Don't know how much more I can take

[pzyck]

DD's sleep has never been great - I used to get maybe 3 hour stretches when she was really little, but it's gradually gotten worse (now 8 months). We cosleep and I breastfeed but there is literally nothing else that will settle her once she starts stirring. What starts off as moaning gradually descends into crying and then if you do absolutely anything - touch her, sing/speak to her, etc, she screams like you've just broken her arm. If I pick her up to try and cuddle her she will fight me, but she keeps her eyes closed the entire time. She will stir 10+ times a night (regardless of whether we're cosleeping or sleeping in separate rooms) and I've snapped at her a few times lately when I've been resisting giving her the boob at 2AM for the 6th time already. I feel like a horrible human being because I know she's doesn't understand but I have literally not slept for longer than a few hours since she was born and I'm at breaking point.

She has a sensitive temperament and I'm absolutely fine with snuggling her all night if it means she'll sleep well but it makes no difference. I just want to be able to cuddle her to sleep without her reacting like I'm trying to smother her, it really makes me depressed.

I should add that even DP is starting to snap at her in the night too - he already sleeps in a different room (with earplugs) but sometimes she'll get so worked up, it wakes him up before 14 hour shifts. I feel so sorry for her when he does it and she just cries more, but then I'm just as guilty which makes me feel terrible that I'm a hypocrite.

If you don’t think there is anything physically wrong then I would absolutely recommend sleep training. There are gentler but (much) slower methods or there is controlled crying which works faster but involved crying, sometimes a lot of crying. If you are at the end of your tether, and it sounds like you are, I think controlled crying is best.

You will get a lot of anti CC views on MN but I think it’s a question of deciding what is the lesser evil, both for you and her. Remember such broken sleep isn’t great for your DD either and obviously nor are snappy parents (no blame, I think snappiness is inevitable with such poor sleep). I also think many people who say “it’s a phase just ride it out” had babies who slept ok from months 0-4 !

I also suggest putting her in her own cot. Some babies sleep better that way and yours just might be one of them.

We worked with a gentle sleep trainer (hopefully no one comes at me for this) for our baby who also wouldn't sleep longer than 1-2 hours since birth; he's 6 months now. She transformed our sleep, and I mean transformed. If you'd like her details I can PM you?

I'd give some formula, a dummy and try sleep training

Teething ??

Calpol ? Ibuprofen ?

Find the beyond sleep training project on FB if you don't want to sleep train, it's fab lots of advice and there is a private group too where you can ask questions around sleep.

we are in a similar boat, my DD will sleep through the night for a few weeks and then a few weeks of horrific sleep. Currently in the horrific sleep stage. We are all exhausted atm, I personally couldnt sleep train but I do totally get why people do it especially if the lack of sleep is making you all absolutely miserable and snappy.

Good luck ❤️

Aw OP I have no advice re controlled crying or sleep training as I never did it but I do know there’s a particularly shitty sleep regression around 8 months, DDs sleep was awful then too, was like she had no concept of night and day.

If it’s any consolation DD got better at 12 months old and has slept through every night since then x

There are gentle sleep solutions/stay and support method but you will.need your partners support and him on board as generally best they start it and they take effort.
If she's crying eyes closed then she might still be asleep it's quite common for babies to do this as part of their sleep cycle.

We followed Lucy Wolfe method but ignored the bf to a schedule element but my DH would go in and settle first for about a week if it was before 3/4 hrs as I knew DS's didn't need a feed.

Most importantly you both need to be on the same page and work as a team

We've just had the same with DS (nearly 1). He just wasn't settling well anywhere really, even with Co-sleeping, otherwise would have been happy to do it. As he was doing his best stints of sleep in the cot in his room it was a no brained really, so we just decided he will do all sleep in the cot snd we did stay and support. There was crying but he was never alone and sleep is immediately so much better. He is also now mostly night weaned.

My DD was a terrible sleeper. I got no more than a couple of hours sleep a night for 4 years. Every time I thought I can't go on, I can't take this torture any more, somehow I did. We tried sleep training but some babies just aren't trainable in that way. Your body and mind adapt and somehow you survive.

