DD screaming down the house - Im at breaking point

[CherryBaby]

Am really, really stressed out and angry with this issue.

DD(15 months) had a fab sleep routine up until very recently. She had a bath, bottle and then was in soundless sleep within minutes of putting her down in her own cot, in own room.

Recently though, we've been abit slack with her sleep recently - I say "we" but I mean DH usually - because of the heat, he's extra paranoid about her being in her own room at night (we dont open the window in her room as shes at the front and we're at the back), so it can get abit warm in there. (she has a fan but DH is over paranoid like I said). So anyway, recently we've been sort of letting her get into our bed, our bedroom being abit cooler etc.

Now DD absolutely refuses to sleep in own cot at bedtime, screams and screams and screams the house down, and when we take her out of her cot shes as right as rain.

I just tried "retraining" her back into her cot, first gave her a nice bath, bottle etc, and tried putting her to sleep and she screamed the house down and DH came and said what I was doing was not "normal" and that that amount of crying would make her "ill". I was so stressed out and close to tears with this constant wailing and crying that I said take her if you are willing to wake up all night for her constant whinging, and I stormed downstairs.

I feel like crying, Im so stressed by this whole screaming at bedtime thing - and DH undermining my parenting abilities in this way. I text him saying if he wants DD to sleep in the bed then I will happily sleep in the spare room till whenever. I know thats immature and petulant, but I feel so ultra stressed out and just angry at , well, myself, for not being able to put my daughter to sleep, and for not being able to sleep in my own bed after a long, tiring day running around after DD all day, and guilty for it.

Does anyone know what to do to help??

Well both mine are still in my bed,so not me I guess! But i like co-sleeping tbh,can you not sleep with her in with you? I just think this may be one of those things (and I have many of them)where you might look back and think "did it really matter? why didn't I just let her stay in the bed?" No judgement intended at all,you may have really good reasons for her sleeping elsewhere,but sometimes when I've really stuck to my guns on something that seemed so important I have looked back and wished I'd just cut my daughter a bit of slack and gone with the flow.

Yeah I guess hellmelly. We've never co-slept before and I find it realyl difficult, because Im a light sleeper and DD is a very wriggly one, ive tried it afew times and shes kicked me in the face until Ive ran to the spare room clutching my pillows.

I don't disagree with co-sleeping at all, in fact I bet it's lovely but I couldn't do it myself as I love my sleep so much. I would be off to the spare room too. I like the idea of it but I couldn't do it. And if you are going to be tired the next day and you are going to be the one looking after her, then that's not good for your dd.

We moved to Australia last year, just when there was an enormous heat wave. It reached 46 degrees. I can't even describe how hot it was. Everything you touched was hotter than your body and we had no air con or anything. We managed to get a fan, but obviously there was a bit of a shortage at the time...It's regularly 30 here and we do have fans in our girls rooms and they sleep in very little and if it's very hot we give them a wet face cloth or towel to sleep on. We don't open the windows as it is hotter outside than inside.

It must be really annoying for you to have had such a good routine and have a lovely sleeper and they when it is all screwed up your dh doesn't seem to want to get back to it. I would be very frustrated.

savoy - Im really mad at DH. Beneath it all is also the thought that although he knows I cant sleep in the same bed, he's obviously not bothered if I sleep in the spare room.

Arse.

Cherry I feel for you, my DD is 16mths and has just gone through a similar unsettled phase having previously been the perfect routine baby. The hot weather is great in the day but rubbish for baby sleep, being deprived of sleep yourself really doesn't help either.

DD is being particularly clingy at the moment - whether its her age, her teeth, a growth spurt or what, i'm not sure. Anyway, recently I had to leave her for the day with her grandma who she doesn't know very well, and I suspect she was left to scream in her cot for a lot longer than I would leave her.

