To ask for help here, am losing my mind

[Thisisfuckingawful]

I cannot go on like this anymore, I am going insane.

I have not had more than 3 hours of broken sleep a night for 3 months. DD2 7mo is hyperactive. She is awake for hours every night and is manic, arms and legs flailing. If we pick her up she smiles, chatters, grabs our face. If we leave her she cries. She wants to play all night.

If we cosleep she grabs at my face and clothes for hours. If I try to feed her she bites me. She lies in her cot and shakes her head frantically from side to side, like she is trying to keep herself awake. Tonight the head shaking was so bad I thought she was going mad. She keeps this up for hours at a time, she rarely sleeps for more than an hour.

It is taking it's toll on the whole family. I am a different person. I'm so angry all the time, I swear at DH and we argue constantly. My marriage is falling apart. Dd1 is 3yo and her behaviour has got so much worse because i'm so miserable. I don't know what to do. I've just made dh sleep on the sofa and dd2 is playing with a toy on the bed.

Please please help

OP - at what age did she start the head shaking? Can be sign of ear infection. Has she always done it or is it new thing?

Are you within easy reach of London OP?

I used to take my DS to the Children's Osteopathy Clinic. It is a charity and donation only.

I am very non-woo and I think it did wonders for him (different issues).

They used to be in Farringdon but they have moved further out now. I will check for you if it is a possiblity.

I dont know how to help other than repeating what others have said,

Sleep whenever and whereever you can. 20 mins on the sofa does wonders.
This WILL pass.

I feel for you OP. You are not going mad and you are coping much better than you think you are.

www.occ.uk.com/index.php

Just incase it is an option

OP show your DH thus thread so he can see the suggestions and the impact of sleep deprivation not just on you but on others too.

He can also see that you're concerned about the impact this has on your relationship so he knows that you're trying to make things better with him and not just for your baby.

Massive sympathy it is awful. Is there noone around that can help through this phase to give you a break?

Just reading back through posts.

duvetday thanks, have gone through your list and am making a plan:

1. DH will sleep on sofa tonight (I owe him a good nights sleep, I know I've had it much worse and you probably think I'm mad but he is honestly brilliant and does whatever he can to help, I have been a complete cow to live with). I will go to bed with DD2 at 7pm and not leave the room. I will sleep on sofa tomorrow night and DD2 will have expressed milk overnight from DH. Will carry on until we have both had a catch up of sleep.

2. will record sleep from tomorrow. Last night/ this morning was a disaster and can't remember much of it

3. have suspected tongue tie might be causing feeding probs but have seen GP/ HV and a very good lactation consultant who think it is her nature rather than anything medical. She had TT snipped at 10 days but have since found out that it was not done properly. But she slept brilliantly from birth until 4 months old, when the hyperactivity started and it got worse from then. So I'm inclined to think not something medical

4. am getting copy of 'No cry sleep' and will also look at routines to try and sort one out from next week. Will also move her into her own room. She is in with us as we had a water leak in nursery that we have not had time/ energy/ money to sort - leak fixed so will give room thorough clean. Will mould around ceiling be a problem? It needs re-painting but I really can't face that right now

bringmesunshine you have my sympathy too, yes this is completely shit! Did the hyperactivity stop when you stopped feeding at night?

I'm so confused about bfeeding. I night weaned DD1 but she was having loads of milk during the day and was comfort feeding at night. DD2 is not interested in milk, so if I night wean she WILL NOT have any milk at all. Honestly I have tried everything to get her to have milk in the day. Even before food she refused milk for over 13 hours during the day. She will not be held in any kind of feeding position for boob or bottle, she cranes her head around, sits up, grabs everything. She is manic. I could probably night wean her quite easily, but sometimes it does help her get back to sleep. Also she needs milk for nutrition until 1 surely? I can't replace the complex nutrients and calories from milk, breast or formula, even with a good diet.

Also bfeeding is really important to me, I know a lot of you won't understand and think I'm mad but its much more than feeding to me. It is comfort, warmth, security, bonding, closeness, one-on-one time, plus the health benefits are endless. I am not prepared to give it up unless I am sure it is the reason for the night wakings, and I'm really not sure it is. She hardly ever falls asleep on the boob. Does anyone understand what I mean or have I really lost the plot now?

She is incredibly happy during the day, she NEVER cried for milk even as a newborn (which I know is not normal, but I used to read her hunger cues and pre-empt feeds, she also had a huge capacity for milk and so did not feed very often). She rarely cries (except at night when we leave her, and that only started recently as I became more 'strict' about rushing to her when she was asleep)

Am feeling very muddled

Poor, poor you.

