To think that with a bad sleeper it's either cosleep or sleep train?

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

At my wits end, would prefer no bashing (but accept I may get some, I wanted the traffic of AIBU!). My baby will be six months in a couple of days. He has been getting steadily a worse sleeper since around four months, with a couple of periods of brief respite - he wakes up around 6 times a night, with the longest period of sleep between bedtime at 7pm and wake-up at about 10pm (which means it's possible but restrictive for me to get in some sleep then). He then wakes around every 60/90 minutes. I was feeding him back to sleep every time, but that's stopped working and we get long, and very unhappy, awake periods. Things were a bit better when he slept in a Next To Me but he outgrew it (kept waking up hitting the side) and there is no physical way to fit his cotbed alongside our bed - the Next to Me only just fitted.

So, since he outgrew the Next To Me I've been taking him into our bed more and more as this didn't stop the wakings but getting out of bed every time was killing me. This got more frequent over Christmas, when we were staying with family for nearly two weeks and very conscious of him waking up other people, so we were resorting to him sleeping with us earlier and earlier in the night. I've always hated cosleeping - I sleep dreadfully with him in the bed - but was willing to accept this but then on New Years' Day woke up to find I'd pulled the covers, which I'd carefully put below my waist, up over me and over his head in the night and that I was also partially lying on him - he was very deeply asleep so didn't wake instantly when I tried to wake him and that 10 seconds felt like the longest and by far the worst of my life; I was retching with horror in the belief that I had killed him. Writing this now is making me cry. He was fine (though very cross at me shouting at him and shaking him awake!) but I don't want to ever feel like that again, ever in my life. To be very clear : I absolutely know that cosleeping can be very safe and works brilliantly for a lot of people - I'm not at all anti-co sleeping in principle - but I now feel that I never want to do it again and that that is a very hard line for me.

The question is what my alternatives are? If I get up to feed him six times a night I basically don't sleep, and I'm back at work this week (I work mostly from home and DH is now on leave with him, so this isn't a very rough transition for DS; I don't actually think he's noticed so far, though we're only on day two!). There is also what probably adds up to two hours or more of him crying across the night as I keep trying to put him in his cot after he falls asleep feeding, failing, and having to rock him as he cries. It can take six or seven attempts to do this (which is why we gave up on putting him in his cot while staying with other people). There is considerably more crying, and usually total failure, if DH tries to do this without me feeding him first, so him taking over night wakings means more tears and even less sleep for everyone. Part of me wonders whether we should bite the bullet and do a form of sleep training (the only one I'll currently consider is gradual retreat) so at least the crying is, hopefully, 'going somewhere'. Part of me feels bad for considering it. But everyone I know seems to either cosleep or sleep train (or have a magical sleeping baby), and I wonder if I'm being unrealistic to even think it's possible to do neither? AIBU to think that? And what would people do?

@Camenbertsmuggler

My understanding is that the sleep training works or it doesn’t - I know that sounds obvious but those with babies it worked for often are incredulous that it wouldn’t work for some because it was so quick fir them.

The reality is that some babies are inconsolable unless held and it doesn’t work for them.

We had limited success with it, in that the first time we tried CC was when the baby was so tired he was being ridiculous so we popped him down and he was asleep in less than a min. We realised that for our baby if it didn’t work in 2 mins it wasn’t taking.

Then one day we tried to do the return settle stuff and when I went back he’d vomited all over himself from distress so we never did it again and I still can’t shake the guilt I felt and it was 5 years ago.

When did you do it for DS2, barbarianmum? I have wondered if he's still too little - lots of things I've read have said that (and I read some Sarah Ockwell-Smith, which made me want to turn myself in to social services for considering it), but then I've also read that separation anxiety sets in around eight months so doing it between then and a year is a bad idea - he doesn't seem to have any separation anxiety yet. I've read lots of things saying to wait until the baby is over a year, but I just don't see how we can carry on like this until then. Monday is my first day actually in the office (as you can tell from all this posting I'm having an easy first few days because no one else is in until Monday!), and I am worried that it's dangerous and a bit irresponsible for me to do my commute (40 minutes down motorway) in this state.