Since then we've had refusals to nap in her cot, getting her to settle at night has been a nightmare and she's been waking up crying in the night. I've put all this down to her forming a negative association with her cot and have tried to get around this by doing a couple of things: During the day we've played silly games with DD in her cot - peekaboo etc, without the pressure of trying to get her to sleep, my theory being that she starts having happy experiences that she can then associate with the cot. I've also gone back to rolling up a t-shirt that i've been wearing all day and putting it near her head - it worked brilliantly when she was a newborn, and seems to be just as effective now she's older. We also give a bottle of milk in the night if she's inconsolable as she does seem to be hungry. I've brought her into my bed on occasions but couldn't cope with the wriggling and kicking!

Gradually over 3-4 weeks she seems to be back into her bath, pj's, bottle, out like a light routine again.

Also have you seen the No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley? I've found it useful in the past.

Hang in there....i'm sure this is just a phase and she'll settle down again soon

thanks itsabablife....I can understand what you mean about the bad association. I'll try the t-shirt trick and definitely the playing in cot during day thing. Its reverting back to newborn days isnt it.

My DD has been ultra clingy too. Shes just started walking two days ago - proper, full blown walking - which could also be a reason why she feels insecure.

Is the No-Cry sleep solution available on the net or is it a book?

I feel for you. Ours is 2.5 and frequently a night visitor to our bed but at 18months I stopped night feeds and she screamed regularly for an hour plus at 2/3am- I was v surprised none of the neighbours phoned social services - I think I would have done if I was them. Sorry - advice is - would she accept a cot mattress on the floor in your room. At 1 particularly bad point where self and DH could not agree she slept on a mattress NEXT TO HIM and he was in charge of night time discipline. It worked v well for us - then 1 day at about 25 months she announced she wanted to sleep in her bed, in her room. Miracle. Still wants to come in for a cuddle most nights and can be a blimin wriggly beast but I'm usually SO KNAckered I just sleep through it. good luck. and to 2nd itsababs - it is just a phase and it will pass. hugs

also - with DH - we have gone through periods of being SO CROSS with each other but now DD is easier to manage, things between us are easier too. So I hope that that is just a phase for you guys too. Good luck.

ooo and another thing... re breaking point.. have you tried leaving DD and DH together and just going to the pub with your mates for a bit. I find it to be v stress relieving, especially when I come back to find them both still alive.

I'm also a cosleeper by choice, but I think in your situation if your dh is willing to cosleep and you don't want to then it is fair enough for you to tell dh he is in charge of her at night and you are sleeping in the other room. Although if you don't want to sleep in other room, that isn't so helpful...

Can you get some kind of security screen for your dd's window so you can leave it open at night? That might be the best solution.

What Hellymelly and Babymutha said. Especially this: "sometimes when I've really stuck to my guns on something that seemed so important I have looked back and wished I'd just cut my daughter a bit of slack and gone with the flow." This will all pass. I'm inclined to agree with your DH about forcing the issue being unnatural -- please bear in mind that he has a right to his opinion on how his DD is treated and try to achieve a workable compromise where everyone gets a modicum of sleep and the relationship between you and DH doesn't suffer. It really will pass. Don't panic. Nobody sleeps in their parents' room or bed forever.

I co-slept, and the No-Cry Sleep book solution came out too late for my DCs and me, but I've heard good things about it. (It's a book, not on the web afaik) The mattress on the floor is one I've used plenty for little nighttime visitors even after they settled into the routine of sleeping on their own, when they were sick or when I was, or when they were especially prone to night terrors or bad dreams.

Hi

You could be describing my DD at that age. From perfect sleep routine we moved house at that age and all went pear shaped. We resorted to walking her to sleep in her pram for a couple of weeks and lifting her into her cot. But still she woke through the night but would settle after milk - I think. It was 5 years ago now!!

When we stopped walking her we had to lie next to cot holding her hand/stroking until she fell asleep. Took hours at first but we gradually moved to lying in room with her but not touching.