We had this with our now 11 month old. Just the worst sleeper and I really do mean the worst despite my best efforts from the very beginning. We tried EVERYTHING including cosleeping. It was when he started nursery at 6 months I started properly cosleeping as he caught every bug going and it was easier to get to him but cosleeping never improved his sleep. In fact it seemed to make it worse as time went on and he’d wake every hour or two.
at 10 months I’d reached my limit. There’s only so long you can survive on extremely short broken sleep every single night.
I knew we couldn’t leave to cry it out or even controlled crying as like you our baby has a very sensitive temperament. Has never known the words chill or relax since he was born so here’s what we did:
We started off by rocking to sleep and putting in cot fully asleep. Every time he woke and cried, we went back in straight away and rocked to sleep. It was brutal the first few nights waking between 10-15 times but eventually he slept all night in the cot.
we then worked on putting him in awake. Sometimes he’d go in fully awake and fall asleep himself no crying, sometimes he’d lie there trying to get to sleep then cry after 10-15 mins and other times he’d cry straight away. Whenever he’d cry, again we’d go straight in and rock to sleep. Eventually the times where we put him in and he’d go to sleep himself with no crying increased and now on average he sleeps in 5-7 hour stretches with 1-2 wakeups where he needs us which is a massive improvement. We always go in when he cries but he sleeps much better. Even if we rock to sleep at the beginning of the night he now self settles during the night anyway.
now I’m not saying it’s fool proof. We still have days especially when he’s ill or teething where it all falls apart but we’re getting there. I think it will be a while before we can get him to sleep and he just sleeps the whole night but he’s clearly a baby that needs more support to sleep than those lucky good sleepers that do 12 hours straight (so jealous).
you do have my sympathies as people will say sleep training is cruel or they’re only babies they need you but when you’ve had to survive on 1-2 hour slots of sleep for a total of 4-5 hours maximum every night for months it completely destroys you and the snapping and frustration is understandable (both me and my partner have been there). You all, including the baby, need proper quality rest.

For us we managed to cut out night feeds at this age (not without some persuasion) and wakes dropped from 6+ to only or twice on a bad night

If they get milk they want more. And it doesn't sound like cosleeping is working for you.

@minipie @swipe I can't sleep train, gentle or not. As I say, she descends into literal screaming like she's in significant pain or something - I'm not joking when I say if I left her to cry like that multiple times a night it's genuinely likely someone would call the police for neglect because it sounds like I'm trying to hurt her without context. I can't personally leave her in such a significant state of distress.

@mackthepony Formula wouldn't make any difference (not that she's take a bottle), I already feed her filling food in her last wake window but it has no impact on keeping her asleep longer. She's also been a lifelong dummy refuser.

@Ireallydohope This has been going on consistently for months, whether she's had new teeth through or not. She's currently got more teeth than is suggested an 8 month old would have at this age, her next ones aren't due through till she's around 1.

@Folkishgal Thank you, sending hugs throughout your difficult period too.

@2023pending Her body definitely knows it's night as she practically never has an "awake" period, she is just constantly being disturbed by something (be that an actual issue, an inability to link sleep cycles or a need for comfort).

@Scottishskifun DP is happy to go with whatever I feel is best but he isn't around 4-5 nights a week when she's initially gone to bed (and then has to get back up early the next day for his next shift) so we can't implement something consistent at the moment.

@LSSG We've tried her being in her own sleep space (cot in our room, cot in her own room) and all it meant was me getting out of bed and/or walking to the next room to do the same thing I was doing in bed with disturbance. @DragonbornMum i get what you mean about cosleeping not working but this is why we continue to do it, because it's the lesser of all the evils in terms of how much I feel the effects the next day.

@KickHimInTheCrotch I agree that I think DD is just too sensitive.

@Pizzaandsushi DD has started going down at night not on the boob, but any attempt to settle in another way when she's already asleep just isn't working - that's where my frustration lies.

You are going to have to sleep train, as her behaviour will not change if you do not do something different. Find a sleep consultant and they will write you a plan. For instance, you breastfeed before bed and your partner puts her to bed awake. Then a gradual shift from this. Own room, routine and stopping feeding to sleep. It will be awful. But she's already screaming so 🤷‍♀️

@sunflowerandivy She's not screaming initially on waking, she's absolutely fine if she's breastfed for 5 minutes and will be straight back to sleep. The screaming comes when I do what would be described as "gently sleep training" her (i.e. picking up, patting, shushing, etc). She already has the same routine she's had since she was six weeks old prior to bed, and like I say her own room hasn't previously made any difference (previously as in we gave it another go in the last month and the increased sleep deprivation led me to getting ill so we abandoned it).

