How can I get my 7mo to go/stay asleep??? very tired mummy alert!

[tinky19]

DD has never been very good at sleeping. 4 hrs at a time max but its getting worse! Now she wont even go to sleep!

We have bath, bottle, bed routine. DS goes to have story with dh and i bf dd/ rock basically do what ever i can to get her to go to sleep but without fail she's awake 30mins later, screaming the place down snd simply refuses to go to sleep! None of the bf/ singing/ rocking works. I've even left her as part of controllled crying but that was a total disaster. (i did cc with ds at 14mo which worked in a matter of days but i think shes too young.)

I spend all evening either running up and down stairs (if she does happen to drop off again its only for about 10/15 mins) or, like tonight i bring her back down stairs and bf/ cuddle her for the rest of the evening and feel like a massive failure.

9 times out of 10 she ends up co sleeping with us.

What can i do???
ideas, please

Thanks for all your words of wisdom.
alabama I'm going to pm you to find out more. She asleep at the mo! Crosses fingers and every other part of body and she did briefly open her eyes, look at me then close them again which for her would normally have resulted in screams so thats really good for her.
I have also started to play a lullaby toy when i feed her and shes going to sleep so hopefully she will associate that with sleep.

Thanks again.

hi again

just noticed you said something about her disturbing your DS. We had a similar problem and DD took months longer than him to go through because we would immediately grab a bottle or go to her or whatever to stop her waking him up. Eventually we decided that she was nearly a year, very well fed and to stop. When she woke, after an initial settling, we would leave her and do CC and if needed one of us would go in and lie with DS for a bit - he was woken but always went back ok if we were there. Cracked it in a few days, but she was older (almost 1) by then.

My DS is the same. We made his routine much later for a few nights to get him out of habit so we made him stay awake till 9pm and he was out like a light withut waking after half hour.
He is 10m and sometimes naps (only 30 min by his body clock) at 9, 1, 4 but oftn misses the 9,4 ones. He has dinner at 6, bath at 7 an milk/bed at 8. Has sorted out that part of night but now he is wide awake anytime from 2-4 am so ends up in my bed as I am too tired to deal.
One step at a time though. You will get there but I do know how bloody annoying it is.

tinky fingers crossed it worked for you, but feel free to pm me and I'll tell you exactly why I di. I literally changed everything nd she is such a happy well rested baby now....from 3-6 months she was overtired, I was shattered, she was up evey hour, oh and I were constantly arguing and I was constantly crying out of exhaustion. I didn't do true cc where you on't pick them up, but mixing cc with ou/pd worked amazingly for us. 2 months on 7am-7pm. Good luk x

I'm in the same sleep deprived hell also with 7m dd. Alabama what is the secret?!

I pmed tinky back, but basically i did a mixture of cc with pu/pd, it worked pretty much straight away with me, and the most she cried was 8 mins (with me going in every 1-2 mins and picking her up). she now sleeps 7-7 and i kid you not, it has chnaged everything. she is gfull of beans, so happy and smiley, eating well, so well rested. I was going out of my mind with sleep deprivation and exhaustion and was so scared to try cc because I didn't want to hear her cry but the actual crying bit was so minimal she actually cried a hell of alot more when I used to put her down sound sleep as she was waking everfy 45 mins - 1 hour.

Pm me trees if you want me to tell you exactly how i did it.

good luck.

Alabama please put it on here as we have tried mix of cc/pu/pd and don't seem to have got far with it. Want to know where I am going wrong.

So basically what I did was a mixture of the 2 methods. Started of doing bedtime routine, then feed...before I used to feed to sleep but this time after bf or bottle I would gently wake baby by burping, brushing teeth, kisses etc. I then put baby down in cot sleepy but awake and walked out the room.i stood outside and set a timer for 1min, predictably she would cry. After 1 min I went in picked up baby kisses etc, then put her down as soon as she was calm and repeated.after 4 mins I increased to 2 mins. Within 8 mins she was asleep.
The first night I had to repeat a couple times, the next night it took like 3 mins, the night after 90seconds. After that she slept 7-7 and when she did wake she would self settle.
Obviously its not fool proof right now I am up as she woke at 5am but is cutting a second tooth so understand why she is restless so I have gone in cuddles, put some gel on gums, drink of water and lay her back down...and she has started to drift off. For me the key was sticking with it and repeating the routine. Good luck.

