I can't cope anymore with no sleep (13 month old)

[FedUpAndTired2018]

Just that. He doesn't sleep. I've had enough. Don't want to do this anymore

I should add - same child is now almost 12yrs old & sleeps like a dream - through ANYTHING!!!!

I had to check I hadn't wrote this thread myself. I'm in exactly the same position, have debated using a sleep consultant as I am that desperate to sleep.

I have no advice but just wanted to say you are not alone!

My ds is 15 months old and has just started sleeping through the night in the last two weeks. Up until two weeks ago I was at the end of my tether as he would go to sleep at 7pm after a lot of feeding, shushing, patting, holding my hand etc. He would then wake after 45 minutes and I would have to go back up to lay him down and give him his dummy. Then if I was lucky he'd sleep until 11pm. Then he'd wake, and he wouldn't want to go back to sleep for at last an hour and I'd have to feed him. He'd go back to sleep for an hour and then wake every 1-2 hours all night wanting more milk. He would sleep just as badly in bed with me as in his cot and he spent all night crawling over me, tugging at my top to get milk, laying across my head, crying in his sleep. It was just awful and I've felt utterly fed up, drained and exhausted for the last year.

In desperation I started sleep training 4-5 weeks ago. I didn't want to cio or do controlled crying for a number of reason that I won't bore you with. This is what I did:

1. The first thing I did was stop feeding him to sleep. In the evenings I started giving him a feed downstairs in the living room, then read him a short story and then took him up to his cot. This seemed to break the link between feeding and sleep.

1. I stopped all night feeds.

1. I would lay him in his cot and initially placed a hand gently on his back and played lullabies until he went to sleep. After a few days I would move my hand away when he closed his eyes and only put it back on him if he opened his eyes. Gradually over time I reduced the amount of time I touched him until I could finally lay him in his cot wide awake and he'd put himself to sleep without needing any contact with me.

These 3 steps massively improved the sleep situation quickly and we went from 6+ wakings a night to 2-3 a night. The thing that really made a big difference though, and which may sound a bit bizarre, is something that an acquaintance suggested after I mentioned how tired I was. I told her that he was waking every night at 11pm and being a pain and not wanting to go back to sleep for an hour or so. She said that what worked for her was to go into her children's bedrooms half an hour before they would normally wake and do something small, like adjust their covers, which was enough to bring them out of deep sleep into a lighter sleep but not actually wake them. She said that she did this for a few nights at exactly the same time each night and her children started sleeping through. I felt like I had nothing to lose from giving it a go, even though it did sound a bit far fetched, so every night at 10:30 I went into my ds's room, would adjust his blanket, or make a noise (creek a floor board) just loud enough to disrupt his deep sleep and then quietly leave the room. On the fourth night he slept through, 7pm-7am. Over the past two weeks, with the exception of two nights when he had a cold and was very congested, he has slept through every night. Also, when he does wake in the morning he will now sit in his cot playing with his dummies or cot toy rather than go straight into crying.

Up until he started sleeping through he was having one 2 hour nap a day from 12:30-14:30. Since sleeping through he's wanting a short cat nap (30 mins) at around 9am, and then wanting a longer nap of 1.5-2 hours in the early afternoon.

Anyway, I don't know whether any or this will help or not but I can give you some hope. I've gone from 6+ wakings a night (and feeling utter despair at the sleeping situation) to sleeping through the night in just over a month.

When Ds14 was around 14 months, he used to go down between 8-9, and then wake for the day between 4-6, mostly around 4:45/5:00am. Then he would have an hour to an hour to a half after lunch. So between 12:30-2:00. I seen the health visitor because he seemed to sleep so little compare to my elder dc. She just said that some babies are like some adults, they don’t need as much sleep as others. So where I’d spent months giving him day times naps, and fighting with him to sleep in the night, it was actually my fault for not realising that he didn’t need the sleep. Now he’s s typically teen, hard to get up!

Now I’m NOT saying this is the case with yours, but worth keeping in mind that he may not need as much sleep as you are trying to put him down for.

Just wanted to give my daily routine as comparison
( mother of 3DC)
Youngest is 15 months
All of my DC have been poor sleepers / needed little sleep

Currently:
Bath 615pm
Bottle then straight into own cot
Sleeps 615-12
Bottle at 12 straight back to sleep
Sleep until 445
Stands up in cot
I ignore DC , Pat back try to lie them down , they go bk to sleep until 630/645am

This DC has been the best so far out of all three
I’ve never co slept
By the time they drop the midnight wake up it’s amazing
It’s still extremely tiring getting up at 445/5 each morning ( once they wake I can’t get back to sleep )but perseverance is the main advice, it will get better

I found that once they were 2 it all clicked
It’s very very tough
Lack of sleep is the worst
I used to start my work at 6 am after having been up at 12 then 2-3 for a full hours awake time of baby playing with blanket / singing in cot etc then I was up at 5 for work ...
I don’t know how I managed
It gets better

My only saving grace this time is that although baby wakes up , they go straight back to sleep
I’ve experienced the long periods of waking , I used to lie on the floor beside the cot and read ...
It will get better and each child is different , even within the same family with the same routines .
Hang in there

** sorry should mention DC typical daily nap is 1030-12 or 11-12 then awake until bath / bed at around 6/630

And as PP have mentioned, it can all just click into place when you least expect it
My oldest two love their own beds and sleep all night with no wandering
I think this is due to the perseverance when they were younger , it pays off ... hope this helps

First I just want to thank all of you who have replied. One of the hardest things about this is feeling alone. Not many people seem to be going through this so if I mention it, like at work people look at me blankly or with horror. I know I sound dramatic but it's good to know mine isn't actually the ONLY child in the UK that won't sleep!

