Completely SICK of this, feel like a prisoner sometimes, what can I do to change this

[sunshine17]

DD2 11 months fights sleep, every sleep. She is tired but WILL NOT drop off to sleep herself, I have to be there rubbing her back, lying her back down, and lots of other various things.

If I leave before she is completely asleep we start the whole cycle again. Feel completely and utterly sick of it.

Once she's gone down for a sleep at night which takes at least an hour of this - she will then wake up around 10pm and I can't get her back to sleep so I end up putting her in with me. She doesn't sleep that well at night and has between 1 - 3 feeds - I've started to water these down.

My husband can't get her to sleep at all - the few times I've ventured out of the house in the evening I get a call to come back because she is screaming the place down and he can't settle her.

Feel really trapped, can't make plans or anything.

At this point I feel like I'd happily let her cry it out but I can't becuase DD1 who is 2 wakes up and then it really kicks off.

Do most babies just get put down and they drop off??????? it seems like a dream! To top it off I'm back at work next week and there is no way my mum is going to be able to get her off to sleep for a lunchtime nap so it's going to be a nightmare - overtired and if I get her to sleep when I come home from work around 3.30pm then she won't go to bed at 7pm

Help, feel rubbish.

how much does she sleep in the day? or rather how much are you trying to make her sleep in the day? have you tried changing the sleep time? dd was never one for big naps. but she slept well at night. she's 3 now, sleeps 13 hours at night, as she has done since she was about 10 months, but with no daytime nap. instead of naps we had basically quiet time.

Sounds very normal to me. Get her to sleep in the buggy or car - do whatever works. She'll learn eventually, and there's no point you all suffering until she does.

Well she has a 45 min nap in the morning which I think she needs as all this moaning and thrashing about it done with her eyes closed half asleep (sometimes opened to check I haven't moved). And then she has one at lunch around 1ish for around 1 - 1½.

I don't think she could give naps up get. My DD1 stops naps a few months ago but she still could really do with one. Sometimes so is so ratty that I drive her in the car to force one - I find the days she has a nap (DD1 this is) she sleeps well at night and the days she doesn't invariably wakes up very early the next morning for some reason - like today.

I am hearing you. Sounds grim but it must be a familiar story which we might also have to go through in a few months.

Personally, I would go down the sleep training route (no surprises there)
but try and limit the crying to the bare minimum.
At the same time I would get dw to calm down dd1 if she woke up.

Sleep training does have to be cry it out.
Have you looked into the various approached?

Is it really normal? Everyone I speak to seems to just be able to plonk there LO down and off they nod!! Not only feel like a failure but it's so limiting as well - it must be something I'm doing wrong or something I'm missing - maybe ruddynorah is right - to many naps??????

Just fed up of it all

No, don't give up on naps, but think of other ways she could have them. Get her in the car/buggy before she gets so tired she's ratty.

Don't do sleep training - no need and very horrible indeed.

Seriously - I've got four children, none of them sleep trained, the older three all get themselves to sleep absolutely fine. Work out ways to manage, not ways to manage her.

DaddyJ, when I've just had enough I walk out of the room and hope her crying doesn't wake DD1 - I let her cry for a few minutes before heading back it - she is standing up in the cot.

Haven't started looking properly at various approaches yet - thought I'd start here hoping someone else had been there done that and could tell me what worked for them

Don't fret - your mum will crack it!

Though your dd will sleep for her (in the end ) but maybe not for you .

But in the meantime I would suggest you make 10pm her bedtime (no, seriously!) by which time she will have had a very long exhausting evening with bath at 9.30pm, feed at 10pm and put her into her cot immediately after.

Then once that is sorted for a week-ish bring bedtime forward by half an hour so the routine starts at 9pm, then another week so the routine starts at 8.30pm and then leave bedtime as 8.30?

Does that sound a possibility? Lots of babies have later bedtimnes than their big brothers & sisters.

The thing is I do put her in the car on the days DD1 needs a sleep. But isn't workable for nighttimes and it a no-go from next week when I go back to work (3days a week).

I wouldnt bother to try and get her to sleep in the day, I would just let her drop off in the pushchair or car
then hopefully that will help with the evenings
have you tried a dummy? a cot mobile? pick up and put down etc etc

She had a dummy but I got rid of it a couple of months ago as not only was I going through this whole palaver with her but also going in loads to plug the dummy back in when it feel out and she woke up screaming for it.

I guess I do PU/PD naturally during the course of getting her to sleep.