Have you thought about a toddler size sleepyhead? DD used to use one in her cot but I’d also just put her in it on the floor next to our bed when we were travelling so you’d have him close but not in bed iyswim. Works till there crawling. Also try sending in DH at night. That’s was a real game changer at 6 months as DD was the same about feeding during the day - too distracted and was making up for it at night. But something about it being daddy instead changed the dynamic.

I don’t know you’d find sleep training that successful right now tbh. It tends to work when kids can sleep through but don’t. At six months some kids will have the capacity to do that but not many in reality. That’s why it’s more recommended from 9-12 months onwards at the earliest.

I'm currently co-sleeping with my 6m old and hate it for the same reasons as you, I worry so so much.

I was worse with dd1 though I used to have hallucinations she was down under the quilt next to my toes when she wasn't, when I finally got her out of my bed I used to wake up panicking that I couldn't find her in the bed for months.

We did CC in the end and it worked almost instantly. The first two nights she cried for maybe an hour (with me going in every couple of mins) and then she slept through.

I will do CC at some point soon with this one

W ds2 we first tried at 7mo (when he'd had a month in his own room and it wasnt helping. We'd also tried cosleeping which was what he really wanted, but unfortunately his idea of a good time was to clamp himself to my head (think koala) all night so I couldn't move (or sleep).

With him we found it would work for a while, then he'd get ill or teeth and get out of routine and we'd have to start again. With ds1 on the other hand it took 4 nights and he's been a fabulous sleeper ever since (before he never went for more than 1.5 hours at a stretch).

For us sleep training meant no mum/milk at night - just dad and a bottle of water. So they were never left to cry alone.

Incidentally, we've been trying to do the Pantley thing for a good two months now, and maybe we're shit at it but we're getting nowhere. We had a few days where he would be patted to sleep rather than rocked (he doesn't feed to sleep for bedtime, but feeds back to sleep in the night) but then he started crying when we did that so we went back to rocking. I had this idea that we could transition how he went to sleep with no tears, but I think that might have been a bit of a fantasy...

Oh we tried the No Tears Sleep Solution w ds1 pile of crap.

OP I feel for you, I was in exactly the same situation with DS. He woke up every 45 minutes from 4 months to 7 months, and I kept falling asleep while feeding him and waking in a complete panic that I'd squashed him. Horrible, horrible time.

In the end we did sleep training at 7 months and it worked in 3 nights - 1 bad night, 1 middling night, then slept through.

I'm not sure what the term is for what we did (a while since I did all the reading!) but it was basically: introduce a routine (bath-pjs-milk-story-bed), put him down, sing a song (same one each night), then stay with him, patting him, but not picking him up. Patted, shushed, reassured, kept repeating that it was sleepy time, until he went to sleep (first night took 2 hours...) Did the same when he woke in the night but gave him one night feed - so, set a rule that would feed him at the first wake up past 1am, but all other wake ups got the same reassurance/patting but no pick ups. Had it not worked I would have moved on to going further towards the door/out the door in stages, but didn't have to. I was really not in a mental place to go straight into leaving him to cry at that stage so it felt like a compromise method that I could do (no criticism of parents who do, though). In fact we talked to a sleep consultant and she said that all the methods work so long as you stick to them - the key is less about finding right one for the baby (other than in a few cases where the baby doesn't respond), and more about finding the one you are comfortable with and can stick to seeing through, if you see what I mean.

I'm currently wondering when to try it with my second - she's 3 months which seems too little, but god I wish I'd done it a bit earlier with my first. I think 6 months would be fine - DS was a week shy of 7 months and it worked so well for him (obviously all babies are different, but worth a try)

Good luck, its so hard going back to work on no sleep. If it makes you feel better, we did get to a point where, illness and teething aside, he would go down reliably at 7, and sleep to 6. It was life changing! And then we ruined it by having a second

Option 3 for us was the "lazy parenting" approach - we put the tablet on some baby Youtube Videos and let him watch that. It would distract him, light up the room and he would usually fall asleep fairly quickly and I could go back to bed. Lots of people would judge me for it, but screw it - I was tired! He sleeps through the night perfectly fine now and doesn't seem too damaged.

