Please help: I can't cope with more sleepless nights

[onetimeonlyy]

Please be gentle.... DS is 9 months. Always been a poor sleeper (if it's relevant DH has very bad sleep habits and is pretty much an insomniac).... I thought we were on an upward road 3 months ago. His day time naps were exactly same time, very established and he was only waking twice in the night. But two months ago something happened and his sleep just got horrendous. Some nights he wakes every half hour. He is shattered in the days too and he is suddenly wanting to sleep every couple hours but only for half an hour. He's a great eater.... I just don't know what's happened to his sleep.

I'm absolutely demented. Feel like such a failure and I'm just a zombie. I work two days on top of this and it's hell. The house keeps being a tip because I'm so exhausted. I've still got terrible pelvic pain from my pregnancy but I don't have the energy to do my physio exercises... So I'm in pain all the time.

Right that's my sob story.... I need your help! It's obvious DS is struggling with self settling. When he constantly wakes it's when he has gone through a sleep cycle, gets restless and can't get himself back to sleep. I'm really trying not to just breastfeed him as I know this isn't good.... But sometimes he is absolutely inconsolable... Hysterical. I live in a flat and our poor neighbours, I can't leave him cry. I try shushing. Patting. Hand on chest. He has a dummy. Pick up, cuddle put down. I do all those.

Please can someone give me advice on encouraging him to self settle. And also tell me this won't last forever! Exhausted isn't even the word.

there are a number of techniques you can adopt, depending on what you’re most comfortable with.

At this stage I adopted a delayed reaction approach: waiting for 5 minutes before settling ds. Some of the time he settled himself. Then stretched it a little, and a little more, and ds got better at self settling. It’s tricky though so to you.

I have started using the gro Ollie the owl and that seems to work for me. I’ve been in the same boat as you.

I've been there and it sucks. BUT it does end.

My advice is to do whatever you can to just sleep. I found co-selling was my answer, but I know that it requires solid rules and that it's not recommended.

You will sleep again, until then... the housework can wait.

How many nights does your dh do the wakings so you can sleep through?

Thanks every.

My DH was up quite a bit last night with him, problem is we live in a flat so even in the spare room I can hear my baby crying which means I don't really sleep. I think my body is so used to waking up i stupidly find it so hard to sleep myself!

Everyone *

Is he rocked or fed to sleep? If he isn't able to drift off alone for sleep, it could be that he needs whatever help he has at bedtime every time he wakes in the night.

Check out little ones app!! My Ds had a similar
Sleep regression and problems self settle. Tried a little ones routine and it was a god send.

I'm really trying not to just breastfeed him as I know this isn't good

WHAT!??

Look, I'm the first person to tell someone not to breastfeed if they don't want to. I've BF one child to 5 months and hated every moment of it, swore I would never BF again and then somehow ended up BF DC 2 for 18 months despite my better judgement for alllll the reasons you listed above and because it was the only way to get the little monkey to shut up quickly before they woke their siblings up.

My advice is do whatever you need to do right now to get the most sleep possible. All of this is temporary. At some point your child will self settle and it probably won't be anything to do with anything you do or don't do.

There's a sleep regression/growth spurt around this age. It's utterly shit, but they do start getting better around 13 -14 months old.

You will get through this.

I meant I'm trying not to breastfeed him to sleep everytime he wakes and is crying as he isn't learning to self settle. I do still breastfeed during the day and the morning. It's very hard at 4am when you are shattered and he's crying as it's so much easier

I'll try the app thank you!

I have a 3 Yr old and a 9 month old. Both mine slept well until about 7 months, when they learnt to pull themselves to standing. From 7 months I did, and now am, effectively co-sleeping. I put DD in her cot, then once she wakes after I'm in bed, she's in with me and I just sleep with one boob out and she latches on as she wants. Did the same with DS. It's a phase. Could he teeth, growth spurt, developmental, milestones.... Who knows. I don't have the time or energy to fight it at the moment, but co-sleeping and feeding as DD wants means everyone gets more sleep.

Bit long-winded, but what I'm trying to say is babies change all the time. Could you not co-sleep for now and you can always change it in a few months time?

Could you structure his day naps? At 9 months, my DS had a short one (up to an hour) in the morning & a long one after lunch (2-3 hours). Put him in cot & leave him to self settle if you can. Hopefully in the day, your neighbours will be at work. The first nap could be in car or pram, second should be in the cot.

I'd try and get them sorted first & then work on the night sleep.

Again, could be difficult with the crying & neighbour issue but when I night weaned from BFing, my DH did the wake ups & offered water. This worked well.

Some people offer porridge at bedtime to fill them up but never done this to know if it helps

I would work on the day time naps too. You can use that as a chance to sort out the self settling. Ds2 (a poor sleeper, we had to work hard to get him into a good pattern) would wake half an hour into his sleep cycle in his afternoon nap, and was obviously still tired. I knew from baby no 1 that it was possible to change this into a proper 2 hour nap but ds2 was very resistant to the idea. I think I just picked him up gave him a little bf and then put him straight down without actually feeding him to sleep. So he learnt to put himself back to sleep, magically it did work, in the day. After a bit he didn't wake or if he woke he self settled. I think all babies have these cycles of light and deep sleep and as long as they can settle back after the first cycle they go into deep sleep. I think this then transferred itself to the nightime sleeps as long as we left him for a little to self settle. I think the reason he is crying/screaming is because he is actually very tired when he wakes up in the night, rather than hungry/thirsty necessarily.

Another approach is to decide you are going to give x no of feeds at night say 2 feeds in the small hours only. So 11 and 3 am. And in between just comfort him and resettle rather than bf.

Personally I bf in the small hours but only at intervals of at least 3 hours if not considerably longer, and I co slept. But ds2 was a child that settled better in his own cot sometimes after a feed, it was only that it was more convenient to keep him in our bed if we were knackered.

Comforting and encourage to self settle, rather than feed completely to sleep. So put them in cot awake even if you have fed. We got a few protests (1 minute?) from this, but he quickly learnt that we were available to comfort and reassure but he could do the work of going back to sleep himself.

I never did controlled crying or sleep training, except in the way I have described above, which I would call judicious night time feeding. He is only 9 months so I would expect some night feeds at least until they are 2!! bfdng was a godsend in these circs, but plenty of bottle fed babies and toddlers wake in the night, don't let people suggest otherwise.

Have you checked for teething or earache? This could be another reason his sleep is disturbed, and it genuinely soothes him to suck.

The other thing I would suggest is to keep his cot in your room. You might find just the sound of your voice when he wakes reassuring or your breathing, and might resettle better. You might think you will sleep worse with him there but just knowing you don't have to get up and down like a yo yo might help you from being on red alert too.

Baby vapour rub on his clothing in case he is congested and cannot breathe. Propping his mattress slightly ( a rolled towel under the mattress at the head) Is he too hot or too cold? Babies sometimes get terribly hot in baby gros and sleeping bag combos. Use a lightweight cotton sleeping bag and layer with blankets according to room temp.

More fresh air in the day, go for a short walk in the pram with him in the park or just sit on a bench in the park with the pram.