Oh my god when will it end!

[squinny101]

My dd (11 mths)has never slept through the night. Not once ever.

She wakes up in the night for a comfort bottle at about 3am which we have been trying to get her out of.

For the last two weeks we have been controlled crying but its just not working. She just screams for hours and I was under the impression it only took a few days. She's just not getting it. We are both absolutely exhausted. My DP has to go to work and I look after the children all day then go to work in the evening.

I have tried everything but this child just won't sleep through. Can someone please help me!

dh not GH! DOH!

Just read your message.Oh my god do you have my baby? My DD did exactly the same and what worked for me, after trying pretty much all the stuff you have was doing a 10pm feed. What they call a dream feed so they don't wake up just give them a bottle when you go to bed it helps them through the night and gets them out the habit of waking at 3am. Did this for 2-3 weeks and then, when I felt able to cope if DD woke in the early hours, I didn't do the dream feed. Guess what she now sleeps through from 7 til 6am. Heaven sheer Heaven. Hope it helps. My little one didn't sleep through til 12 - 13 months and when everyone around you has babies that do you just feel so down. All the best

My DS was a terrible sleeper and screamed for hours most nights until he was 12 months. I also tried "conventional" CC (e.g. leave for 2,3,5,10 mins) and found it didn't work for us - three weeks in and he was still crying for up to two hours each nights. (I know, bad mother - but I was desperate.)

I spoke to someone from our local sleep clinic who recommended doing a modified type of CC. They suggested going in every minute, or less if necessary (e.g. every 30 secs) for as long as it took for him to go to sleep / calm down. When going in, not picking him up , but using words to reassure him. Pat him if necessary, but try to avoid physical contact as much as poss.

The first night he cried for 3 1/2 hours, the second 1 hour and then it got better again. Going in that frequently meant that I genuinely felt he did not feel abandoned. He screamed because he was cross not frightened.

Unfortunately, it then all went pear-shaped again but with hindsight, I think he was in a lot of pain from teeth. A good dose of neurofen would generally get him off to sleep within ten mins or so. Do you think this could be affecting your DD? Eleven months is prime time for teeth coming in. When his teeth problems subsided, he then started sleeping through again without any problems.

she has always been an appalling sleeper, when she was born she would sleep all day and then be up all night crying and not feeding. This it turned out due to the fact that she had really severe reflux. She was hospitalised about six times before she was three months old.

She was put on medication and this did help (she is now off it now) but her sleeping has always been difficult. She is a very fractious baby and seems to be poorly a lot of the time, she has one cold after another and always has a cough.

I think its just the way she is and I'm going to have to put up with it until she grows out of it I think (DD1 was 2 when she started sleeping through but she always semeed to be able to get herself back to sleep after a little whinge).

Serves me right for being smug with DS sleeping 12 hours from eight weeks old!

Does your daughter use a beaker? we found leaving a beaker of water in the cot with my son so he can help him self helped. I thought we had it bad with 9mths without sleep, so I totally empathise with your disturbed nights

Where are you squinny? We used a sleep counsellor, details in this thread.

Sometimes when you can't see the wood for the trees it helps to have someone else come and help you solve it..

HI PEOPLE, i HOPE THIS ISN'T TOO AWKWARD BUT TERE ARE CHILD PSYCHOLOGISTS OUT THERE WHO CAN GIVE SUPPORT AND ADVICE ON the WHOLE LOT!!! fEEDING SLEEP ETC AND BE NON BLAMING AND SUPPORTIVE TOO. iT SOUNDS PRETTY DESPERATE, i THINK YOU SHOULD ASK FOR AN URGENT REFERRAL VIA YOUR gp. dON'T BATTLE ON ALONE. eVERYONE WILL SUFFER ...
GOOD LUCK
XX

Sympathies and reassurance. My daughter had up to 2 bottles a night for ages, she could feed herself so we would just chuck one in the cot with her. I was pregnant with my 2nd from when she was 6 months old, so sleep was a huge priority for me and I just did anything for an easy life. She is now 22mo and sleeps through 7pm-6ish no problems. Everyone around me kept saying she shouldnt need milk in the night, but I really think she did, she was slow to get going with her food. I think she stopped having bottles around 14mo when her brother arrived.