I feel like I've been gently and gradually sleep training my DD since she was 3 months old... like an extreme version of gradual retreat! From co-sleeping to next2me to cot in own room, she now sleeps all night in her own space unless she's ill (which she has been on and off all autumn). On this journey we have had all sorts off issues with super frequent waking to her being awake for 2h+ in the middle of the night.

Here are some tips, mostly to do with following natural inclinations and making small changes:

Put her down and get her up at the same time each day. My DD wasn't able to sleep more than 10.5 hours overnight, so our sleep window was 8 til 7 to allow time for one night feed, or 8 til 6.30 when she was night weaned. This stops the nightmare 2 hours wakes in the night as their circadian rhythm sets to that window.

Start very gradual night weaning. Baby doesn't need to eat every 90 mins at night, aim to shift those calories into the day. Start by dropping the feed at first wakeup. Once that wakeup stops, aim to space the next night feeds by at least 2 hours (they can easily do this in the day, so can do it at night too)

Look at some online resources for advice on night feeds by age, and use that as a template as solids become more established.

You want to encourage baby to get their calories in the day and sleep at night insofar as they are physically able for their age.

Try to avoid feeding to sleep at the start of the night, feed then do a story or a song, then put down and try to settle in cot when baby is suuuuuper tired. You can try pick up put down.

Don't sweat the early morning at this age. Feed to sleep, lightly cosleep if absolutely necessary so you can rest at 4 am without sleeping too deeply if you fear rolling onto baby. Sleep takes a while to come together, and that last stretch early in the morning is the last to consolidate. I would stop this by a year though, as baby becomes more aware and may start to form a habit you don't want.

Read everything you can, use what works and chuck what doesn't.

Ignore all the guilt trip bullshit like: hold them close, enjoy the cuddles, they are only so schmol blah blah blah mum guilt. Not everyone's life and circs are the same. You're reaching out for help, you need sleep, can't cosleep, and baby is physically capable of not waking 6 times a night.

Remember that babies are remarkable, adaptable, can learn new ways of being, and are on the whole capable of fitting in to family life within certain limitations (ie, still needing night feeding at 6 months)

I was worse with dd1 though I used to have hallucinations she was down under the quilt next to my toes when she wasn't, when I finally got her out of my bed I used to wake up panicking that I couldn't find her in the bed for months.

Urgh yes, me too! My poor husband was woken in the dead of many nights by me frantically searching the bedding for the baby when she had been sleeping in her own cot for months. Such horrible fear and panic.

Option 4, shift the feeds to formula at night, so your husband can do them, or you can split the night, so you're less knackered. Then you can taper that down etc, but you're not starting from a place of exhaustion. And even if it doesn't work, you'll be getting a lot more sleep than you do now. If you want to keep bf, then feed in the day if you're around, evening etc, but not at night.

The magic third way is to wait until they grow out of it.

Kids who won’t co-sleep, here, they didn’t like it. Kids who won’t sleep, here, and who never did behave in the way that the sleep training people suggested they should. So no sleep training.

Had around five years of shit sleep and I’ve wrinkles to prove it but there you go, they sleep now, that’s the magical third way.

Is he having a feed each time? At that age I had a lot of success with gradually diluting feeds at night to wean mine off night feeds, she started waking a lot less very quickly.

I have a terrible sleeper
I didn't do either, he sleeps in our room in his cot next to me.
He is 2
He hates sleep
At 15 months we were still having6/7 wakes
Now he wakes maybe at 3 and I help him settle then he is up at 5

Last night was a miracle

For the first time in 2 years he did 7-6
Today feels like the best day of my life

I feel you OP

DH tried giving a bottle at night and DS refused it (which I know means he can't really need that feed!) and got so worked up about it that it took an hour to calm him back down. It's also quite annoying because he'll only take a bottle warmed right up, so DH can't just give him a quick bottle of ready-made. Maybe we should persist with that, but like DH trying to calm him rather me just feeding him it means so much less sleep for everyone overall (it's not like I'm sleeping while DS is screaming in the next room) that we haven't stuck with it as perhaps we should

Oh actually I've remembered that DH also gave him a night bottle on one other occasion (the one and only time I've been out in the evening!) and DS took 10ml then remained quite calmly but firmly entirely awake no matter what DH did for the two hours until I got home and fed him

Oh you dont sleep whilst sleep traing happens, you sit in the next room and cry too (or maybe thats just me). But your baby quickly learns that dad's the only show in town at night which either allows you to share the wakings or he'll decide that dad and a bottle of milk aren't worth waking up for.

