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.

she isn't "fighting sleep". Babies don't even know what sleep is! They don't know its what you want them to do, and they don't know when they have done it.

Maybe just give up on naps? Mine had stopped napping by this age

So sorry to hear this! Sleep training saved us when we got to the point. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done but our son (18months) sleeps perfectly now for all his naps and has slept through the night from 9 months. I think you need to really try and convince your husband it’s for the best (can family talk to him?) I agree it might be best if he’s not there for it.

Honestly, I think sleep training will make such a big difference. You don't have to do CIO as such but I remember I did a mixture of the the Baby Whisperer (pick up/put down for naps in the day) as well as gradual retreat etc for night times.

I seem to recall that once the daytime nap/s were sorted, the night time sleeping got automatically better . Perhaps because if babies don't sleep properly in the day, they are overtired and wired in the evening? Of course, in reality, with DC2 etc, the whole napping in their bedrooms gets thrown out of the window as there is pre-school pick up etc for DC1!

I'd say it would be helpful if you could have someone (perhaps a parent) around so that you can concentrate on this for the next couple of days, or perhaps coincide with the weekend and your DH can take a day or two off? Alternatively, hire a sleep training/night nanny in to help you. A friend did this and made the world of difference. A tired mum/dad is not the optimum parents, naturally, so it's worth getting into a bit of a routine with the sleeping.

Honestly, if you're consistent it may only take a couple of/few days!

I know friends who didn't sleep train and were still having kids struggling to go to sleep without their mum/dad in the room until they were dozing off until they were 15+! Unfortunately, this can have a huge impact on those kids' anxiety levels and difficulty with sleep overs and trips away with school. In fact, of the parents I know who didn't do any kind of sleep training ended up with not only the poorest sleepers long term but also the most anxious of kids.

Perhaps there is always that feeling of 'I need mum/dad around to sleep', which then translates subconsciously to 'I always need mum/dad around' i.e. a certain helplessness on the kids' part?

It's kind to give your kids the gift of falling asleep without a 'prop' (often parents become the prop).

Good luck & hang in there - you can do it! xxx

My daughter was the same to start, slightly different in that she would only sleep in our arms and never anywhere else. It was so frustrating.

Do you all just need a weekend off? Can anyone have her for a night or two?

Definitely sleep train x

OP, your baby is chronically over tired. As are you and DH I suspect! It’s a viscous cycle.

I’ve had two out of three of these babies! I read myself stupid on trying to understand baby sleep better. There are lots of differing opinions on this. As all these posts testify to!

If you are going to sleep train start with night time sleep. Biologically that’s when a baby’s drive to sleep is highest so it’s easier to crack. Be consistent. You can go into soothe intermittently but don’t over stimulate or pick up at this age. It WILL work. Time it and record over the first few days so you can see improvements and success.

Once you are seeing success apply same method to naps in day time.

This is totally doable and can be done quicker than you think. But you MUST be consistent.

I feel your pain. You need to do this for your sanity.

Sorry for stating for the obvious here, but have you tried the following:

Mine loved dummies and could often self-sooth if she had one. At bedtime, I’d settle her in her cot, then leave the room. If she cried, I’d come back in, pick her up, put her back down again and pop her dummy back in. I didn’t normally speak to her, except perhaps to say “shush shush”, because it wasn’t playtime, it was quiet sleepy time. On a good night, she’d quickly fall asleep, but on a bad night, I’d have to repeat the pick-up put-down thing several times.

A few months later, DD had a sleep regression and I had to resort to the “disappearing chair” method. I’d sit in a chair beside her cot, comforting her if she cried, but avoiding talking to her or making eye contact. Each time she stopped crying, I’d sit back down and move the chair a bit further back, until I was out of the room.

Another version of this is to keep the chair close to the cot on night 1, have it a bit further away on night 2, and so on …

You must be absolutely knackered. I really feel for you all. It's no comparison, but we reached that stage with our 4mo. I took him to get weighed and the health visitor said it was classic reflux - have you tried treating him for this? The GP didn't even ask questions, just prescribed Gaviscon Infant. We had to play around with the volume as it gave him awful constipation. Now, instead of 6 sachets a day, we give him 2.5ml in a Calpol syringe. It helped him to settle, but he still wouldn't lie down and nap.

For the last week I've been following Gina Ford's assisting to sleep advice. It's in the problem-solving FAQs part of her Contented Baby & Toddler book. It's really gentle and has helped us in the space of a week. I know she's not popular, but I find her advice really flexible. You don't have to adhere to the weeks/months, but go with the routine that feels the best fit for your DC.

I really hope you find something that works for you soon.

I guess we all see the evidence we want to see. I didn’t sleep train at all and my difficult sleeper didnt sleep through until two years old, bur both kids now happily sleep in their own rooms. Very confident kids, never any trouble with sleep overs or trips. Just securely attached kids who feel
close
to their parents (and sleepless
nights for two years but it was worth it). Also, a parent is not a “prop” but the most important attachment person for a child, and kids feeling the need to be close to their main attachment figure is quite healthy and normal.