DS1 did the manic playing thing, including the shaky head. He sort of outgrew it as he weaned, and it stopped altogether at around 10 months. He's now 4, and shaking his head from side to side to self-soothe. But I'd still take your DD to the GP.

DS2 did the milk refusal thing. I too had to feed him asleep. It really is a million times easier with bottles because they get the milk in a more passive way IYSWIM. He stopped feeding from my breasts altogether at 16 weeks, so I expressed every bloody feed until he got to 26 weeks when I happily switched him to formula.

dreaming I do think she is overtired. Hoping a new routine will help

How do you get a routine to work when you have an older child? DD1, fortunately, is a great sleeper but needs lots of sleep. She sleeps 6.30pm until 7.30am. I don't want to change her routine but if I don't, then how do I avoid doing 2 breakfasts/ baths/ bedtimes etc?

Where in a babies routine is there time for toddler activities? With all the naps and feeding I have no time to leave the house. How do you all manage?

bumbley am borrowing copy of 'no cry sleep'. I am not going to try CIO, I have read too much about the psychological impacts. I agree there is a problem and I need to figure out what it is.

I think I will get her ears checked, I don't think its an ear infection as she doesn't seem unwell, but I should rule it out. She never makes a fuss even when she has been ill in the past, she is so good natured when I'm not trying to get her to sleep!

OP I feel for you I really do. I don't have much more to add but wanted to let you know that all of my children (I have 3 very healthy kids 9, 7 and 3) weaned themselves from milk all before 7 months. I know some will find that hard to believe but it's true and none of them have suffered due to this. None of my kids had milk from around the 6.5 month mark. The first two were FF and my third was BF. I too was worried about the health implications but they were fine. I understand when you say that BF is important to you, but if it happens that your LO stops with milk, it's not the end of the world. Hugs to you x

ohdoadmit we are in the north west. I took DD1 to OCC when they had one open up here.

Does anyone know any good cranial osteopaths in the NW?

Hi, I haven't done toddler + baby which is a really tough one. I had one at school + baby and found sling invaluable as meant could do school run etc. If you are knackered you could just go round block to break up day at home then back. Do you have a babycarrier? You can have my lifesaving one if you need one, we're not using it. I managed to carry my son til 1+ on my front & he just slept in there whenever.

I hope you & DH get a bit of sleep in the bank over next few days.

You must seek professional help. I to am not an advocate of controlled cryig but... You need to break the feed all night none in the day routine. Get help and advice from your doctor and contact the la leech league as they will help with breastfeeding advice

Get help and advice - don't suffer on your own x

It is fucking awful :( but you have a plan in place now, I hope it helps!

I understand what you mean about BF being important to you. TBH, I don't think the number of night feeds is really excessive, it sounds like the problem is her staying awake after. I don't have any answers for you, just sympathy as I wouldn't want to do CC/CIO either, but with just one child I can just go with the flow. Don't feel bad for not wanting to do formula/CIO!

I think duvetdayplease makes some great points there. You definitely need to get some sleep into you, so that you can cope with dealing with your DD. Sleep deprivation is truly awful, & I really feel for you.

From reading your posts, I do think that it sounds like your DD is MAJORLY overtired. At 7 months old, you LO needs naps in the day & if she isn't having any at all, this will make her totally wired.

The head shaking you describe, is something my DS does when he is very very tired. He will do it downstairs, & his eyes roll in his head. And he does it sometimes when we lay him down in his cot. And yes it is fast & a bit freaky looking. Its his way of settling herself to sleep & I think its a bit of a comfort to him, a rhythmic movement.

So IIWM I would work on establishing some regular daytime naps, at least one of which should be at home in the cot (not in pushchair, car, sling) asap. At her age she ideally needs 2 naps & around 3hrs day sleep. Try putting her down after approx 3hrs & see if she will settle for a nap.

Secondly - why doesn't she have milk in the day? Does she have any solids & if so how much? Do you think she could be filling up on milk at night so she isn't hungry in the day? Are you BF or FF? IIWM I would start to gradually shorten the amount of time she feeds (if BF) or drop one feed at a time & find an alternative way to settle here eg CC or PUPD. If FF you can reduce the amount of milk given at each feed by diluting with water or drop one at a time & settle an alternative way. The more the NFs reduce the more she will have in the day.