This is what my DD has done with my DGD since she was three months old.(she's 7 months now) when she moved to a cot in her own room.
Bottle feed at 8am, play time, nap in cot for a hour. Feed at 11, play, nap, feed at 2, play, nap, feed at 5, play. Bath at 7, feed in bedroom, in bed by 7.30-8pm. She will sleep most of the night, may wake up a couple of times but just talk to herself and go back to sleep til 7.30am.
She has 7oz at every feed, all naps are in her cot and she sleeps on a sleepyhead. She has a dummy in her cot. If she does wake and cry, which is very rare, mum goes in, replaces dummy and tells her 'it's sleepy time' then leaves the room.
It took a couple of nights to get her into this routine as prior to this she was always nursed to sleep and put in her crib asleep. Now she is able to self soothe. She isn't sleeping as long during the day now, and plays more. But she still has a good 12 hours at night.

I think I've just had a revelation that we've been doing a version of sleep training for a while, just a really shit, inconsistent one - sometimes we pick you up, sometimes it's daddy with a bottle, sometimes we try and pat you in your cot, sometimes mummy shoves a boob in your face the instant you stir, sometimes you sleep cuddled with mummy, sometimes mummy just goes 'ssh, ssh, sleepy time' in tones of ever growing desperation. Poor DS, no wonder he's not getting it!

I'm going to talk to DH about doing gradual retreat, and actually committing to it. Like, tonight.

Thank you for the advice and for not shouting at me, mumsnet! And thank you for the 'hang on in there' messages - and sorry to those who are also suffering! - but I just can't wait for it to resolve itself, I think. I can't do my job - currently nearly our sole income, since DH is on statutory parental leave pay - if I don't sleep; I'm supposed to be reading a book I'm reviewing today and I keep abandoning it and coming back to this post because the words of the book are swimming in front of my eyes and I can't read a whole sentence of academic prose. I have no expectation that DS will sleep through the night - I'm more than fine with a couple of night feeds - but I don't think we can all go on like this.

Consistency is really important, you're dead right. Variable rewards are known to be highly addictive, so much so they are used in the gambling industry to hook people in! When the 'reward' baby gets for waking varies so much each time, surely that will only reinforce the behaviour? Thinking out loud here.

That said, if baby is hungry he should be fed. All other wakings should be treated consistently. You'll get a feel for when he's really hungry and when he has just randomly woken up.

Some other really good advice I found, don't rush in the minute he makes noise in the night. Give him a few mins to see if he resettles, he might just be making noise between sleep cycles and is not actually fully awake until you come in and hoik him out of bed!!

I hope consistency is key and it resolves things for you!

Your last update sounds exactly like my "approach" and I'm sorry to report that at 13 months we're still averaging 4 wake ups a night. We've had a few instances where she's only woken up twice a night for a few nights but then reverts to type.. I've resigned myself to it now.

Fingers crossed you find the strength to remain consistent because God knows it's hard when you're sleep deprived. Good luck!

Just wanted to say that if he’s waking when you put him down you might want to consider a floor bed instead of a cot.

Hi, my little one is 8 months now and I found it really helped me to keep reminding myself “he’s very tired, he needs sleep, I’ve put him to bed, it’s where he needs to be, he’s warm, he’s fed, this is the best place for him” so when he cried I would leave it a good 15/20 mins before going in and honestly 9 times out of 10 he went back to sleep and I also think a bit of cruel to be kind comes into play. On the one hand you think you’re being harsh leaving them to cry but I look at it as I’m being kind teaching you how to sleep better and calm yourself. This will make for a very good sleeper when older. I have a 3.5 year old who sleeps 6pm-7am who I also used this approach with and now both children sleep 6pm-7pm. I also did this both babies when their daytime napping was rubbish and it worked a treat for that to! I also sometimes wonder if all the going back in every few minutes just winds them up and teases them when they think you’re coming back for them and you leave. It always made my two cry far worse when I popped in and out as opposed to just leaving them for a decent chunk. I hope you find a solution that works soon. There’s no other area of parenting that takes over your life so completely as sleep!