literally never slept in her cot. But I see tonight as being a bit of a breakthrough - if she can get herself off to sleep in my bed then I don't see why she can't do it in a cot (that will be tomorrow's task!).

The co-sleeping has been lovely (she has always woken several times a night though) but the last few nights she has got to a phase where she will sleep for maybe 4 hours then spend the rest of the night cat-napping, waking for a quick snack that she doesn't even really want, then going back to sleep for 20 minutes, repeat until the alarm goes off. It's torture.

It's making me so ratty and impatient during the day with everything and everyone. My older DD gets snapped at because I am so tired. I don't have the energy to run my business, do things around the house, socialise or anything! Yes in an ideal world I would continue letting her spend all night kicking me and using me as a snack bar but in reality it's just not possible to carry on like this, I am like a zombie and everything is suffering. And I want to start phasing out BF soon so she is going to have to start learning to get herself to sleep because the nipple isn't going to be on offer for much longer.

Good luck with the cc tonight...I found stroking dd's head really soothed her so maybe give that a go with your ds.

It's your baby so not for me to say one way or the other. But as you are asking it makes me think that you aren't comfortable leaving her. Can you cuddle without breast? Maybe she would be ok just having you there. I don't know how you feel about a dummy but it would probably get her off and then you could remove it

She definitely is happier when I am there and I am happy to stay with her so she doesn't feel alone but I am starting to hate being used as a human dummy.

I don't have any issues with dummies, I may well try one again with her and see what happens.

I think if you are at the end of your tether, leave her until you are feeling calm and able to cope.

At about 13 months, and after 2-3 hours of "settling", I just had to walk away one night.

It's all very well talking about attachment etc but if you find yourself gritting your teeth or - even worse, baring them or saying things like FOR GOD'S SAKE, just GO to SLEEP! - and scaring them, then walking away is sometimes a better option.

We did it for two nights. We got some sleep. Then we went back in with him, we stayed with him and stroked his head until he slept, we could be patient again. We never left again, but those two nights, we had to.

Sometimes sleep deprivation is too much.

Thanks :) I completely understand how you feel! I find the constant itchy eyes the worst part of the exhaustion and I have found that recently I haven't had any patience at all with dh or ds but it is easier for dh as he can sleep through anything! The only time he woke up last night was when I shouted at him to grab ds before he fell after he headbutted me in the mouth during an escape attempt and I had to do that breathing thing through the pain and check my teeth and lip were still intact!

OP I truly sympathise and am there with you on long-term sleep deprivation...my last full night's sleep was two Xmases ago (4 yo DS climbs into my bed during the night and DD is teething)! Full sympathy to you! I'm really glad your DD got to sleep so easily tonight.

I am totally against CIO for similar reasons to my being totally against smacking. There's usually a problem that needs identifying and tackling directly, so using the sledgehammer approach may knock it on the head but any underlying problem will still be there. So I don't get why one would use the distressing method given that there are kinder alternatives. Sleep is stressful for parents and babies, but I take the view that as adults we're better equipped to handle the stress.

Practically speaking, I found that using loud white noise (detuned radio) alongside the PUPD approach is the most consistent for my DD. Even when she's poorly or teething I can use it in 'emergencies' (ie when she won't self-soothe) and she settles pretty easily.

Whatever you do, good luck!

YANBU. You know your daughter. She'll get more used to settling herself over time.

Don't do dummies either - know parents that used them, baby drifted off to sleep with it, dummy dropped out of mouth, baby wakes and cries because (s)he is dependent on it and can't go to sleep without it...

Thanks working - I couldn't agree more.

God Shiny - your ds sounds very mobile! Lucky my dd will stay in one place so I don't have to worry about her falling out of bed. Know what you are saying about the eyes, mine constantly feel like they have grit in them. I look and feel like crap. I think I have aged about 10 years since last July!

SpeedyGonzalez - thanks for your post, I really want to find a kind way of getting her to sleep but nothing I have tried works. I am wondering if there is a problem with her, I have been looking into and left a message today for a cranial osteopath as I wonder if there's something not right from birth. I have never tried the white noise but that sounds like it could be worth a go.

Maidbloke - I know what you're saying, I have friends in exactly that situation so they get woken up just as many times as I do to replace the dummy. I guess if I do try that I will have to try to remove it when she has dropped off.