Once the NF's are gone (though some LO's do still have 1 NF right up to 9 months - depends when solids are fully established) then I think like PP's have said, you need to teach her the rules - i.e. that night time is for sleeping. And this means no interaction from you. You can go to her if she is crying, comfort her, settle her back to bed using your chosen sleep training method, but do not interact.

This is going to be a hard few weeks for you & I hope you & DH have got the strength to get through it. I think if you can sit down together & make some tough decisions about how to handle the situation & then follow them through with consistency & patience, you will see some improvements very quickly.

(((hugs)))

Wow, I had practically the same problem with my dd, she was my first so I didn't have a toddler to cope with as well. You have my deepest sympathy, sleep deprivation almost ruined my life.

At 6mo dd started head shaking to keep herself awake, by 9mo she would hit herself in the face, rip out her hair, basically do anything to keep going.

Giving up breast feeding at 18mo made a difference, but she really only started sleeping for more than 6 hours at a time when she was 3. The No Cry Sleep Solution helped allot.

Before this we tried every sleep training method there was including cc. Nothing worked and even the sleep specialist we saw said our dd had greater issues.

Food was also a nightmare. Dd wouldn't eat solids till she was 13 months, we got her to take a cup of warm milk by putting baby Einstein on the tv.

Sorry this all sounds a bit depressing but I just thought I'd give you some background.

When ds was born I felt like he was following the same eating / sleeping pattern so I came on here to ask. The wonderful MN diagnosed him with reflux, I went to the doctor and was prescribed gaviscon. The difference was huge straight away, he slept through really well. At 6 mo I stopped the gaviscon on the doctors advice as he was eating solids really well. By 7mo he was awake all night again, so we went back on the gaviscon. Then at 20mo he started waking and screaming so we got sent to special doctor.

This doctor was a gastric specialist, he put ds on omniprazol which worked perfectly.

While I was there I asked about Dd saying that I think she'd had similar but seemed to be better as she's got older. Doc said that reflux is really common in young babies and kids. It's one of those things that people often think their child is just a bad sleeper and they grow out of it. In reality these kids have reflux and are not able to say its uncomfortable and they want some company.

In my dd's case, she never learned about sleeping properly so she still has to be hugged to sleep and gets up at 6am every day no matter what her bedtime.

So after that massive rant. Basically I recommend getting some baby gaviscon and giving it a go for a week. If it helps then you could try and trace the source of the problem, maybe wheat or dairy sensitive but not intolerant.

Good luck.

OP you have my sympathy. DD is 5mo and very prone to overstimulation & overtiredness so is a difficult sleeper, some of your thread sounds very familiar although it sounds like you have a worse case still on your hands. I think DD probably spent the first 16 wks of her life permanently overtired but I just didn't recognise it for a long time. Now I feel like I spend most of my day just trying to get her to take a couple of naps as this makes the night time so much easier than it was. So my day can consist of 2 or more hours of walking with her in the buggy just to try and get her to take 2 30 min naps. But it really is worth it.

DD also does the headshake thing, I found it really frightening at first but it seems to be her way of trying to settle herself. It doesn't always work so sometimes we have had up to an hour of violent headshaking interspersed (sp?) with periods of crying. The headshaking is definitely worse the more overtired she is. There's not a lot I can do about it. It completely rules out cosleeping.

I might get flamed for this, but we did CC at 4 months. I was at the end of my tether and it saved my sanity. It certainly hasn't been a magic fix but it has improved things at least 3 fold. I never thought I would do CC and I hated every second but I'm glad I did it.

Keeping a sleep diary is a great recommendation and something I wished I had done much earlier. It started to show me how much sleep DD really needed (A LOT more than I thought, and at least twice as much as she generally got). We still have no routine (soooo jealous of the mums in the village who do) but the "nap book" has helped me understand the very subtle cues that I was missing so now at least I usually know when she's tired. She has a habit of just going straight through the point of being tired to hyper so fast that it's very easy to miss. "Helpful" people try to tell me she's not tired when I'm trying to get an obviously hyper DD to sleep (which isn't easy) but now I know that hyper = overtired I persevere and it pays off about two thirds of the time I reckon.

Sorry I have no advice or experience on the feeding issue.
I feel for you and hope you have some improvement soon.

GF contented baby with toddler routine, 6-9months:
7am baby awake, nappy change, feed from both sides followed by breakfast. stay awake for 2hrs.