Another thing to hold in your mind is that pretty soon she will be talking, or at least indicating what she wants. My daughter used to shout 'bottle' when I walked in to her crying, Id give it to her and she'd go straight to sleep after having it. Pretty clear what she wanted!

Hang on in there....

Just to add (along with a whole lot of sympathy from someone with a 10.5 month old insomniac who, on a good night, wakes 3-5 times between 8 and 6 .... oh, and it's me who has the FT job!) - earlier bed does not necessarily equate to earlier wake-up. We've tried repeatedly to cure early wakings by changing bedtime but he still wakes early. Late bed just means he loses sleep and is tired in the daytime.

It's absolutely hell, I know this, but your daughter is actually sleeping a good stretch. Sleep experts define 'sleeping through' as a 5 hour span! And from what I've read the holy grail of 12-12 just isn't what every baby does. And some babies do, I'm certain, need the milk - crawling around all day exploring and growing is hungry work.

All I can say is feed if she wants fed, cosleep if it helps, and it will pass, eventually. You have to hang onto that to stay sane. I chant it while BFing DS for the zillionth time, at 4am, when the rest of the world is asleep and I know I have to get up in 2 hours and be a functioning human being.

Oh, and agreeing some sort of rota with your DH, like he does all the feeds after 5am or he does a bedtime feed at 10pm will mean you extend your hours of kip. Then you can come straight home from work and go to bed. Or a rota system - DP and I take turns to get up with DS when he wakes at ungodly hours.

Hang on in there! We'll survive this

My son will be turning 3 in Sept. This last week he has finally slept through so that for the first time in 4.5 years (older son too) I have had 5 days in a row of uninterrupted sleep. Clearly I'm not a good person to advise you on how to fix the problem.

But wanted to give you some sympathy.

morning, just another vote of empathy for you, I hate how I feel when so sleep deprived but there is no way of stopping it. I tried cc (didn't work), then a growth spurt happened, and they twins!) upped night feeds to 3. Until then I had let them sleep through from 7 til 1 as I thought 'why wake them if they're asleep and I can sleep too'. Once the 10pm was in the picture, I gradually got used to staying up til then and I've kept it going as a dream feed. I take them both out of their cot (carefully as they are still floppy and asleep) and they both just latch on and feed without waking up. Last night was the first night they went through. No rights or wrongs, it worked for us. Could change at any time of course!

Hi Squinny101
When I got my DD to sleep through by breaking the 1am feed I had her in bed by 6pm. At 10pm I gave her a big bottle, sometimes cheated and topped it up with cereal. If she by habit woke for a feed I would rush in and pop the dummy in and pat her back to sleep. I also made sure that all her meals had loads of protein during the day, supper loads of cottage cheese. 1g/kg of baby at least. Try reducing the amount of milk you give her. When I stopped the 10pm feed if she woke in the night I would give her 25ml milk, making her hungry during the day so she would eat more and sleep more.
Be strong, I'll hold thumbs something works Good luck

I think you should read "Three in a Bed", not because I think you should co-sleep, but because it will help you see things from her perspective.

There is nothing natural or normal about babies sleeping for 12 hours without waking up, it is perfectly normal for babies and toddlers to wake once or twice in the night, when bf mothers co-sleep with thier babies/toddlers the child will nurse a few times in the night. When you remember that bf/co-sleeping is the natural way for humans then you realise that this "Holy Grail" of 12 hours sleep is just that, a myth, something that doesn't really exist!!