This thing is it's not the sleep she doesn't want - she really needs it - it's she doesn't want to go to sleep without ME being there / and rubbing her back etc etc to get her to drop off - she just can't drop off by herself - has anyone had any success with white noise?

Sorry, I meant to say: sleep training does NOT have to be cry it out.

And you CAN stay in the room with her but I personally would
systematically reduce the level of intervention (cuddling, stroking etc)
that is needed for her to drop off.

White noise might help (dd1 did not like it at all,
dd2 is more receptible but it certainly does not make her fall asleep)

Do you know how to can find out about sleep training which doesn't involve CIO? Thanks.

sorry have to say we got to the point of no sleep and just made sure she was safe and left her to it - went in every 15 mins to lay her back down/patt her back for about 30 seconds then left... took about 3 days and now she mostly goes to bed awake and is asleep within 5 minutes... as for night feeds one day i just decided no more and offered water when she woke... did take more patting back to sleep etc but after 3 nights she slept through ans has done ever since.

We tried lots of other methods - pick up put down, gradual withdrawal etc and even after weeks of each method had no improvement.

Well, CIO in its pure form is: put her down, close the door until the next morning.

A chap called Dr Ferber watered this down in the 80s
and came up with Controlled Crying (CC) which is what fairimum describes.

CC can be watered down even further so you get Gradual Withdrawal and PU/PD.

Finally, you arrive at the border to Attachement Parenting where you find
NCSS (No Cry Sleep Solution) and Dr. J Gordon's method.

And if you are of the AP persuasion then, of course, sleep training is a nich-nich
(as Brüno would say).

Search Mumsnet for the above keywords and you will find plenty of guidelines
and anecdotal wisdom.

In your particular case, the main problem is that you are putting yourself under time pressure.
This will not help your cause.

fairimum - thanks. Would probably go this route if it wasn't for DD1 although I think I'm going to have to soon. Have tried without success to give her a comfort object but she's not intested, she is such lovely friendly baby and she loves cuddles just think she hates being on her own.

How old was your LO when you did this? And did it only 3 days???

Sunshine, we went through the same. It was hell. I never ever wanted to do Controlled Crying and was totally against the idea like a lot of other MNers.

However, we were at the end of our tether. DS would wake up periodically during the night and would only sleep when picked up. PUPD didn't work at all. No other more "gentler" methods worked. We decided we would have to think of another way if we didn't still want to be doing this in months to come. We did Controlled Crying and it wasn't nice. On the first night he cried for 45 mins, 2nd night for 30 mins and on the 3rd night he slept through!! We've never looked back (except for teething etc) but I honestly believe it is the only way for some babies to learn how to put themselves to sleep.

He was 9 months when we did this and now, at 17 months he goes to sleep as soon as we put him down and sleeps for 12 hours a night. No problems at nap times either - he will just drop off in the buggy or the carseat.

I will understand if you don't go down this route but I wouldn't be afraid of it. It only took us 3 nights and DS has never held it against us! Good luck!!

Yes it's normal sunshine, normal for a lot of people anyway! We had to walk or feed ds to sleep from day one. I can't count the number of lengths of my kitchen I've done with ds in my arms and the extractor fan on trying desperately to get him to sleep.

Pick up put down was ridicullous in our house, it just stimulated ds even more and everytime I tried to put him down again he'd scream even harder.

I am not again Controlled Crying, I really do believe that every baby and parent is different but I have to say it wouldn't have worked for us. I tried it one night when ds was 11 months and it was hideous. Everytime I left ds he gt more and more irrate and ended vomiting all over his cot. For some babies it works, for ours it didn't.

In the end when he was 12 months he just learned to settle on his own at bedtime without being rocked or fed to sleep. He just did it on his own with the help of a comfort balanket (which if you try it it will need to be introdused now so she has time to get attached to it).

Still have trouble with naps though and he's 22 months, he will only nap in his pushchair or car seat but he sleeps so well at night in his cot that I have never bothered tackling it but I am a stay at home mum so it doesn't really bother us although it's not ideal.

All I can say id that it will pass. She will learn to settle her self and it will get easier as she grows up. And don't believe everything people tell you about their babies being angels and drifting off to sleep alone. From my experience it's not ofte nthis happens and people lie about it for some awful reason. It's not what any babies I have even known have done!

Totally sympathise Sunshine. My DD - now 4 - had horrendous sleep issues. I also went back to work at around 11 months and was really worried about how her new carer (in our case a nanny) was going to cope.

