Terrible nights - 18 weeks old

[Pilsburypie]

Hi all

I'm sitting here with bags under my eyes and the cold realisation that the healthcare professionals have little more to offer in the way of advice.

My son was born full term and a healthy 8lbs early October and during the day is a pretty good little chap, happy, alert etc etc. He has regular naps approx 3 hourly of 30 minutes in duration (waking himself up) in his own room in his cot. He feeds well (Aptamil no1 ready made cartons) and is putting on weight as expected. His nappies are good and wet although he poos approx every 3 days but has no obvious signs of discomfort. We have been told this is not unusual and he passes the poo with out issue. Ok then, enough of me telling you about my "normal/average" baby.......

Night times are a bloody nightmare! He goes to bed after a bath and feed at 1900hrs. The first hour or so requires around 5 trips up to settle him with his dummy and with a bit of luck he will then settle down and require half hour/hour trips up for more settling till around 0000 when he gets his night feed of 6-7oz. He goes back down with a little settling and then continues his half hour/hourly wake ups until 0500 when this increases to half hourly/quarter hourly wake ups requiring settling.

Up until recently he had 2 night feeds, one at 2230 and the other at 0230-0300. The health visitors told us he was taking on too much milk and a single night feed was plenty and being over full might be the reason for the disturbances. 2 weeks of trying to implement has had mixed results. Sometimes we can strech him to just one feed, other times at 0400 we have to give in and feed him as no settling will suffice.

We have been to the doctors about this issue on several occasions, firstly to check if it was down to lactose intolerance or discomfort - he is sick a fair amount through out the day, but this test came back negative. We have found however he is better on the ready made milk cartons which the health visitor has confirmed some do find this.

When we bring the matter of his sleep up with healthcare professionals they listen to what we say but don't hear. Their stock response: "he seems to be putting on weight ok and babies this age don't usually sleep through the night". After the initial urge to punch them in the face we explain again that 5 wake ups would in our eyes be a miracle cure....... a few blindingly obvious suggestions and blank looks tend to follow.

We are aware of a few things that we do that may not be helping in the long term: Dummy. This really helps when we go out during the day and also helps him settle into his daily naps. It helps when he is grumpy. I can see this being an issue at night though. When he wakes he has lost his dummy and we need to put it back in to settle him.

My wife and I have taken to doing shifts in the night to try and get a few hours sleep, but it is really is functioning on the lowest levels possible.

Anyone want to babysit over night?! Any one got any suggestions or ideas. Fire away, they can't be any more ridiculous than doctors have suggested!

Really, really sorry, but the very best advice I can give you is that in a few years' time, this period of time will seem much shorter than it seems now, so try for all you are worth to keep it in perspective. Try not to let it dominate your thinking (easy to say, I know). There is very little you can do (trust me - been there; tried it all, except leaving them to cry which I couldn't do). If everything you try doesn't work, it makes you feel worse, so perhaps better just to grit your teeth. If you want to try following tips you are given, follow any advice you get without raising your hopes. Some babies are great sleepers. Some are not. My DD2 is well over 2 and still much worse than you describe (except that there's no feeding element to it - she just wakes, and stays awake for long stretches). DD1 was excatly the same until about 3 yrs. Now she is much the best sleeper of any child I know about. Yes, it is crippling. Horrible. Terrible. I work FT, and the exhaustion has led to depression. Still love them, though, and it comes to an end... Very very sorry not to have a magic wand (or time to babysit!) Good luck!

I'd say your looking at the 4months sleep regreasion (have a google). Stop trying to seatle him without an extra feed (some baby's can't go really long time's overnight) . And it will get better soon.

Oh and the 30min's of sleep in the day may not be helping as he's waking up after one sleep cycle, so isn't self setaling so helping him to go back to sleep after 30min's may help with the night time problem to. As it sounds like that is what he is doing at night, he's waking after one sleep cycle.

Shhhw - good down to earth works of advice. Although we kind of thought this at no time have the health visitors said it. You are right that in times of dispair we are chasing the next idea that will be the magic fix! Teeth gritting time!

MigGril - very interesting about the sleep cycles. I shall take some time to mull this over.

Ps. What is all this DD, DD2, DS etc I keep seeing. I can guess you're talking about children!

Hi Pilsbury, hope your night is not going too badly. I'm not a hugely experienced Mum (my DS - 'Dear Son') is my first and is a couple of weeks younger than yours. Just wanted to add my support and sympathies.

What MigGril says makes a lot of sense, has he always been a bad sleeper or is it only fairly recently it has started to be this bad? If it is that he is waking-up after each sleep cycle (which def. sounds symptomatic of sleep regression!) I guess helping him learn how to settle himself is the answer. I used the technique Spaced Soothing on my DS when he was about 4 wks old to get him to learn to do this. Google it, although I'm sure you've probably heard of it, it really did work in my case and in only a short space of time. My DS can (sometimes) settle himself, although of course I'm not going to be smug and say everything's perfect (it's midnight and I'm still up!), but using this in conjunction with things like a Slumber Bear that goes off automatically when he starts to wake-up, having him sleep on his side, and playing a de-tuned radio when he naps during the day, all help.

My DS does sound very similar to yours in some ways: He is also formula fed and, same as your DS, and was also 8lb at birth and has healthy weight gain. He is also fairly frequently sick, but I'm pretty sure this is only when he overeats. I've tried the last couple of weeks pushing his 10.30pm feed til 12am, and then he eats again at 4am and up at 7am, it seems to work fairly well. Maybe your HV is right about him eating too much at night, but tbh, my DS does still need it (and he's 18lb!), and it's a thousand times easier to do it than to keep trying to resettle him.

I hope something helps, good luck to you.