You say she isa clingy baby, so embrace this, meet her need for contact and cuddles and reassurance. Carry her in a sling (like a ring sling or an asian baby carrier) during the day, you might be amazed by how this changes her. She is just a baby, she needs food and comfort, and a well rested Mummy. So, ignore the CC type advice, stop seperating her (keep her in your room, or better still your bed!) and ride it out. It's not a "bad habit" which can be broken, it's a fairly natural phase which will pass. The key is to find a way to survive it, not try and stop it before it has run it's course. Think outside the box, ignore "convention" and do the things that work, even if it's a dream feed or co-sleeping or a 3 am feed. It's a short term thing, you won't be giving her a bottle at 3am when she's 10, so don't stress about it.

And before you say "thats easy for you to say", I haven't had a full nights sleep for nearly 5 years, if I'm lucky I get about 5 hours unbroken each night. I also work, and have an "I'm so tired/I work so hard" DP, so I do know exactly how you feel. For me the thing that stopped night-waking driving me crazy was to accept it as normal and stop thinking of it as a problem (or sign that there was something wrong, either with my child or my parenting!)

But don't leave your baby to cry in her cot in a room away from you. You are her mummy, the one thing in the world that she should be able to always rely on is that you will come when she cries for you.

[hug smiley] It will get better, I promise.

Monkies

(PS, sedation like Medised, Piriton etc won't stop the 3am waking as it would have worn off by 3am! Meds like this last for about 6 hours, so if you gave it to her at 7pm it would stop working at about 1am. Sorry!)

Bikergoose,

Can I just ask how long you were giving her the 10 pm feed before dropping it? I tried this with my DD but then she started waking for this feed as a matter of habit so just wondering if i'm taking it away too soon?

Thanks

Greenmonkies, my DD is 18 months old, she sleeps in our room and wakes up at about 2 am every night at which point i just trudge over to her cot, pick her up, bring her to bed and put the bottle in her mouth. this way we can all get our sleep. I have been much more at peace since I have "accepted" this as a way of life although that does not stop me from exploring other methods to try and get her to sleep through the 2 am mark Some nights are more difficult than others, i suspect that may be because she moves a lot, sleeps horizontally which means DH and me are at the edge of our beds by morning!

Agree with Greenmonkies. I'm permanently knackered from a regular waking 15 mth old. We co slept from 6 months on and off and now he asks to go into his cot at 7.30 once he's had his feed. Most nights he gets up at 12 and 5 for small bfeeds or 3am and i feed him and he now goes back into his cot really easly (at your DDs age he would scream blue murder if i ried to put him back in his cot). But,. I'm convinced it's because I met his needs for comfort for those interim 8 months, he now has the confidence to get himself off to sleep and he's done it all on his own, in his own time, with no screaming.

Co sleeping has also really helped us all bond as a family too, and I would have no hesitation in doing it again.

Summerlovebaby have you tried taking one side off your cot and cable-tying it to the side of your bed so that she is there with you, but in her own space? Saves the 2am trudge! My DD2 tends to sleep horizontally too, but because she's in a sidecar cot and not between DP and I we all have enough sleep and enough room!

Monkies

omg great idea! We really could do with a more comfortable sleep. I will definitely try it and let you know how i get on! Thanks GM

have you tried contacting the mill pond sleep clinic? I have heard they work wonders? and if too expensive (about £225) then their book 'Teach your child how to sleep' is fantastic - full of good tips but also explanations to help you understand sleep...

Sleep deprivation is the worst by little boy didn't sleep through until 11 months and still 7 month later it is not consistent but so much better than it was :-)

Good Luck!

We have just gone back to the old routine. Which is that she wakes at ten for her bottle then wakes again at 3 (but I give her a smaller bottle then).

I think I am getting a better quality of sleep though as she is now in a separate room, I'm not waking up the minute she stirs.

I don't know how he is doing it by DS (5) does not even turn over when she starts.

I would like to sleep like him please.