Lots of you have mentioned controlled crying. I'm certainly desperate enough to try it but something is holding me back. DS is ill, a lot. When he's not settling and crying in the night it's invariably for a reason. Most recently a urine infection.

I guess it's more being unsettled, short cries out, throwing himself around... This disturbs me whether he's in his cot or with me. In fact, it's worse when he's in his cot as he has the potential to crank it up until I have to go in, so I can't sleep even when he's not in with me.

To those pp asking about feeds. He is 95% bottle fed. I've worked hard to maintain a breast milk supply as I fed his older sister til she was 2.5 but in all honesty he's not bothered. Sometimes he might have one breastfeed in the night, but that's all,and not every night. So I don't think it's wanting to feed.

I’ve got a bad sleeper who’s bf with CMPA. It’s incredibly hard to cope with and it’s very difficult to get an ill child to sleep well.
A few things I’ve found have helped. Calpol and ibuprofen for teething even if they’re not in pain at bedtime. Is he better with a sleeping bag, duvet or blankets? A pillow made quite a difference to my DS. Make sure he’s warm enough.
My GP when I was desperate said food was the key and I had to get enough high calorie food in him during the day with reasonable gaps between meals, increasing the size of meal and the gap between them so he doesn’t want to snack all night. This works really well unless he’s ill or teething, if he’s in pain he just wakes constantly for example we had three nights last week with virtually no sleep. If I were you I’d try some painkiller before bed, if you can get him asleep easily it’s what causes him to wake up that you need to identify.

Definitely move to 1 nap. My 15m DD was never a terrible sleeper, but she never slept through until she was on 1 solid nap a day at around 12m. And the length of that nap does affect her night sleep. Too short and she’s overtired and wakes up, too long and she won’t go down easily. Perfection seems to be around 1-3 and she sleeps around 7-7 overnight. Teeth is wrecking all that at the moment though.

A problem I had was that I always felt I had to go in, because i was worried he might be unwell, had been sick, was hungry/thirsty, not tired, lonely, scared, arm through cot, uncomfortable position, nappy leak, hot, cold, snotty, etc. My brain unconsciously ran through the whole list of possibilities why he might absolutely need me to go in. So I went in, for any one of the reasons of the list, or sometimes I just thought sod it, it’s quicker for me to go in and check than to run through the list and deal with my mind telling me to go in on this occasion. I understood why I needed the unconscious stimulus overall, and why I really needed it when he was very young. But rationally, the vast majority of the time I went in, it was for none of those reasons. Breaking my need to go in every time, with rules (eg how long he’d made a noise - he wasn’t even crying!) or rationalit (he is not hungry, cold/hot, if I go in I wake him up more/for longer, he is not learning to self settle), but still allowing for gut feeling too, allowed me to stop going in more and more. And the more times he was fine, the more my mind relaxed and learned that his every noise didn’t require me to go in. And over a week, the longer I resisted going in, the longer he slept. When mine had been ill, I felt the urge to go in more, which felt natural, but I needed to quiet my urges which had gone into overdrive a bit. Not easy! May not apply to you of course x

I also used ear plugs when he was in my room but a bit older, as I could easily hear him actually cry, but didn’t hear the very low level shuffling, quiet chatting/snorting/wriggling sounds (also husband in room too without ear plugs, but he seemed to hear far less than me even then!).

I have a 15 month old who was up partying last night!! He still bf at night and he sleeps with me. I’ve had enough too - won’t let go of the breast, kicks me and climbs all over me! I’m shattered. You have my sympathy.
At the moment, I’m trying to make it until 18months and Will night wean him if I can.

My second was like this, up until about 18 months ish. He'd wake every hr or so, he just wants to drink all the time. Or he'd need soothing back to sleep which took ages. Anyway at 18 months he can feed himself and started self soothing so now he sleeps through with the odd time I have to wake up and locate the bottle if its fallen off the bed. Sometimes they just need to get bigger and grow out of things, but it's fucking hard

Oh and dropping his nap! I can't believe I forgot to write that. He stopped going for his nap and now sleeps 6pm- 6am.

@weshouldopenabar I tried but milks instead of soya as a soya intolerance is common in babies with CMPA. Other than that it's just anything with milk - which turns out to be lots! I breastfeed still so I don't worry too much about her calcium etc, but it's important to make sure you get enough calcium and fat into them. The comfort milk may still be giving him trouble even if it calms his digestive troubles - will the GP consider prescribing a plant-based formula as a trial , or can you afford to buy a few weeks worth for a trial?

Not sure if this will help but my DS is 12 months so I'll give you his routine, not sure if it will help with your situation though!

7.30am: wake, bottle and bannana then usually play or go about our day.

11/12pm: put down for a nap or for a sleep in pram if we're out, usually for about an hour.

1pm: main meal

4pm: will sometimes have another 1 hour nap but will fight it sometimes

5/6pm: supper/tea

6.30-7pm: telly time

Then he has a bath until half 7ish and always a bottle before putting him down 7.30/8 and he sleeps all the way through, sometimes waking for a dummy.

I think it's the night time routine that really got it in his head that it's bed time. It didn't work straight away and it took a good few weeks until he gradually dropped night feeds. This is my first baby though and I know they are all so different so not sure how helpful that is!

@Namestheyareachangin he's been off formula a couple of months I'm reluctant to go back, his face has started to clear up massively on the soy but he's a nightmare to put down for any sleep at the moment I might try oat thanks