Tinky and trees how did it go last night?

Not good but my fault as I managed routine 7pm till 10pm and she finally went to sleep. Woke up 12 am and after half an hour I brought her in bed with me. Still that doesn't help much as she was up every 2 hours then up up at 5.30 am. Worked out Dd is averaging 6 or 7 hours sleep-that is it! I've been so tired today. Spoke to DH, who works away, about possibility of him taking a week off work so we can try and crack it together. Already in bedtime hell. Every time I put her down she goes crazy

So sorry it didn't go well....coud you try putting her down awake but vet very sleepy at first, is that worth a try do you think?

I can certainly try! I'm just finding it hard to implement a routine on my own. Feel pathetic that I caved so quickly. DH home for one night tomorrow so might make progress.

Alabama I think you were lucky with your dd, and glad it worked for you - my dd was never ever in that 'awake but sleepy' state, the minute I went to put her down she'd be wide awake and going berserk. She could scream for hours no matter what we did if we tried putting her down to sleep when she didn't want to.

OP if it helps you to know, my dd was much as you describe at the same age. I co-slept with her from 5 months as it was the only thing that got me some sleep. I used to keep her awake til she was obviously tired (this was usually about 9/10pm), feed her to sleep, settle her in her cot, she'd sleep a few hours then from the first wake up onwards we'd cosleep.

At about 11 months her sleep patterns just seemed to change, she started self-settling, getting tired earlier in the evening and sleeping for longer, eventually just staying asleep all night in her cot or being happy to settle back in it after a feed if she woke. We did nothing at all to make this happen, it just did.... just trying to say that cosleeping now doesn't mean you'll be doing it forever (ditto cuddling/feeding all evening).

Alabama, that is what we did but DS fights slepp so much that it could take over 2 hours and did not seem to get less even after a few nights. He does seem to be a bit better now but still wakes at 12, 2 (at which point I often bring him to bed as am too tired to stand)
Is so annoying as we had a week of sleep by 8 then waking at 3 then 6.30 which was bliss. Am going away for weekend so hope it will jolt him out of awful routine and we can try again when we get home. Will try your method again and try not to cave at 2am.

Just want to update- had 3 nights of going to sleep around 7.30 till 7 am with only one short wake up! Unheard of! DH has taken a week off work, started Sunday night and going very well so far. Dd is now also napping IN HER COT during the day. I still can't quite believe it! Thank you so much Alabama

no, not good here.

We have been trying every night but it takes hours for her to fall asleep in her cot. She then still, no matter what the time wakes up 30 - 40 minutes later.

Even leaving her to cry for a couple of minutes is resulting in her being sick or pooing

I had about 4 hours (broken) sleep last night!!

Sorry tinky, probably not what you want to hear. It took us 45 mins first 2 nights then about half an hour last night so not immediate. How old is your dd? Maybe she's just not ready? On Sunday we moved dd's cot back into her own room as she had always slept in our room so that could be another contributing factor.

I would suggest you need to start putting her asleep in her cot awake. We had trouble with my son when he was 11 months and he started crying at bedtime and we would spend hours to get him to sleep. We got a sleep consultant in and she really helped us learn about sleep. Basically you need to put the baby into his cot in the same state as when it will wake up. So if you put the baby asleep having been rocked to sleep in your arms, then when it wakes up in the cot without you there it doesn't recognise where it is and wakes and cries. So you should put your baby into its cot full awake and possibly sitting up (if it can sit) as this is how it will find itself if it wakes in the middle of the night. Then it learns how to get itself back to sleep from this state.

It sounds weird but it honestly does work. We just rengaged the same sleep consultant for our son who is now 21 months as he was waking again as he lost how to put himself back to sleep. So we cut out bottles before bed as a sleep cue, and put him into his cot standing up and then did some controlled crying. It is improving his sleep now as well.

Hope this helps!

She's almost 8months trees

That's just it emmyloo, I can put her down asleep after bath and bottle - she'll be awake 30 mins later, or, I can stay with her cc/pupd for hours - she'll fall asleep and still wake up 30 mins later and refuse to go back to sleep by which time it's getting later and later and dh and i are knackered.