Baby is ruining us

[fedupnow2]

I'm really fed up, frustrated and just desperate for advice. I have an 8mo and she is just the most difficult child- extremely high needs(constantly wants to be carried) but the biggest issue is her sleeping habits. This is not an exaggeration- I spend 5-6 HOURS a day trapped in my room trying to make her sleep. Every single nap time is a nightmare- she is so tired but just cannot sleep. She wants to be rocked but will wriggle furiously. If you leave her in her crib/ lie next to her then she becomes hyper and get more worked up. Dh has a very stressful job and the moment he walks in i hand her over because I'm sick of her. He is also highly frustrated because he then spends the next few hours trying to get her to sleep and he has barely sat down . Our weekends are consumed by her sleep issues. She has been like this since she was born. We have an older child who is struggling because I don't have time for him because of the baby. I would leave her to cry it out but dh doesn't want to. We have done everything- walks, routine, bath before bed, white noise. She eats very well. Please don't tell me this will end, I can't bear another second. Taking her out at any part of the day hypes her up when she gets home. I have now been sitting with her for the past 2 hours and she is furiously just thrashing about crying. Not in pain, just overtired. I've carried her and she just wants to be down. I'm just at the end of it.

That’s your takeaway?

@MissAnnie

wtf you on about?!

Definitely. Worked with a very distressed baby granddaughter who would only sleep on Mummy's chest when Mummy was sitting up.

I know you’ve already got a lot of suggestions on here, but just wanted to say that if you do decide to sleep train it really doesn’t have to mean cry it out!

We did ‘gentle sleep teaching’ with our 9 month old when he was 7 months and it was honestly life changing! Within a few days he went from having never slept anywhere other than on my knee/ in our bed with a boob in his mouth, to being placed in his cot awake and happily falling asleep.
There was some crying at first, but it was more outrage that I’d dared to put him down- not any real upset and no tears.
We followed a programme from a nurse we found on Instagram and he was never left upset for more than 3 mins (basically you go in and comfort tjem and then leave and try again). They also had some great advice about ‘nap gaps’ which made me realise he was getting overtired which was making the whole process worse!

Your husband sounds great, but in my opinion if it’s you who has to deal with the sleep battles all day, then it should be you who decides if sleep training is the best option!
I’d always been against it, as I thought it meant leaving them to cry themselves to sleep, but was worried how he’d cope when I went back to work and he had only ever been nursed to sleep so decided to try and find something that worked for us.
After spending 7 months going to bed at 7pm, we now have our evenings back and can spend time with our older child when he’s in bed!
Really hope you find something that works for you all xx

You need to sleep train. People will tell you not to, it harms them blah blah blah but you are at your wits end and the whole house is suffering. Your relationship with baby will also change which isn't surprising when you are under that amount of stress. I remember it well, it is soul destroying!

I wasn't sure about sleep training to start with, but my DH could see I was on my knees. We did it and within 3 days we had a baby we could put in a cot and would fall asleep within minutes. It was life changing. He is now a very happy, healthy 11 year old, so trust me it works and no harm will be done!

Good luck OP!

I never liked the idea of cio with mine but then read something about some young children just needing a good scream and shout before they go to sleep!! As like you I was trying to get them to sleep but then admitted defeat and left them safely in the cot baby monitor on and there was screaming and thrashing but then sleep and then the screaming and thrashing became less and less until they self soothed without it. It sounds like one of the only things you haven’t tried as your husbands against it but it might work and make life much easier! Really feel for you as it’s such a horrible stage of parenting xx

I really feel for you. My son was very similar.

Main thing with kids that struggle like this - do not sleep train. Kids brains are developing so much in the first 3-4 years and they need us. Sleep hygiene is different and a good routine / good sleep environment / appropriate wake windows is helpful and not cio.

i would agree with the other poster - children’s chiropractor or osteopath would be my first point of call. If your LO hates the carrier and the car seat and the pram and being rocked, sounds like they might be uncomfortable/ in pain. My son was night and day after seeing one (he had torticollis and I noticed something wasn’t quite right after he started using one arm for everything- which they shouldn’t do until 2). Now he was still difficult to get to sleep but massive improvement.

you could even try giving calpol (as a one off) 30mins before a nap is due (when not overtired) and seeing if that helps sleep - if it does then you can get a feel that pain is the issue and book an appointment with an osteopath. (Don’t bother with the NHS they’d have happily let my LO end up massively delayed before they offered physio).

2nd - try the huckleberry app and pay to get the sweet spot (or whatever it’s called) to advise you on perfect wake windows. This helped us sooo much. I was basically trying to get him to sleep after he was tired - but starting before he was tired was a game changer (again still difficult but doable)!

3rd - you’ll probably find that when LO goes to nursery / childminder they’ll sleep like a bloody dream and you’ll be so annoyed but also so relieved. So hopefully you won’t be long before you get that break.

another one to look into if there are any other issues - dairy intolerance. My LO has CMPI and took me 14 months of him having silent reflux, very loose stools, wind, sleep problems and being on an adult dose of very expensive medication - for the gp to stop telling me he didn’t have any dairy problems and refer me to the peads dr who immediately said yes he’s got cmpi you need to cut out diary (only been telling them that since he was 2 weeks ok).

try following Nurturedfirst on Instagram (plus the heysleepybaby recommendation you got). Her account is great and really helped me to reframe my frustration and be calmer. Her mantra is ‘this is important’ and it’s amazing how just saying that to yourself can really help chill you out.

