To give up my career because baby will not sleep?

[GingerMaman]

DD at 10 months and wakes up every hour at night and has been doing so since 4 months. Can't find a cause and sleep training not working.

I'm due back to work part time (which is a paid training type of work), and have a place for her at nursery, but there is no way I'll be able to focus or concentrate on such broken sleep.

AIBU to call it quits on the career front?

She has allergies

40% of babies can't digest cows milk. I know quite a lot of parents who have dropped milk as a drink, including all traces in stuff like bread, and had almost miraculous results with sleep and clinginess. It sounds like you're breastfeeding (you mentioned her rejecting formula?) so you need to cut it from your diet as well.

It could of course be something else. But that's the one that sprang immediately to my mind from reading your posts

If she has allergies then that is 99% the most likely cause of her terrible sleep.

Sort those out then try gentle sleep training.

Also have you ruled out tongue tie?

"40% of babies can't digest cows milk"

40% of all babies are lactose intolerant? Huh?

Where do you get that figure from? I'd be interested to learn about this study that must have tested large samples of babies from around the world for lactose intolerance.

purple not sure those stats are right.

Depends on how much you like you career. On the sleep side my DS was exactly like that, co-sleeping was a necessity as that was the only way I got at least some sleep. I had a consultation with Andrea Grace sleep trainer for £250 and within three days he had stopped feeding to sleep every hour and was in his own cot sleeping for good long stretches over night.

I'd like to say that was how it continued but tbh that last until we went on holiday/ he was ill/ he was teething all in quick succession and we were soon back to co-sleeping most of the night albeit with an evening break this time when he was in the cot for at least three hours in the evening.

I guess what I am trying to say is that some lifestyles are not compatible with sleeping babies and some babies are not great sleepers no matter what you try!! People reassure me he will sleep eventually. Luckily in terms of work I am freelance and don't have to get up and go to an office every day.

Ps the consultation and move to cot was at 11 months and it did work for a few months!

Tongue and lip tie has been treated and not re-grown, and I am dairy and soya free too. I will speak to the dietician and see if some other food is causing a problem.

Freelance, I will look up Andrea grace, thanks

Something a French friend passed on, unfortunately my French isn't up to finding the accuracy They have different guidelines over there, including no cows milk as a drink until age 3 because of how the proteins are broken down - in formula, yoghurt etc the molecule chains aren't as long? It's not an intolerance, just an immature digestive system thing.

It's anecdata but I thought it might be worth a try?

X post.

Again anecdote but eggs and tomatoes have been culprits for other friends...

Purple, thanks, her diet is free from dairy, egg, soya and tomato (or any other acidic fruit).

Can you consult a sleep trainer like Andrea grace? It won't last forever. My two didn't sleep and I worked. It was hard but it passes.

"Something a French friend passed on"

Hearsay, in other words. You really shouldn't believe everything you hear, especially from people who have no medical background.

"unfortunately my French isn't up to finding the accuracy They have different guidelines over there"

Well, I'm fluent in French and have had two DC in France. And have never heard of this "40% of babies are lactose intolerant" thing your friend told you as fact.

In France, babies/children are advised to drink "growth milk" (lait de croissance) which is fortified with iron as well as various vitamins like Vit A & Vit D until the age of 3. This has nothing to do with 40% of babies being unable to digest cow's milk, as you claimed.

I sympathise loads - my DS did the same from 4-9 months. We used Andrea Grace at 6 months but he flunmoxed even her...

He very suddenly started sleeping better around the 10-month mark without us really doing anything. He never self-settled as a baby - I bf him to sleep until he was nearly 3, though we didn't really co-sleep. Once I stopped bf we just cuddled him to sleep in his own bed. He falls asleep really quickly now at 3.5 and mostly sleeps through.

I went back to work when he was 13 months (started a new job, actually) and we went through various periods of cruddy sleep - I nightweaned at 18 months using Jay Gordon, which worked almost instantly (previous attempts failed - he obviously wasn't ready).

I can honestly say that going into work on no sleep is infinitely easier than staying at home with a clingy, demanding baby or toddler (my DS is hard work, like your DD). I thought I'd never cope, but I did - in fact, work was my saviour. The 4-8 month bit was awful, and I thought I'd go mad. I had PND and was obsessed with his sleep. Once I went back to work, survival mode kicked in.

No tips really, just thought I'd say I've been there. DS never responded to sleep training - some kids just don't.

My dd's tongue tie was snipped but it still gave her grief. She got dreadful wind i.e. taking down air so I had to make sure I winded after every single feed even if I thought there was no burp. There would be! Dd was like this long past 1.

My two also were sensitive to green veg especially peas and broccoli.

I found that giving a teaspoon of peppermint tea helped them a bit (after their dinner).