Sounds just like my dd1. She also met some milestones early and was high needs even when awake.
We sleep trained and it saved my sanity, I couldn’t afford a consultant so I researched different ways and stuck with it (I did the leave for 2 mins, then 5 mins, then 10….) the first night she cried for 14 mins, the next less than 5 if I remember correctly! She also stopped waking so regularly through the night. It was life changing. I’ve also just sleep trained my 9month old dd2, she was always a better sleeper by comparison to dd1 but still a pretty horrific sleeper by comparison to most other babies I know. She’s a dream now

Ime the first time of letting them self settle/cry it out is by far the hardest - once they’ve settled themselves to sleep once and you know it’s possible it gets so much easier emotionally because you know it can be done.

Mine was always a challenge to get to sleep for naps/ get him to sleep a decent time and would always wake up miserable after not a long enough nap and then whinge and whinge. Around 8 months was the absolute peak of this. Nothing I did made any difference to him getting a decent nap. I remember loads of 5 minutes naps. The positive to come out of it was I stopped contact napping as it made no difference any more. Once he started nursery at 10 months he learnt how to nap with other stuff going on and it was a miracle.

There's nothing worse than trying to get a baby to nap. I did find that if he was overtired if I walked him somewhere busy in a forward facing pushchair he would be relatively content.

My son did not sleep through the night until he was 4.5 years old. And I spent thousands on advice. Best thing you can do is find a cranial Oesto path who specialises in babies. The birth process can leave discomfort - get her seen by a cranial Oesto and I bet things improve immediately.

My second is a chaos napper. Has never liked a nap routine. Best advice I got from my MN bus in the middle of one frantic and angry stint trying to settle her upstairs was to reset. Take her downstairs, put on some calming music or telly, read some books. She'd always be much happier immediately, enjoy a cuddle and then gradually get sleepy enough to be dropped in her cot and go to sleep.

If you don’t want to sleep train then I would recommend joining the beyond sleep training Facebook group. They have a questionnaire that is worth completing.

We had some challenges with my now 15 month old second child with frequent wake ups. It turned out they had a tongue tie which was snipped at 8 months. No feeding issues except solids although their older sibling had theirs snipped at 8 weeks. Sleep is much better now. They still wake for night feeds but is much better than they were 8 months ago.

Of course, attachment is very important. But you can still be in the room during the naps initially and be close but, anecdotally, I have 3 friends whose kids took to past 12 years plus to be confident sleepers at home. 2 out of these kids are fairly anxious (but lovely) kids. Could be temperament as well of course.

But an exhausted parent is not necessarily be giving the attachment / close care etc needed at other times and so, in those situations, I'd say sleep for mum/dad most important and for their sanity!

Osteopath?

It gets better, there are many phases like this. Try and get some routine and structure for the whose day for all of you.

Also, stop blaming the baby like that - it's a baby, not doing it on purpose.

Another advocate for sleep training here!! We got to 18months, out marriage was in the gutter, we were permanently exhausted. We tried the Ferber method, and it sorted us in a week, and she sleeps like a little dream now, and the whole mood of our house just lifted because we were sleeping - she was like a different child.

kids feeling the need to be close to their main attachment figure is quite healthy and normal.

so is sleep...

Could it be wind? This is painful and I recall my DD wouldn’t settle until fully winded. Just a thought.

In the kindest way, I think it sounds like you haven't bonded with her at all. And babies do pick up on stress. Catch 22. The way you're talking about her is actually quite heartbreaking. FWIW I didn't bond with my son at all for the first 12 months of his life, and he wasn't half as bad as this, but in hindsight I definitely had PND. It 100% sounds like you have too - that coupled with no sleep it's no wonder you're at the end of your tether.

You need to take her to an osteopath 100%. They're incredible. After just one session with my son, he slept for hours. Literally. We went for months, and it was worth every single penny and more.

If you're Wirral based, I can recommend an amazing one.

Sorry OP, but you need to be firm with your husband. You have to sleep train (you don’t need to leave her to cry) get some advice if you can afford it from a sleep coach, they will advise. Your daughter is exactly like mine, she wanted so desperately to sleep in her cot but didn’t know how to sleep herself. Get help! It may not just magically get better and I think for the benefit of your little boy you have to.

This. My eldest was like this and we just lived our lives with her with us and she slept when she fancied it; in the car, buggy etc. she dropped all naps aged 14months! She just didn't need much sleep and us trying to make her sleep made her furious.

She's nine now and still the same... sleeps about 7hrs a day and is routinely found sneakily reading with the light of a street lamp when she shouldn't be. It was maddening when she was a baby, but once I started working with her rather than against her, things improved. And on the upside she's a very intelligent and very witty, funny person with an incredibly lively mind.

Sleep train. I had twins - one slept and the other didn't. We put them in separate rooms for a bit and after sleep training it was so much better!!

Instead of using the time you have with the mother's help for all those chores, use the time for a break and a rest. Just do the school run and spend time with your ds. Stop cooking etc in that time, just have ready-meals for a while. You need the time out from the baby more.