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Parenting

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At the end of my tether - very bad sleep at night

1 reply

gabbro86 · 11/03/2023 23:26

Hi all, hopefully someone can help...

DS is almost 11 months old. He's always had bad sleep due to reflux and colic first, teething and various illnesses afterwards... just when I was thinking he was finally able to sleep well (2-3 hour nap during the day, 4-5 hour stretches at night), he started having really bad nights again!

He'll go down in his cot by himself at around 7pm, have a first stretch up to 9/10 (or earlier if I make the mistake of walking into the room, which is our bedroom) and then wake up, screaming his lungs off. I or DH would go to soothe him and try to put him back in the cot, but he'd hold onto our clothes and start crying again. There's no way he'll go back in it. So we co-sleep (we've done it since he was 2 months old and started suffering with reflux): one of us stays in bed with him, the other goes to sleep on the sofa.

It would not be a major issue, if he didn't wake up every hour, rubbing his face, screaming and thrashing like crazy! I try to give him the pacifier, he refuses it and screams louder, then he takes it and goes back to sleep almost immediately. He's not hungry as when I am in bed with him, he screams anyway (he's still EBF)... and when he's actually hungry the pacifier doesn't soothe him.

We don't know what's wrong... he does have one tooth coming out, but he never screamed so much for the other 7 he already has. Naps are fine, he takes a very long one (2-2.5 hours) in the middle of the day.

Any advice? This has now been going on for 3 weeks. We're both working full time (he goes to nursery 4 days a week, no issues whatsoever there) and the lack of sleep is starting to take a toll.

OP posts:
Verbena17 · 12/03/2023 00:28

Maybe that really tricky tooth coming through? Sometimes, there’s just a really awful one and the others are reasonably ok coming through.

If he’s still self soothing to sleep at 7pm, that’s a good sign.
Is he having a growth spurt do you thin and trying to up his feeds? Have you tried feeding him a bit more during the day or dream feeding him so then he might go longer at night?

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