I don't want to do co-sleeping purely because I know it sounds awful and I might be a cruel bitch etc. but I just want some 'me' time and I want my bed to be my space and not filled with my children. I give them my all, all day every day and night, would just like a little time for me and maybe even some sex occasionally !

i totally get you skinny; somehow DH does not hear/move EVER. Yet moans how tired he is ALL THE TIME. I have 10month DS and full time job; even when DS sleeps through he gets up at 5am- this is very rare- so i'm sleep deprived too.
Have you tired to give her more food during the day? My DS has 9oz of milk at 5/6am then breakfast around 7.30am; then he sleeps for no more than 45min in the car on the way to the nursery; there he has a snack at 10am: a scone, banana loaf, cracker, breadstick or something alike; then at 11.30 his lunch (meat/fish plus pudding) then at 2pm he has a bottle (anything from refusal to 7oz); at 3.30 he has his dinner like lunch; he would have slept for almost 2 hours after lunch at some point; then he sleeps for no more than 45 minutes on the way home (from 5.45pm onwards); at home (about 6.30pm) we give him a snack banana+yoghurt or some pureed vegetables or some other baby food but a good portion to keep him going through the night; then we bathe him at 7pm and he goes down at about 8pm after he drinks between 9and 13oz of milk. He stills wakes up through the night but there is no need to feed cos he can't be hungry, he used to want to be picked up but now he is happy to just be patted down to sleep; hopefully with time he will stop waking up (the times he wakes up we put it down to teething so we just keep making escuses for him; CC does not work for us)
def puting your daughter in another room is the way forward; you will get some time for yourself at least when you are getting ready for bed
have you tried going to bed as soon as you get home from work; stuff the house work just go straight to bed and catch up on some well deserved sleep and let your husband do the 10pm feed
every now and then i play the dying actress and let DH to pick up the pieces; the more we do the more we are expected to do

good luck!

ds2 is my 3rd.
he always wakes 1-2 x for feeding he has slept through a few times it was always after a day out with short cat naps.
I've never expected mine to sleep through until much later. He is 14mths. I'd much rather quickly feed then him me and dp are not disturbed much. Dp works so hard I could not on all conscience have him disturbed.
I'm breastfeeding but really feel relaxed about the non sleeping through...

unfortunately, i have to go out to work at 5pm when dp gets home and then get back at 8pm. Have dinner watch TV for a couple of hours (maybe even talk) and then I go to bed at ten as well.

So no time for myself really apart from bedtime!

I have noticed that sometimes dp sneaks off for a couple of hours on a saturday afternoon to play on his computer. i wonder what the reaction would be if I dared to sneak up to bed. No doubt I would be got up in no time at all to look after the wee ones.

I've got a teenager... There is no point having kids and expecting me time!
dp gets home 8pm after leaving 5.30am. I do everything here.
Me time involves getting a haircut 3x a year
have no chance of 3hrs offto work as dd is SN. Work is a dream in the future.
different strokes though

No doubt about it, the gap between what our culture teaches us to expect of the sleep patterns of a young child (read them a story, tuck them in, turn out the light, and not see them again for 8 hours) and the reality of how children actually sleep if healthy and normal, yawns widely.

But the first steps to dealing with the fact that your young child doesn't sleep through the night, or doesn't want to sleep without you is to realize that:

(1) Not sleeping through the night until they are 3 or 4 years of age is normal and healthy behavior for human infants.
(2) Your children are not being difficult or manipulative, they are being normal and healthy, and behaving in ways that are appropriate for our species.
Once you understand these simple truths, it becomes much easier to deal with parenting your child at night. Once you give up the idea that you must have 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night, and view these nighttime interactions with your child as precious and fleeting, you get used to them very quickly.

these are not my words but those of Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D

you may be intreseted in looking further into her research - or not - up to u.

Have read some but not all of the posts.

I notice that she has a 2hr morning nap and a 1 hour afternoon nap. Personally I think the key is to sort out the day sleep, and that can have a knock on effect at night.

How about trying to get her into a routine of a short 1 hour sleep at say 9.30am ish. Then a longer, up to 2 hour, sleep at about 1pm. Up by 3pm or earlier. Then a 4 hour stretch of being awake until about 7pm. Then half a bottle before bath, with maybe the rest after. With a view to her asleep in bed at about 7.30pm.