My hideously bad 9mo sleeper just keeps getting worse....

[alabasterangel]

I have 2 DC's. DD (now 3) was a hero from day one, I was utterly spoilt. Slept through from 6 weeks old with a dream feed at 11ish, then dropped that at 6mo without a murmer of complaint. Only thing that has ever caused her to have disrupted night is.... her pest of a baby brother!!

DS is now 9mo. From the start he's been troublesome. We used Gina Ford with DD (not sure if that was responsible for her easiness, or whether it's just the way she "is") but I found it harder with DS to implement strict routines and basically didn't bother as much. We do, however, always have a bedtime routine for them both, and have a 100% success rate at getting him to go to bed and to sleep in minutes (in fact I would say he is shattered at bedtime). I'm still waking him for a feed at 10pm because I am convinced it is the only way I am getting the paltry 3 hours sleep that he "allows" me to have between 10pm and 1am when it all invariably cracks off....

He wakes between 1 and (if I am very lucky 3am) and won't go back without a huge battle. He won't self settle, he just revs up and revs up till he isn't crying he is screaming the house down and has woken his sister up in the next room too. We seem to have phases, and these are getting worse... the first one (early months) was that he would eventually go back when fed and co-sleeping. The second phase was that he would go back instantly when dummy is reinserted (he seemed to be semi-awake and whimpering - if left alone he'd start crying, but if I got the dummy in quickly enough he'd settle back down), but this would happen 20 times a night sometimes. Now the dummy is pulled out and chucked out of the cot, no half-awake business he's WIDE awake straight away (like he's had enough sleep) and he won't settle until he is picked up and cuddled back to sleep in my arms, which takes almost an hour (he fidgets, squirms, kicks, moans and whimpers). I'm awake on average 3 hours between 10pm and 6am. I'm home alone with this 4 or 5 nights a week and it's getting to be torture - we've now decided def no more children on the basis that another bad sleeper like this would be unbearable.

We had another peak in problems at about 6mo as he was going through a bad patch then too, and I upped his daytime sleep as someone on here suggested he might not be getting enough but now he is refusing to settle easily in the daytime too. He averages an hour at about 10am and an hour possibly around 2pmish (although as I speak he is fighting this today) and by bedtime at 7pm he is BEYOND tired. This feels like not enough to me, but he refuses any more.

I'm grateful to have an otherwise healthy child, but I have no idea if the things I do (the cuddling to sleep, for example) is going backwards and not helping. For the first time in months I ended up giving him a bottle at 5am one night this week as I was so shattered and had been up for 2.5 hours. The next day I really felt like that was a bad move!

He CAN sleep through - he probably does 10pm till 6am once every week, invariably on a night when H is home and has offered to take over if he wakes up.

I feel like all I hear him do some days is grizzle and cry, and that in itself is making my skull want to crack. I'm so tired my poor DD gets snapped at all the time and we don't get out and do as much as we should - I'm too bloody knackered to do much. Back to work in a few weeks - how am I meant to function if things are like this??

Desperate for any ideas of help or suggestions....

Oh alabasterangel - there is little worse than sleep deprivation! Can i just ask - when he wakes up from naps or during the night, am i right in thinking that you cuddle him back to sleep? (i've just PM'd you too)

Hi
Basically yes, cuddling is a new development, only been going on for about 2 weeks and I only resort to it when I've already been up and trying to settle him for 1hr+. Previous to this just putting the dummy back, plus a little shushing would send him to sleep, or much earlier in age a feed would be the only thing that helped. I don't know whats changed. If I put the dummy back now he just spits it out and screams when I leave the room. When I do pick him up it takes ages to actually get him to proper sleep (he seems totally wide awake by this stage). If I put him down before properly asleep, the whole cycle starts again, hence being awake for very long periods in the night with him to ensure he is sparko before I dare put him back in the cot.

I'm a big believer in trying anything possible before lifting him up, I even leave him to make as much noise as is possible to see if he will just settle himself, but he seems totally unable to. No matter how long I try "crying it out" all that happens is he gets totally revved up and starts gagging and coughing and gets really hot and bothered. I've tried it for weeks on end, I've tried going back at intervals, I've tried a chair by his bed and moving it away slowly, it simply doesn't work for us! all that happens is that we have two children wide awake as his crying wakes his sister up too.

I never settle him with a cuddle in the daytime, normally during daytime sleeps he is so tired he just drops off immediately (or with a few wimpers and complaints, not a whole trauma session like we have at night). Ditto actually going to bed at bedtime. It's only a problem that happens when he wakes during the night. However I do think the same thing happens in the day - this afternoon he had 45 mins sleep after being totally shattered beforehand - 45 mins is not enough IMO! But something woke him (car outside, us downstairs, whatever) and although he should have just resettled he just started screaming the place down instead.

I know he can sleep through, but I am baffled as to what is stopping him and what I can do to make him do it more regularly - is it hunger, comfort, separation? I just get the "hunch" that he wakes naturally as we all do during the night, but for some reason he is by then recharged enough not to zonk back out and unable to self settle but I don't know how to teach him to do that when controlled crying doesn't help?

Sorry - slightly confused ramblings I know!

I have sent you a message :)

My 10 month old is exactly the same - except that I am not as strict as the OP :) He is my DC3 - my first was a bad sleeper, I thought really bad at the time, but she was nothing on DC3 and was getting better by this age - my DC2 was really good, have treated them all the same... I am still BFing and feed him to sleep about 4 or 5 times a night, because it is the only way to get him back to sleep - he gets more and more furious, wide awake and loud otherwise, also he stands up in the cot every time he wakes, so I assume he fully wakes himself up instead of just rolling over and going back to sleep.

