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Original poster

Non sleeping child - desperate

51 replies

WoodBurnerBabe · 02/12/2013 04:05

My DD is 1 today. She is also driving me to the edge of insanity with disrupted sleep. She's exhausted by 5.30pm most days and we start bedtime routine at about 6pm. She goes down with no fuss, bottle & cuddles are the order of the day and she's asleep by 6.30pm without fail.

Early evenings are fine, but come about 1am and she's awake about every 90 minutes and wants feeding (I still bf overnight) before going back to sleep. From about 4am she won't go back to sleep.

I'm on my knees, I work 4 days a week in a fairly high pressure and busy job, I'm getting to the stage I can't cope. DH does as much as he can, but obviously he lacks boobs to feed her with...

Ideally I want her off the boob and sleeping through - where do I start??

Please offer me advice lovely MN people, I'm desperate and unhappy. I was so tired last week I felt like my life was a stop motion animation with jumpy staggered movements and missing bits of conversations.

I have to leave for work in 3 hours and I have the stupidest workload today. DH does the evening pickup and bedtime on Mondays so I can stay until it's done, but that's not really the point...

OP posts:
HandragsNGladbags · 02/12/2013 08:25

DD2 wouldn't sleep through, not bf'd but apart from that same situation.

I used to leave a bottle of milk in the cot with her so she could feed herself. That sort of worked.

Then I started leaving water in her cot in a bottle, and that sort of worked.

Now she wakes up (2.6) and chats to herself for an hour.

I feel for you, I really do Flowers

Original poster
WoodBurnerBabe · 02/12/2013 20:49

Going to try giving her a bottle at 11 and see where we go with that t

OP posts:
Ragusa · 02/12/2013 20:59

If you do decide to go down the controlled crying route, then don't worry too much - it is highly effective I reckon and the evidence for it being actively harmful is as flaky as a danish pastry.

If you're not sold on CC or CIO then I think the other option is for you to go away for a night to a friends, once the older DCs are in bed. DH gets up during the night to your little one every time she wakes, shushes her back to sleep. It will be awful for him but it needs to be done. Repeat the next night. Once your youngest learns that she is not going to get you and your boobs in the night, hopefully she will stop waking up. Well, that's the theory - worked really well with our older DD, excellently, in fact - she slept through pretty much ever after. Not so much with DS but it still improved things.

I would resist replacing breastfeeds with a bottle feed, unless she is realy genuinely hungry: otherwise you're going to be up making bottles in the night. Ugh!

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waterrat · 02/12/2013 21:11

It's truly horrid hearing them cry but she just hasn't learne to settle herself when she wakes in the night -maybe she won't be a perfec sleeper when you cut the night feeds but she can be taught to settle on her own for large chunks of night

I would personally break it down night by night so you start by doing dream feed then say no feeds until 5am - any wakings just comfort without picking her up

What really worked for us was not picking up from te cot - I find it overstimulates them when you do and thy aren't learning to fall asleep - she is tired she will sleep in the end however cross she is!

Original poster
WoodBurnerBabe · 02/12/2013 21:38

Thanks for that, I was planning something like that - bottle at 11, then shush and pat until 5am, then she can have another bottle then. Luckily she's now on cows milk so no faffing with formula, just out the fridge and into the microwave...

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jaundicedoutlook · 02/12/2013 22:56

Agree with turnips and others...after 15 months of DD waking at least one and often half a dozen times per night we ended up having 3 or 4 days of just letting her scream the house down like a nutter cry it out. Now she goes down at 7.30 and 19 times out of 20 that's it.

BikeRunSki · 02/12/2013 23:08

I wrote a longer post, but I have lost it. I went back to work after dc 2 in January this year, when she was 15 months old. She was a terrible sleeper. After a horrific first 4 months, culminating in a 21 hour day/night and then going into work, someone suggested cranial osteopathy. It struck me as being a big hippy doo-dah, but with just enough science that it might make sense. Anyway, we tried it. DD actually slept 12 hours that night! Gradually he'd unbroken nights increased. Now (6 months later) she is a pretty reliable sleeper. She had about 8 cranial Osteopathy sessions over about 4 months. Not cheap though.

Misfitless · 03/12/2013 06:24

Morning woodburnerbabe
How did your night go? Hope you got some sleep.

Original poster
WoodBurnerBabe · 03/12/2013 06:44

I gave her a bottle at 10.30 (couldn't keep my eyes open any longer!), and she drank 8oz!

Was amazing, she woke twice briefly and self settled both times within 2/3 minutes. Woke for the day about 5am, I just turned the light on in her room without her seeing me and she played in the cot for another 45min!