I also kept solids to a minimum. Neither of them went onto three meals until about 9/10 months.

Please don't give up your career. you will always, always regret it I am sure. you have to sort this out. 2 nights trying sleep training is just not enough. you have to give it at least a week. are you still co-sleeping? look this is so clearly not working for you that you have to do something radical and different to sort it out. babies are very needy and they have to come first. but you have needs too and if yours aren't attended to as well then how can this be good for the baby? Call me old fashioned, selfish or an unfit mother but I do honestly believe there is a point where you have to say no I am not always giving this baby what it wants. I am going to put what I want first. sleep for you is essential. please go and get as much help from dieticians, doctors, sleep trainers as you can and get this sorted. I am not a fan of co-sleeping, so I will just keep my views to myself on that. good luck.

OP, I was in your shoes not so long ago - allergic baby, no sleep, back to work, all very difficult. We did night wean DD at age one, and moved her into her own room, but unfortunately that did not stop her waking every 2-3 hours all through the night. Even with rock solid daytime / bedtime routines, and allergy free diet. Sleep training was utterly ineffective, and we did give it a good go a number of times from about age 1 to 20 months. My baby would stand in her cot and cry and get herself so worked up that she took even longer to settle. Bedtime would last from 7-10 and then she'd do 2-3 hours and wake again, for more hysterical crying, and then another 2 hours sleep. All through the fucking night.

We couldn't really continue with that so just committed managing it night by night and riding the mofo out. Even though own room / night weaning didn't result in longer periods of sleep what it did do was enable DH to get up and tend to DD at night. We managed by sleeping in shifts, taking turns getting up, going to bed early, giving each other weekend lie ins, co sleeping part of the night when necessary.

By 18 months she started doing a more reliable 4-6 hour stretch and maybe only waking 2-3 times a night. And then, at around 23 months it was like some switch was flipped. She started asking to get in her cot at bedtime, self setting with no fuss, and then sleeping a solid 12 hours.

I only got through it with support from DH. Would have gone insane otherwise. Can you get your partner on board?

I found that we could sleep train and continue to co-sleep. We did it when ds was 14 months old, I think 10 months night be too young to do what we did as it was bassed around explaining to ds that "the boobies are allgone until the morning" it only took one night of screaming ( only for an hour) and then he stopped asking for feeds at night.

He sleeps 5.30-5 ( far too early, the next step is trying to move his routine later) he occasionally wakes once for a cuddle.

I think co-sleeping helped him adjust to the new rules.

Previously he was feeding for hours in the night and I recently found out I was pregnant and I just couldn't do the night waking and night feeds.

Thanks everyone for your advice and support. I obviously need to do something, and will come back and re-read this after seeing the dietician.

Use a sleep expert - it transformed my life. Have a look at the millpond sleep clinic

Yes yes yes to both dietician and sleep clinic advice.

Try looking at it this way too: if you give up your career, that in itself isn't going to change anything: you'll still have an unhappy unsettled tired baby. Because I can't see how a child waking hourly and crying can be happy. And in fact you may have less impetus to really crack the problem if you give up your career and almost feel you have to accept a baby being this miserable. Plus you'd never get any respite from a demanding baby.

With the right input from specialists this could be turned around quite rapidly- I've known parents with really poor sleepers or with children with multiple allergies and its astonishing what can happen once the problem is properly identified

Good luck with the dietician op, hope your experience is better than mine was. We saw one when Dd was 7 months and what a waste of time. The advice was to stop bf - babies don't need it after 6 months apparently - offer only water at night, leave Dd to cry in her cot "for a few hours if necessary". Useless. Things were much better after we had allergy testing done at 14 months and knew what we were dealing with - egg, milk, soy and nut allergies. But had
Moved abroad by that time and saw private pediatric allergy specialist. I don't think NHS allergy testing is available until age 2. That's what I was told anyway. Good luck with it!

Fwiw even strict allergy free diet did not help Dd sleep, but you have to try all these things, if only to rule causes out.

Ginger
My DC3 was just like this. CMP allergic, waking every hour at one year.

I went and begged my supervisor for more time off. Had another year as parental leave and in that time I paid for 1 day of childcare per week and studied and passed a major professional exam. So I had something to show for the extra time IYSWIM. Even if out of pocket with all that childcare it was so worth it.

If I'd had to go back at a year I would have given up; it would have broken me.

Now DC3 is nearly 4, my career is going from strength to strength and I'm so grateful for that extra time at home.

He's just started sleeping through the night!

Is extra time off an option for you? Parental leave or career break?

Oh yes, I looked at Millpond but in the end didn't use it. Sounds good. Money in the long term worth if if you think of salary, NI contributions, passion etc!

Don't give up work if you enjoy it!