I want to know what is in NannyTree's PM!

We had something similar and eventually managed to get dd2 sleeping by sleeping on floor in her room for about 2 weeks. Sounds very similar in that dd1 is totally gina but never worked for no. 2 hence the eventual sleeping in room (she was 18 months by then). It is from tracy hoggs 'the baby whisperer'. We have just moved house and dd2 gone back to waking 3/4 times a night (now 2.5) so am considering doing it again for a week! It didnt work perfectly in sense that she turned into brilliant sleeper but she is def a lot better than she used to be.

Have you tried a bottle/bf in the night? He might be hungry. I know it might seem like a backward step if he's previously been going all night without a feed, but given that you're not getting much sleep anyway it would surely be preferable to just feed him when he first wakes at 1/3am then (hopefully) go back to sleep rather than be awake for ages trying to settle him. I am still bf'ing 9mo DD2 several times a night, I realise that's not for everyone but I think babies do often have a genuine need for night feeds even at this age.

Oh gosh. Poor you! My 6 monther feeds at least 3/4 times in the night and I find that it gets her back to sleep the quickest. I did try to deny her food a few times in order to get her to sleep through the night but decided that actually it was easier on everyone to feed and then sleep. Maybe your little chap has been sent to test you and make you throw out the baby books? Everytime I read a book about what should/could be happening I just got fed up because DD hadn't read them too! What have you got to lose by feeding him in the night? Establishing a bad habit? It just might turn out to be a "good habit" for the moment. Sounds like you really need a break.

I would take a deep breath, drop the dream feed and feed on demand through the night. See how that takes him

I have every sympathy, dd1 sleeping 7 - 7 from 11 weeks. DD2 is 9 months, and not a sign of it. More 7 to 10, with a bit of singing and yelling, some food, and a quick nap before dawn

I am starting to lose the plot with my 9 month old. He has always been fed to sleep (very occasionally he will settle if not hungry) and generally wakes once per night for a feed then goes through the rest of the night.
For the last couple of week he has woken 2-3 times, sometimes taking 2 hours to settle and is getting harder to feed when he is fussy as he bites :(
Our main problem is that he is waking at around 5.30 but once he has fed he stays awake and thinks it's time to play! We have tried leaving him in his cot with some toys and the light on, but he just cries until I go back in. He still seemed hungry so I tried some mashed banana but he took very little but still fussy. inally I gave him breakfast and he has now fallen asleep in his highchair at 7.20!
I am planning to get blackout blind for his room as the curtains are very thin but any ideas to keep him asleep/quiet til a reasonable hour?

Helen is he your first? I am afraid some children just start the day at 5.30 - or 5... there is not a lot you can do about it until they are old enough to tell the time or use a sleep trainer clock! Some people are naturally early risers and some aren't - I have early risers, and have just had to adapt to it (the eldest of them is 6 now and finally starting to sleep past 6am about half of mornings - of course now she needs to be up by 6.15am to catch the school bus! The 4 year old is always up at 5am, no matter what time he goes to bed, but now knows he has to play in his room til 6am and generally sticks to it...)

I can do early starts but am struggling with them in combination with wake ups that at best increase in frequency as the night goes on, from a 3 hour sleep stint in the eve, followed by a 2 hour, then hourly wake ups, and he will only settle with a feed after the first wake up... THe worst nights he wakes up every 45 minutes all night long.

Seems like the advice is to go with the flow - the sleep deprivation gets soul destroying when its gone on this long though, and it makes staying calm and patient with the older children much harder than when well rested!

Thanks all, sorry for not getting back sooner.

Okay, provisional success... a number of measures I have helped. Tried them all at once and surprisingly it's really helped....

• refused to let him daytime nap anywhere other than the cot, in the dark(ish). Before he was napping in his bouncy chair or pram in the dining room. What surprised me most was that he seemed to want to turn over (to his side, almost recovery position) and once I let him which he couldn't do in his chair or pram, he had a 2 hour nap (!!!!!!).

• changed to a thinner grobag but upped the room temp. As a result, he can also get onto his almost tummy at night too. He has obviously been very keen to do this but unable in his padded grobag.

I worred alot about the side/tummy sleep, but DD wanted to do the same, and knowing he can get back and that we have a breathing montitor leaves me reasonably happy at his age.

• I also did one night of proper controlled crying. It took 25 mins (only!) before he went to sleep with me going back every 5 mins. Before I have given in by about 15 mins. I felt pretty nasty at the time, but since doing it.....

He has slept 10pm till 6am four nights running!!!!!!!!!

He still wants to wake at 6am, but I'd rather have 7 hours solid sleep myself between 11pm and 6am than what was happening before, plus I'll have to get up at that time when back at work.

Cautiously VERY happy!!

HELEN - if you are going to get a blackout... little tip. My DD was a pain waking up early when I was pregnant with DS and desperate for a lie in!! Her room gets the morning sun, and even a blackout blind didn't stop the bright light at the top and edges of the blind. I went to haberdashery, brought few metres of blackout fabric and stick-and-stick velcro (sticky velcro on a roll). I cut out a piece of fabric exactly the same size as the window recess and put velcro on the top, and put a matching edge of velco on the top of the inside of the window frame above the glass to stick the fabric to. When it's stuck up, it's totally light resistent as it sits right against the pane. Don't have to bother with it in the winter, and cheaper than a blind, just fold the fabric up in the day and put it under the bed....!

I know you said it's sorted now but that one time you gave him a bottle at 5am did he go straight back to sleep?