To ask how to get this bloody child to sleep for longer??!!

[ColdFeetWarmHeart]

Or how I cope with sleep deprivation?!!!

I'm at my wits end. DD2 does not sleep through the night. A good night is being woken 3 times. A bad night is waking every 60-90 minutes.

She went to sleep just after 7 tonight. Already woken 3 times since. Had to feed her (she's still on breast) - attempted rocking but she started getting in a state, and if she gets too in a tizz it will take me hours to settle her to the point I can't even give her to DH for 5 mins so I can pee!!

I'm seriously so tired. I want to scream my head off and sob my eyes out I'm so tired. My marriage is greatly strained at the moment, and I'm extremely irritable with no patience.

DD2 won't take a dummy and she won't drink milk from a bottle. During the day she falls asleep feeding, in the car or in the pram. It's very rare she falls asleep on her own.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not expecting miracles like her suddenly sleeping for 10 hrs straight, but 4hrs at a time would be heaven right now!!

Sorry, does she only sleep less than one hour a day?!

What's your bed time routine like? Does she fall asleep on you or on the breast and then you transfer her asleep or very drowsy? If so, she will need that to get back to sleep in the night. Here is what I suggest:

-bed time 4 hours after last nap (or, conversely, end the last nap 4 hours before bedtime) to build up enough sleepiness for bedtime

-a belly full of porridge before bedtime. This is to make her feel sleepy for bed

-do the final breastfeed and keep her awake, then do another one or two parts of the bedtime routine (song, story, teeth, whatever) so that there's a decent separation between feed and sleep

-See if you can put her awake in the cot all full, milked-up, and tired from being awake for 4 hours and soothe her off to sleep with back rubbing, bum jiggling, patting, something like that. Pick her up and cuddle if she gets upset. Be patient, this could take 45 mins, an hour... If it's much longer than that then I would hold her to sleep and then put her down and rub/pat/jiggle the rest of the way to sleep.

In the night, wait a few mins to see if the crying is really urgent sounding, or if she is just crying out while mostly asleep and will resettle herself.

This might take a while to work, as it doesn't involve a lot of force, you're really just kind of setting the scene and helping her to settle down to sleep in the cot at the start of the night so that this shapes the rest of the night.

If she cries in the night you go to her, if the crying is real hard crying. That means she is awake and she needs you. Otherwise, just give it a few minutes each time.

If you succeed with settling her off to sleep like this, try the same technique when she wakes in the night for at least one of the wakeups. Keep it very quiet, no talking or lights, just the rubbing/patting etc and shushing if you've been doing that. If it doesn't work right away, just feed as normal and keep trying for the rest of the wakeups.

Good luck, hang in there. This first year is one tough gig and sleep deprivation is a special sort of hell. Well done for getting through it so far, I really hope it improves.

As other posters have commented, this is a hard time for sleep anyway at the 8-10 month mark, so it could get a bit better on its own.

Yeah she’s tired. Get some naps in. Walk her around in the pram if needed, or stay in the garden with your older child while baby sleeps in the car (doors open).

imsconequeen, what technique did you use? I see you didn't use CC

Definitely get a routine in. I'm not a huge one for routine all the time but in your case I definitely would. 30-60 min am nap and 2-2.5 hour pm nap.
I would recommend slowly transitioning to being Put down awake. Tap of the bum and shwshing.

My son was a terrible sleeper until about 13 months. He would wake 3-4 times a night and used to have to feed him to sleep. Then, suddenly one night he slept through and didn’t want feeding. He’s done it ever since. So hang on in there!

Daytime naps vary, but yes, it's not unusual for her to sleep for less than an hour total during the day. Today I think it was about an hour am and 20 mins pm. The only time her daytime naps are longer than 1hr is if she sleeps on someone.

That isn't a lot of napping, but apparently at this age the range of required sleep is 13-15 hours in 24, so at least she's getting just about the minimum

I feel for you OP

Have you considered that she may have silent reflux? How is she in herself other than not sleeping enough..does she feed well, is generally happy, is gaining weight properly? You mentioned that she tends to fall asleep in car seat or pram all of which have a slight incline that helps babies with reflux. DS had severe reflux and found it difficult to sleep properly for longer durations.

It might also be excess wind which is waking her up at night..so maybe watch out for that.

I know it can be very tiring so hugs and best of luck. They do grow out of it but at times ot seems that the day will never come.

Is she getting enough solids? I agree completely with the sleep routines suggested, but could she be constantly waking because she is hungry?

Agree with the PPs, sort the day first then the night will be better. Also stop feeding her to sleep. Babies wake regularly (we all do) and if they have had a "prop" to go to sleep with that is missing when they wake, they cry. I researched this in great detail when my DD did the same as yours waking about 6 times a night - for a dummy, not the breast, so at least DH could take a turn, but I feel your pain. We took the dummy away and did gentle sleep training. Not CC - I stayed with her the whole time, a bit of pick up put down (is that still a thing? My DD is 11), calming her down, patting, letting her get her frustrations out. Two nights of high drama (two hours to get her to sleep then two hours in th e middle of the night) then she slept through. She might not sleep through as youre BF but try to put her down awake. And sort the naps first - it's easier for you too as you won't be as knackered (ish).