I feel amazing after so much sleep - not unbroken as she did wake me before she self settled, but I didn't have to get out of bed - and no boob!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the suggestions! Going to slowly cut down the evening bottle, but it does seem she is waking through hunger, I might need I look at how much she eats through the day. She was always a big baby, 98th centile, but she doesn't eat a vast amount considering she is a busy madam, crawling and in to everything!

I guess the boob milk wasn't quite up to the job if she was waking multiple times to feed, and it becoming a habit as well. Even if she has an evening bottle for a couple of months, that will probably save my sanity. Don't want to replace one bad habit with another though...

Work will be considerably more productive today I think!

OP posts:
Turnipsandsproutswithtinselon · 03/12/2013 06:51

Glad to hear you had a better night!

lanbro · 03/12/2013 06:56

Crying it out was the only thing that worked for us. Dd1 sleeps 12 hours and has done since she was about 8 months old. With the bf I went cold turkey at about a year and it was no problem at all, wasn't feeding in the night though anyway. Good luck!

Misfitless · 03/12/2013 07:11

So pleased that you got some sleep. Sounds like you've turned a corner!

cantthinkofagoodone · 03/12/2013 07:17

By the clock routine so 11am and 3pm naps up to 90 minutes, milk to the beginning of the sleep routine, no nighttime milk, self soothing to sleep in her cot not using you.

Give her 5 minutes before responding at night wakings.

Sittingbull · 03/12/2013 08:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TwoThreeFourSix · 03/12/2013 09:07

I night weaned off the boob at 13 months.

Upped milk intake during the day for the 2 weeks before, then one Friday went cold turkey (so I could recover over the weekend as I work FT).

When DS woke I went in and picked him up (but not in a feeding position). I offered water and paced the floor with him. It worked fine from night 1! The first few nights he drank a lot of water but settled easily just being held. Then he stopped the water.

However, it didn't make him sleep through, I still had to get up to comfort him. He is now 2.3 and has been sleeping in my bed (DH is in DS' single!) for the past 3 months because I'm pregnant and very sick and can't face getting up in the night (he won't accept DH).

Our next challenge is getting him back in his bed before the next baby arrives!

dancemom · 03/12/2013 09:12

Try giving her "supper" before bed, mashed banana or porridge?

Original poster
WoodBurnerBabe · 03/12/2013 22:48

OK, she's had banana porridge at supper and just giving her a small bottle now. Fingers crossed for tonight :-)

OP posts:
Sittingbull · 04/12/2013 03:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
WoodBurnerBabe · 04/12/2013 05:41

Through to 5.30 withou a peep. Happy days!

OP posts:
StrawberryMoose · 04/12/2013 06:27

Haven't read all other posts but wanted to share my experience.

My 13mth DS was bf until a month ago. Was waking as yours does regularly from about 1am for comfort feeds. Around the time of his 1st birthday he started biting hard me at his bedtime feed so I gave him a bottle instead (he had been having bottles in the day) whenever he woke I also gave him a bottle instead of boob and my breastfeeding just stopped (I suppose it was cold turkey but I think my supply was slowing anyway, hence the biting).

After a couple of days DH suggested controlled crying as we still weren't getting sleep and DS no longer had the boob to rely on. It went against every fibre of my being but we were at the end of our tether after a year of no sleep! My DH took charge.

Admittedly we didn't leave him crying for longer than 5mins at a time but we stopped all methods of soothing him (rubbing, patting, shhhing, feeding) just standing outside his door. It took 3 nights and wasn't nearly as bad as I thought and I'm really weak when it comes to giving in to DS cries!

He now sleeps 7-5.30. We'd like to work on getting him to sleep longer but at the moment we are just happy to get a good long stretch and not feel like zombies at work!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

StrawberryMoose · 04/12/2013 06:29

Sorry for epic post and bad grammar!!

Ragusa · 05/12/2013 15:43

Woo hoo, seems like you cracked it. Long may it continue.

mummyxtwo · 05/12/2013 21:44

Yay well done OP! Long may your improved sleep continue.

Misfitless · 06/12/2013 10:35

Hope you've had another good night, OP.

Original poster
WoodBurnerBabe · 06/12/2013 18:58

Baby is fine. 3yo decided this month is night terrors. Can't win!

But DD2 is considerably more settled and happy - I think she's trying to drop her mornin nap as well, which means she's sometimes overtired at bedtime with predictable results...

This too, shall pass... I'm assuming we just have to endure the night terrors?!?

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