To cry in the middle of the night

[Franklepopper]

Ten month baby. Always been an appalling sleeper, worse since 4 and 8m regressions, wakes 2 hourly at best. Has now started refusing to go back to sleep - I’ve been up with them for over an hour already.
I’m on my knees with tiredness, feeling shit, unable to lose weight. Snappy, tearful. Back to work soon and I just don’t know how I will cope. I feel like I will crash and die on the way and this doesn’t always feel like a bad thing.
I never wanted to sleep train but I don’t think I can go on like this.

I’ve been there. It’s a very lonely place to be and really affected me in so many ways. Absolute torture to be so sleep deprived for so long. I found the Lucy Wolfe resources on Instagram really useful and over time it got better. He’s now a pretty good sleeper! Absolute main priority is to take as much care of your physical health as possible whilst you ride through this time. I wish I’d get more help at the time as I’ve now got insomnia!

Sending virtual hugs!
DS was a terrible sleeper it was sleep train or me break!
We bought the Lucy Wolfe book and although it took work honestly it saved my sanity!
Even more at nearly 3 we follow a routine closely and he still fights sleep but does go to sleep on his own and mostly through the night. Best £10 ever spent!

I sleep trained my daughter at 10 months. It was a god send, really worked.

I'm currently holding my sleeping 8 month old who didn't get the memo about sleeping through the night like the rest of the NCT babies did. Every time I put him down tonight, he wakes up. I can't remember when I last slept for more than 3 hours. I spend a lot of time thinking about sleep (mine and DS's) and wishing he had been a little bit more like a content potato rather than a ball of opinions and energy.

Do you have a partner who can do something? DH takes DS from 7am every morning and I get to catch up on sleep until he starts work at 9:30, or until DS needs to have a nap if it's the weekend. Not ideal but unfortunately DH has useless nipples and can't BF DS back to sleep.

Also I recommend Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram and her book. Though having the energy to read it is another matter! I feel a lot calmer 95% of the time from normalising what I'm going through.

I'm not sure I have anything helpful to offer, but...

I remember when my eldest was 10 months, wondering if he would ever sleep longer than a few hours at a stretch. This was over 20 years ago and I still remember feeling hopeless around that time.

I remember not long after he just 'got it', and started sleeping.
Here's hoping the same is true for your little guy

I'm currently up with 11 month old twins - both teething - been screaming house down for 3 hours now. I work full time and have done since 20 weeks. You'll be surprised how "well" you can function on zero sleep when you have no choice so don't be scared of that. It will pass OP if always does

It is hard, there’s no denying it. Very few people are lucky enough to have a child that just sleeps through 6-8 hours every night.

It will pass, but the options are to sleep when baby sleeps, get your partner to help if you have one, ask grandparents to have baby overnight, or just suck it up . I did the latter, DH works away half the week and grandparents were getting on a bit so it pretty much always fell to me.

If you feel sleep training would help, give it a go.

If you feel like that, sleep train. Weigh up the pros and cons, but you can’t go on feeling like this.

Thanks all. My DH is great and takes him in the morning so I can get a couple of hours then, but that will disappear when I go back to work. Hopefully things will improve soon

Things will definitely improve. My baby has never slept more than three hours for the first stint and often wakes every one to two hours after that for the rest of the night. I can only cope by expressing milk so that we can do shifts during the leaps and I go into another room for part of the night. Just when I think I can't go on...we have a better night. It's like she knows!

Both our kids were like that. I don't know if you are still breastfeeding, but the second kid just dramatically changed when we started bottle feeding him. Almost like he didn't get enough. The first one changed when we changed his formula and had him checked by an osteopath. It seemed he didn't agree with the first formula which made him ill and he had some issue in the neck still left over from birth.
Could be worth checking.

@Sydendad still breastfeeding, but he eats really well and is rocketing up the centiles so I don’t think it’s that he’s not getting enough

It’s horrible when your baby is older and should be sleeping but doesn’t. My middle child was a terrible sleeper, he was still waking up a few times a night when I returned to work when he was a year old. He’s 17 now, he’s an early riser and never has slept in like a typical teen, shame as I was looking forward to hoovering outside his door for revenge! (I joke)

Personally I’d stop breast feeding as they end up using you like a dummy.

Night wean him (or give him a dream feed at 10pm) and get your husband to do every second night.
13mo ds2 is breastfed and dh has done every second night since he was a few months old and could go a long stretch without a feed or I'd pump so he could give a bottle.

Sleep train, honestly. It will change your life. I did it with my second child at a similar age when I'd got in a terrible rut of her only sleeping on me holding a clump of my hair and I ended up needing an operation on my shoulder due to damage to it from laying in a stress position for HOURS . Best thing I ever did. 3 nights and she slept fine. Didn't hesitate to do it with my next 2 either.

My husband and I used to tag team and he would take between 9-2 to get up and feed the baby (I would pump a bottle), settle her and I would do from from 2-7. It wasn’t perfect but it meant I could get five hours sleep most nights. Hang in there OP, it honestly does get better but at the time it feels endless, I remember those times well.