I breastfeed mine to sleep for all naps and at night and she sleeps through 11-12 hours with self settling so don’t beat yourself up about feeding to sleep, it hasn’t destroyed my daughter’s ability to self settle during night, nor for others I know. My group all has different amounts of sleep per baby, I think it’s just one of those things that has to click developmentally? Mine slept through from about 3/4 months so before introduced solids. Maybe for that reason I wouldn’t go for the bowlful of porridge before bed suggestion - i also have 9 month old and try to offer her evening meal at least an hour before bed, preferably a bit longer. that’s a normal evening meal, the same as us with no sugar or salt added, for her to feed herself and then give her time to digest with bath, book and cuddled up for bf to sleep. I would think the porridge thing would actually disturb sleep the way it does with late heavy meals for adults and also, but secondary to sleep as so crucial to your wellbeing OP so just do whatever works, it doesn’t teach them a normal, eating for appetite approach to food? I wholeheartedly agree with trying to up napping by whatever means possible: driving, walking etc. I think sleep begets sleep and you work on first them getting rest, then work on where that takes place. Hard when you have another child who doesn’t want to drive/walk etc for hours I guess 😬

I fed to sleep too and i don't regret it, she eventually started occasionally sleeping through at 1. I feel you op, i feel you, mine was like this. I accidentally sleep trained a little bit by occasionally (i think 3 or 4 times) just not being able to get up the effort to go in to her in the night. Horrible to leave her crying like that but i just fell back into exhausted sleep. After those incidents she did tend to sleep through till morning. I feel awful i think of her alone and crying like that though so i don't know if I'm recommending sleep training or not!

Also what helped was a pillow under the cot mattress, to raise it at one end. She didn't have reflux, i just think it mirrored the elevated position of sleeping on someone.

You have been given some good advice OP. I echo what other have said, both of my DC were very similar at that age, esp DS2. Like you I have eldest at school and once I established a routine of daytime naps the nighttime improved. I used to do morning nap 2 hours after wake up and afternoon nap after lunch and before school pick up. I hope it helps and things improve soon.

That's the age mine went down to one nap & were busy trying to learn to crawl for half the night...
Bedsharing saved my life - if you cant feed lying down start practising!
For your tiredness - drink loads of water, it really helps

We struggled a lot with sleep at that age. DS is 11 months and we're are seeing some improvements, there is a sleep regression at 8-10 months. Check out the baby sleep site for an idea of ideal naps, I spent a week not going to groups etched and focusing on naps. He now napping for about 2.5 hours over 2 naps at 9 and 1. This has really helped nighttime sleep.

I couldn't cope anymore when DS was 7 months. He was waking for hours at night and rocking/feeding to sleep had stopped working. So I did sleep training and yes it was cc!
After the first night he cracked it and the next day for naps too.
He is so much happier and so am I.

I’d suggest gentle sleep training. We had this and some gentle sleep training (Andrea Grace) saved our sanity. It isn’t for everyone and many babies sleep through without it, but ours wouldn’t, and now sleeps through and occasionally wakes up once for a night feed (I think because it’s hot!).
The thing she said that made a lot of sense for us is that baby’s digestive systems need to rest at this age, so sleeping longer stretches at night is not just for our benefif but also for baby’s.

I sleep-trained and bottle-trained my DD at 6 months. It’s not easy and isn’t for everyone but one week later everyone was happier and DD came on in leaps and bounds as she was rested.

Hi OP, my daughter was exactly the same and I did CC. Within 2 nights she slept through the day and napped properly in her cot. Would recommend! The crying during sleep training was really quite minimal and has been far less than the crying from not being able to sleep/disaster naps/night wake ups we would have had in the few months since if I had not done the training! Good luck, my dd is 9 months old as well and I appreciate that the sleep deprivation starts to get really crap around this point

*slept through the night

We had this. It was having an extremely detrimental impact on everyone. Tried everything but the only thing that worked was CC

I went back to work when ds1 was nine months and in the end had to night wean, and do a basic version of CC. My DH frequently worked into the night, and I needed sleep.
I just went cold turkey in the feeding, and put him down to sleep, went in every minute and lay down, shush pat, until he fell asleep.
Was hell on earth. But after four days, he started sleeping longer. Still woke in the night, but twice, for cuddles.

I echo suggestions to sleep train. It is worse for your baby to have an insane sleep deprived mother, than to cry a bit for a few days while she gets to grips with it. I also BF and this is what I did with my children:

Bath + PJs
Feed in my bedroom - lights on
Move into baby's room - dim lights
Put on sleeping bag
Story + song
Bed

The idea is to break the link between BF and sleep, and replace it with a different routine. So eventually baby links the sleeping bag/story/song with sleep and not the breast.

Then controlled cry - check back after 3/5/8/10/15 min etc with a pat or a quick cuddle if crying very very hard.

I don't really have any advice but I'm in an identical situation with my nearly 9 month dd and the sleep deprivation is an absolute killer. I just wanted to let you know you aren't alone.