8am encourage baby to have a kick about, wash and dress baby, encourage toddler to wash and dress themselves
9:15/9:30 settle (drowsy!!) baby in sleeping bag in the dark with the door shut no later than 9:30am for a 30min sleep. (my 11month old has started struggling to settle for this one so i see it as quiet time and keep trying to get him settled till 10am)
10am open curtains, baby must be fully awake now regardless of how long they slept. encourage baby to play or go out. snack time for toddler (i offer my baby a milk feed or small snack as well).
11:45 lunch for baby. encourage baby to have some finger food while you have lunch with your toddler. gradually push baby's lunch forward till they can eat at the same time as you and your toddler.
12:20 (or around 12 if baby hasn't slept well/at all in the morning) close curtains and settle baby in the dark with the door shut no later than 12:30 for a nap of no longer than 2hrs. toddler can have a nap or quiet time.
2:30 baby must be awake and feeding no later than 2:30, regardless of how long they slept. open curtains to allow them to wake up naturally. feed then/and snack time for toddler.

do not feed baby after 3:15 as it will put them off their next feed.
4:15 change baby's nappy and offer a drink of water(not sure about this point, doesn't fit in to my schedule! maybe the water is to keep them going till 5pm?)
5pm tea time for your toddler (mine eat after baby at 5:30). baby should have most of it's solids before being offered a drink. keep the drink to a minimum so they still get a good milk feed at bedtime.
6pm bathtime for baby and toddler (my baby at 6pm while my toddler reads/plays next door then toddler in the bath when dh gets in or baby is in bed or quickly while baby plays before i put him to bed)
6:30 baby must be feeding no later than 6:30 while toddler has a drink of milk. dim the lights and sit baby in a chair for 10mins while you read them a bedtime story.
7pm settle drowsy baby no later than 7pm. then settle your toddler in her bed.

my baby wasn't having enough solids to drop the dream feed at 10pm till 9months, and went through a growth spurt just before then when he was feeding loads over night. if baby sleeps till near 8am in the morning then it will not need a morning nap so will need an earlier lunch and lunchtime nap.
baby needs 500-600ml (18-20oz) milk a day usually divided between 3 milk feeds and dairy in food

don't get too hung up on the times, the main idea is a short morning nap and a long lunchtime nap.

Really wishing you luck - it's miserable. Just to say that you needn't worry too much about milk, as long as they're getting their calcium somehow. Yoghurt and cheese have more than milk. My excellent HVs told me that breastfed babies will rarely drink large amounts of cows milk or formula. Not end of world. Cheese sauce is great too!

My two were difficult (not comparable) and didn't sleep through until I did CC. DD was sorted in two nights and is now a fab sleeper. DS is more problematic and I think I have to sort out his early rising as I'm starting to get grumpy...

Lots of and sympathy.

I am so sorry you are having such a hard time! I would say definitely do not curtail day time naps, it sounds like over tiredness to me. I would even maybe try and slip in a cat nap early evening and a late bedtime for a while. The maybe she would feed in the evenings and you could cut out night feeds with out worrying so much about nutrition.

My DD started to slip into feeding more at night than in the day but I did night wean and she then fed better in the day but as yours is not interested in milk I dont know how that would work. Could you aim for a really good feed in the dark first thing in the morning and at bedtime then whatever you can get down her via breast or cup mid afternoon? I hate to undermine breast feeding but DD would always take a bottle in the day even when she was too distracted to BF. But then again its probably silly to introduce a bottle now when you would have to get rid of bottles at a year anyway.

I would probably set a time in the night in which I wouldn't feed maybe between midnight and 6am or something and offer comfort by rubbing her back and holding her hand and if necessary water in a sippy cup or bottle and when those hours are cracked inch it back until she is sleeping and settled all night. i think her lack of interest in milk could be an advantage in that respect as long as she had those good feeds in the evening and morning in the dark. You can sleep train without being cruel and it doesnt have to take months.

Not had chance to catch up on posts. will read properly tomorrow,, off to bed soon. It definitely sounds like over tired. I'll post back to let you know how tonight goes. I have never dreaded bedtime so much in my life.

Thisis - if you are in the NW then you might be covered by MilkMatters, an org that do bfing support and help to mothers/families. The article I linked to about Duracell Bunny Babies is by Analytical Armadillo aka Charlotte Young who is one of the women behind MilkMatters so they should be able to help (they also have a lot of experience with TT so might be able to advise about that too).

Not had chance to catch up on posts. will read properly tomorrow,, off to bed soon. It definitely sounds like over tired. I'll post back to let you know how tonight goes. I have never dreaded bedtime so much in my life.