Have to say when we moved her into her own bed she became a night visitor to our bed. I went with it for a while as DH was away and tbh it was comfort for me too to have her in bed with me (but she slept diagonally!!!). We used no-cry sleep solution inch by inch moving out of her room to solve it all in the end!

Much rejoicing at around 3 we realised she was sleeping through more often than not!

Good luck with it. No-cry sleep is a fabulous book. If anything it reassures you that most things are normal and it is only an issue if you are bit happy with the situation if that makes sense? So what works for one person may not work for another - listen to your instincts not anyone elses!

HTH

For 'bit happy' read 'not happy' in my last paragraph!! Typing on my phone in bed and couldn't correct that fat thumb mistype!!

Crossed with previous poster - she is right you and DH need to work together on this. Have you tried discussing it at a calmer quieter time of day? While DD is screaming my DH would always side with her!!

CherryBaby, I so feel for you. I have a dd who is a terrible sleeper and at 7 she still gets up several times a week with nightmares and night terrors. It is particularly difficult because she followed my ds who was a perfect sleeper from 6 months (I happily co-slept with him before then) and I was spoiled. Like you, I can't sleep with dd in my bed and my dh really didn't get it at first (never mind that she is his 5th child!). I am the firmest most resolute mother on the planet and would leave her to cry, but it truly didn't work even if I never gave in and clearly she was needing something and wasn't just being spoiled. Dh and I had many fights discussions about the issue and eventually he started going into bed with her to calm her at bedtime (we put her in a full single bed fairly early). Now that she is older she will go to sleep on her own, but definitely has lots of issues associated with it (light has to be on in hall and door open and stuffed animals around her and covers in the right position and a kiss followed by a hug, not a hug followed by a kiss...etc. etc.). She still wakes up in the night several times a week and comes and gets into bed with us (or mostly me, because dh is at uni out of the country). She also has other neediness issues and a very wise therapist told me to give in to her more. The idea goes against every grain of my being and everything I was taught growing up, but I thought I'd try it in desperation and it really worked. I don't do it so much that she gets spoiled, but now when she is whining/crying about something, instead of just telling her to stop, or ignoring her, I give her a hug and a few minutes attention and it really seems to calm her and improve her behavior for several days or even weeks after that!

If it helps-we have put our mattress on the floor and a small mattress for DD1 butted up against it,of course DH always ends up on this as the girls and I hog the bigger mattress,or he ends up at the foot of the mattress like a labrador,but we all have enough space to wriggle about.Maybe if you just put her cot next to you for a while it would do the trick?

The No Cry Sleep solution is a book, I got mine from Amazon. I'm trying to thing of other things that have worked but I expect you've probably tried most things. There's various gadgets and toys that play soothing music and light shows although she'll probably find it more of a distraction at her age. And any song that is just deadly repetitive with about a billion verses ! ....ours is the pirate song, sung like an old record player winding down with an accompanying back and head stroke....she generally nods off eventually to that one

doh !.....just read the full thread properly and realise I'm pointing out the bl**ding obvious with the no-cry thing - sorry. I did read in another book that this is a very common unsettled period, to do with them realising that they are separate little beings and not part of mummy, hence mummy can beggar off if she so choses and which sparks all sorts of anxieties. More weight to the argument that its 'just a phase'....just hope its a short one

Armchair psychology over...

Hi everyone, thanks for all the replies - it really helps to know that other parents are/have been in the same situation and that its common - even if no change will happen for a while!

Ive tried shifting her sleep pattern around today, so we woke up at 7am this morning knackered emoticon, and she had a very early nap at around 10-1pm....she went down in her cot without a peep and when I checked on her a minute later she was asleep. Even though its the same room as it is at night...same warmth, same light....makes you think doesnt it ......

Im bracing myself for tonight though.
Ive got a sneaky feeling she knows daddy is around in the evening so screams extra loud, which always makes him come running...
Might be kicking him out of the house at bedtime.