Ahh I see yeah that’s a tricky one. Even if you had to go in loads in the beginning to rock back to sleep eventually it would start working but if no other resettling technique works that’s tough.
I understand about the screaming too. Our baby is so loud (been told by several people) and if left to cry we would almost certainly have the police sent round!
Formula also won’t necessarily help you’re right. Ours is formula fed and we still struggled with bad sleep.
Will she settle at all with your partner? I know he works long hours but would he be able to take a couple days off work to try and go in a resettle? I read somewhere breastfed babies settle better away from breastfeeding mum.
Does she have or will she take a dummy? Our baby has one and it is a definite source of comfort for him and great now he can put it back in himself but if there is something wrong even that won’t work and he’ll just throw it at us and thrash about until we fix whatever it is that’s bothering him.
He does have cmpa though and I think that played a huge part in the beginning with his poor sleep. Is that something that could be a factor? Maybe an allergy causing tummy discomfort?
Otherwise the only thing I can think of is a lady called Cher who runs Tired Baby Sleep Company. If you have TikTok, look her up as she has many videos on this and she is a sleep consultant but THE only one I’ve ever seen talk about high needs babies and she really seems to understand traditional methods won’t work for babies like ours. I’ve not been to her so obviously can’t fully recommend but we would have gone to her if our method hadn’t been successful.

^@minipie @swipe I can't sleep train, gentle or not. As I say, she descends into literal screaming like she's in significant pain or something - I'm not joking when I say if I left her to cry like that multiple times a night it's genuinely likely someone would call the police for neglect because it sounds like I'm trying to hurt her without context. I can't personally leave her in such a significant state of distress.*

Yes, literal screaming is normal with sleep training. All mothers hate hearing their baby scream (it always sounds worse to you than others), and CC style sleep training is distressing, I won’t lie. But it doesn’t last. She won’t be abandoned, I’m talking about CC not cry it out. It’s up to you to weigh up whether you think two exhausted snappy parents is better or worse for your baby than some periods of screaming. Or try one of the gentler “no cry” methods if you prefer but be prepared for it to take months.

OP, my middle child was like this- awake every 45 minutes, a quick breastfeed and she'd be back to sleep but if we tried anything else it was a disaster, with very loud unconsolable screams. We couldn't even contemplate sleep training as it wouldn't have worked, but just resulted in everyone getting tireder and more distressed (adults included!) It's worth remembering that breastfeeding isn't just about nutrition, its about comfort and hormones as well, so her feeding at night doesn't neccessarily mean she's hungry but could be that she is looking for the comfort and closeness you bring her.

Things that worked for us were a quick feed even if I didn't think she 'needed' it, cosleeping (because she settled faster, which meant I didn't fully wake up as I would have if I had to go to a different room) making sure that she was wearing sleepsuits that didn't twist and that covered her feet, and using brushed cotton sheets so that the bed felt warm even if she moved around. We also had blackout curtains, windows shut tight, and no light at all in the room, nothing that glows like a digital alarm clock.

I'm sorry if I missed that in your post OP, but if you're cosleeping and brestfeeding, did you try to have the breast next to baby exposed so she could latch on on her own when needed? It's obviously not ideal, but works for us, I sleep in an onesie and take it off one arm, and sleep on side with baby next to me. Whenever he's waking he just finds boob for comfort/food but it doesn't wake me up at all.

This

Your daughter has learnt to use breastfeeding to fall back asleep when she naturally rouses between sleep cycles. Unless you continue to let her do so (a completely legitimate choice!) she will have to learn to fall asleep without breastfeeding which is going to involve some form of crying unless it takes a very long time.

Your daughter sounds so much like mine from the sleep history to the sensitive nature to the early teeth. I also thought she wouldn't be a candidate for sleep training but I hit a wall one night, did it, and she actually was fine - furious rather than upset and the whole thing took 35mins the first night with her crying an absolute maximum of 3mins at a time. I appreciate it's not always so quick, but you still might be surprised.

(I did a version of Little Ones Feed to soothe programme where the feeding is at intervals rather than leaving at intervals, although we later adapted it based on how she responded)

Co sleeping and breast feeding was all I needed to read. You won't sleep much. If you want to change it you need to give baby a bottle at ten and put in her cot leave for a while to self settle.

No advice but I'm in the same boat. My DS is 8 months old and his sleep hasn't been great recently. We also now cosleep and breastfeed but I do think it's just a phase (8-10 month sleep regression) so I don't think it's something I should stress myself out trying to 'fix' but of course you do want it to improve so you can all sleep better but I'm trying to take it one night at a time. Fingers crossed you both get a better nights sleep tonight!

Sorry if iv missed it but is there a reason you won't just pop her back on the boob?

Some advice:

Bottle/formula, as you've said won't make any difference I agree. But she doesn't need milk in the night anymore so this should be stopped imho and dp should be doing the night wake-ups and settling her back to sleep

Ditto with dummy - its always suggested on MN yet the worst sleepers i know are babies/toddlers with dummies!

Read Sarah Norris' "The Baby Detective" - she gives you a plan for how to cope with unsettled sleep habits mainly, but also looks at the bigger picture of WHY she's waking.

If you're not prepared to sleep train then you need to be prepared you're in for the long haul!