This is really grim. Imagine saying this about an adult or animal.

@Notfeelinglikemyselftoday

ok, I’m imaging saying that about an adult or animal… and I see no issue 🤷‍♀️

You could see if your local children's centre or health visitor has a sleep clinic you can attend for some guidance.

I had a difficult napper, in the end, we did 'controlled crying' sleep training (please don't lynch me) and it was the only thing that worked. I want to make it clear that I never let him get hysterical, hyperventilate, gagging, coughing or retching like some methods I've read about. I sat just out of sight with the baby monitor in my hand at all times.

I feel for you op. Whrn you are so tired wverything is too much. I used to put mine to bed at 7pm from about 6 months and let them get on with it. I'd go in and out so they would know I was around and leave the door open so they could hear noises but oherwise just let them cry as i knew theyd been fed and were safe. They all very quickly just somehow learnt to go to sleep. They're all happy adults now so no harm done I think. Also I was a better parent because of it as I wasn't so wasted during the day. Give it a week and see what happens. Good luck

I don’t either sometimes I feel like having a big scream when it’s been a long day and just want to be alone in bed.
it hasn’t caused my children any harm and wish we had done it sooner as would have made us mentally happier and healthier as a family as being tired and stressed by it all every day doesn’t give children the best start in life either.

I would take little one to an osteopath, op. Sounds like she could be in pain if she doesn't like anything (this happened with my first)

My baby was not as bad as this as settling but he used to wake up every 45 minutes. I had done all the co sleeping/breastfeeding/gentle parenting and I couldn’t cope anymore. The impact of it was unbearable. I hired a sleep trainer. Within 4 nights he slept through the night and we’ve never looked back. He’s now 6 and has really good sleep habits and is a happy little boy. We didn’t do cry it out, we did gradual retreat so I didn’t leave him. Having a sleep trainer absolutely worked for me and it saved my sanity at the time. I had another baby after who was a great sleeper but if she wasn’t I would have done it all again.

Ahhhh I really feel for you! My daughter was exactly the same, honestly just hated going to sleep and took hours and hours to get to sleep in a bed. Cry it out didn’t work with her, we just stopped trying to get her to sleep at certain times and took her to bed when we did and day time naps were when we were driving around to places in the car. She’s 7 now and she still struggles to go to sleep but thankfully we don’t have to lay at the side of her anymore! We’ve recently realised she’s got ADHD and that’s why she struggles to sleep, she said her mind is racing so much it’s hard to stop thinking enough to sleep even if she’s tired.
The things that have worked for us after a lot of trial and error - calm sleep app stories (white noise didn’t help), no tv or any kind of stimulation an hour before bed, bath for quite a long time and have it on the hotter side of warm, banana before bed (it’s got melatonin in which makes you sleepy), room quite cold but a warm enough blanket, prop up the bed a bit so they’re sleeping on an incline for potential reflux (we have a wedgehog under the mattress). I’d also maybe take her to sleep a child osteopath, there’s one near us that does the first session free. A lot of babies that don’t sleep might have pains in their neck or back, especially if you had a bad birth. It really really helped my friend and she went from a baby not sleeping at all and crying all the time to sleeping through! This didn’t help us (we tried) but it’s definitely worth a try!
Hope it gets better for you. Sending my daughter to nursery for half a day when I was on maternity really helped my sanity! I just used to go and lay on the sofa and stare into space with a cup of tea!

I had one of these.
Her brother had been a dream, put himself into his own feed/nap routine at a couple of months. The Incredible Non Sleeping Baby was a massive shock to the system!

As pp have suggested, I stopped trying to get her to nap.put her in car seat, put her in buggy, carried on regardless. Put her in a sling at home if she wanted to be carried. Bed times weren't brilliant. We did CIO when she was 10 months old. 17 days of Hell, but she did learn to settle.

When a child reaches reasoning ability, you can tell them that children only grow when the sleep. It is absolutely the truth. Every child wants to grow, otherwise, why the tape measure on the wall?

This comment is about as useless and unhelpful as you can get. Being frustrated with a difficult baby is as bad as racial hatred?! Sorry, what?!

Sleep train. Pay a good consultant for a plan so you don’t do it half-heartedly. There are gentle methods, they just take a bit longer.

We did it at 7 months - no regrets.

@llizzie this is the worst advice I’ve ever seen on Mumsnet. Mothers cannot function without sleep. Not all babies feed in their sleep.

Appalling comment from you.

@llizzie your first response is absolutely ridiculous. It is humanly possibly to love, while also being annoyed by, a child of any age.
How disgusting of you to load up this poor sleep deprived woman with more feelings of guilt when she is obviously struggling.

It might be best if you take your sanctimonious judgments elsewhere. Why don't you start a 'perfect parent' class if you're so brilliant?

I had to do this with both of mine - hard but it was definitely what they needed.

Utterly cut in from first post to reply, 400 posts in: so what I'm about to say will possibly have been said 399 times so far. but:

Controlled Crying.

But it works best when you're both at the end of your tether.

You cannot carry on like that. You can't parent your child well when you are on your knees with exhaustion.

My eldest at 8 months took 3 nights to get the hang of it. Younger took 2 nights.

You're doing it for all of you.

Eldest is now 24 and apparently not scarred by learning how to self-settle.

Find an expert
We used the Cheshire baby whisperer and cannot recommend her highly enough. For a very affordable price she might save your sanity
Sending sympathy.