What we did was use a sling. IME most poor sleepers will nod off in a sling if you pop them in before they begin to be drowsy and jig about as they go off to sleep. It's less effort than a long and complex routine involving music/rocking/stroking/PUPD (and i've been there!!). And it feels a lot more natural too.

Luckily our nanny agreed to use the sling. Would your mum be prepared to do this, do you think? (There are v comfy ones out there - not the baby bjorn IMO).

If not, I think you are looking at doing sleep training. For us, none of the gentler methods of PUPD etc worked. If your DC is similar then I guess you will need to do CIO or CC. We didn't do this with DD, and over time it did get better, but I'm open-minded about doing it with DS if he turns into a bad sleeper too. I think you have to judge what is likely to work for your baby and also what will have the support of your mum - after all, it's no good deciding on an approach if she won't follow it through or if you get explicit/implicit criticism.

Sleep issues are awful. I reallY sympathise.

I think you need to do what feels right for you. It's no good being told you musn't try cc, if there's a chance it could work for you. We did it with dd1 and dh had told physically hold me to stop me going to her as I found it so upsetting. But I now have a 2.9 year old who has always gone to sleep on her own.
You sound exhausted and that's no good for any of you.
My dd2 has been a brilliant sleeper but a couple of weeks ago went through a horrid stage of waking at 1-2 and not settling until I brought her downstairs and cuddled on the sofa. I only did this to stop her waking dd1 and made a little habit out of it. When I was about to break after a week or so of this, dh came down, took her off me, and she screamed for 5 mins when I went to bed then that was it. Haven't had a problem since.
If dh can't cope with it, how about having a night away with your mum taking over?
You just need a break, one night of interrupted sleep can work wonders!

ds ws the same.We used Elizabeth Pantley, No cry Sleep Solution. It's a method of sleep training in that it teaches them how to get off to sleep by themselves, but with no crying. That was the clincher for us - no way I could let ds cry miserably.

But I also think the path of least resistance is good and will preserve your sanity - if sleeping in with you works, go for it. 11 months is a classic time for separation anxiety too, she realises you're not there and it particularly upsets her, and I guess this isn't helping bedtime. Trying to battle against sep anxiety usually makes it worse, so if you can hold on for a few weeks until it passes and she feels a bit more secure, you'll be out of the woods. Try cosleeping if yu're going that way anyway, and see if you can break the pattern. Good luck, it WILL pass

I really liked Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child by Dr Marc Weisbleuth. It expalins how much sleep they need and when and would help you understnad how much she should be napping. He's studied babies and children's sleep patterns in sleep labs and I felt it was the only book that was actually backed up by evidence.
I found it great for DS after terrible colic and he's a great little sleeper now at 14 months. (Having an hour nap at 10am and 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap at around 3pm and then asleep 8pm to 8am...roughly)

This might sound bonkers, but could she be having too little sleep in the day? And therefore be overtired (I know, according to another thread I'm not supposed to use that word ) but I remember when having similar sleep issues with dd and reading both Tracey Hogg, Elizabeth Pantley and Dr Sears that they all, in various bits, talk about how sometimes giving a child an extra bit of sleep during the day, makes them more relaxed in the evening...as long as it's never never after 3 hrs before you want them to go to sleep at night (IYSWIM?) So, if you want dd asleep at 8, no napping after 5 etc....

(that said, I eventually abandoned all attemts at PU/PD and all the other methods, took a book in there and stayed with her till she fell asleep.....a bit of down time for me too. )

"Is it really normal? Everyone I speak to seems to just be able to plonk there LO down and off they nod!!"

Yeah.....no.

It is normal and it is a phase but there are things you can do to help, some of which are being described to you already on this thread.

I just wanted to let you know that what everyone says happens in their house, is invariably not the real or true picture.

Hello! Just wondering if she has ever gone down with out a fight? My 14 month DS is exactly the same. I have tried everthing under the sun to try to get him to sleep. None of it worked. Especially the CIO. He just ends up vomiting everywhere...BUT a week before his 1st birthday he suddenly just started to go down without a fight. Did nothing differently. I went back to work when he was 9months. The first 2 weeks were tough as he wouldn't sleep at all during the day but eventually hes got better some days are better than others. Saying that we are back to fighting today. Been up since 4;15am. Finally went down for a nap at 9am and will have to take him out in the buggy this pm for a nap. Think its when he's teething or feeling ill etc. If he wakes up in the night I find water and a small biscuit seem to work better than milk. I think it gives him tummy ache. Hope this helps.