Really struggling

[Cheesytoaster]

I am extremely exhausted and run down. My LO (who is 14 months) has been waking up frequently about 3/5 times at night for the past 10 weeks. Ever since he started nursery at the end of Aug, his bedtime has been horrendous. I’m at a complete loss on what to do, every night my anxiety is rocket high and I can’t relax because I often wait until he wakes up crying and screaming.
My husband has been seeing to him more when he wakes up due to me being so run down and unwell.

We rock him to sleep because every time we tried to ‘sleep train’ using the Ferber method, he would be hysterical and end up being sick from crying and coughing so much.

He used to be a good sleeper and I just don’t know what has happened. We haven’t changed our routine - we had a routine since he was 6 weeks old.

I really don’t know what to do and don’t know why this has been ongoing for so long…

I’m really, really struggling.

If you suspect teething I would use actual Calpol, not teething powder or a plug in.

Agree with others that he needs a bit more time to wind down, and probably more food before bed.

Thank you everyone for your kind responses.

I have tried EVERYTHING. Literally everything! He used to have dinner when he got home from nursery because his last food for the day at nursery would be at 3:30pm. However, when he gave him food when he was home, he would wake up in the middle of the night and throw it all back up.
We've tried sleep to wake and that didn't work. He would either be hysterical or take ages to get back to sleep. We've tried Ferber method but had to stop due to him being ill. If we leave it for too long or if we don't get to him on time, he will end up being sick.
He naps on average for about an hour at nursery but tbh, even when he's at home and he naps for about 2h, it makes absolutely no difference to his sleep at night, he will still wake up crying.
We've tried wake windows and didn't make much difference.
He hasn't had a night bottle since about 3months, we do offer him water to make sure he's hydrated. I don't think it's hunger related because as soon as we see to him and cuddle him, he will fall asleep within a minute! It's putting him back in the cot which is the challenge because he will instantly wake up and cry. As a result, we take turns to stay with him so he is sleeping on us. Maybe after 2-3 hours, we then put him back in his cot where he will sleep for a couple of hours and then wake up and it's rinse and repeat. It's a constant worry that if we give him too much food, he will end up being sick as this has happened quite a lot since he started nursery. Plus viruses and bugs around that as well. We now give him a snack when he's home from nursery so his food intake isn't full on. I've also upped his milk intake but sometimes he doesn't finish it.
We've used calpol, nurofen, snuffle babe, aveeno baby calming lotion, bogey sucker.. you name it and again, makes zero difference. We do everything we can to make him as comfortable and relaxed as possible but he still wakes up regardless.

Before he started nursery, his sleep was really good but as soon as nursery started, it seems like he is a different toddler and I'm at a complete loss on what to do. We have super important jobs (I know every job is important) and trying to function with broken sleep and being unwell is really hard to manage. I feel like my body is slowly starting to shut down. It has been like this for 10 weeks and I can't see it getting any better. If anything, it seems to be getting worse because he has now started crying when he's back from nursery - full on whinging, moaning and having a tantrum.

I'm just really, really struggling to be there for him when I feel like my body is slowly decomposing. It's really hard and I burst into tears a week ago because it's extremely tough. First time I have cried from exhaustion.

@Cheesytoaster is he currently unwell now? Nursery illnesses are absolutely awful. Mine was pretty much permanently ill when he started last September until February. It got so bad I ended up not going into work once in December because he was ill with bronchiolitis and I was ill with bacterial sinusitis, his Dad had a breakdown because of it all and I worried I was going to lose my job so I do understand! Like you I spent a small fortune on every oil, cream, spray, humidifier, nose sucker, etc etc and none of it really helped.
that period was the only time I ever coslept. Did he sleep better? No. His sleep was awful but it was the only way I could quickly pop the dummy back in and resettle without having to fully get up but unfortunately yeah nothing worked except pushing through and surviving.
it will get better I promise.
this is our second cold and flu season and so far has only had one day off nursery. Still has a permanent snotty nose but nothing like last year. He sleeps in his room in his cot and I also don’t get ill as much.
The only thing I can suggest is to try and find extra help if possible. We don’t have family close by so we struggled but having someone else for support would have been great.
could you hire a night nanny? Or do you have a spare room and you and your partner do shifts? Not ideal but if you can at least each get a chunk of sleep that might help.

Why wouldn't you co-sleep? It's not ideal however it might be an improvement to your current situation. You can try the cot again once the weather gets warmer and bug season is gone. At the end of the day, every animal on Earth sleeps next to mother/father/siblings when very young. Humans are the only species who will try to put their young separately in the cot. There are ways of making co-sleeping as safe as possible.

He's had about 5, if not more, sickness bugs. We've been in and out of hospital due to various reasons; low oxygen levels, HFM, blood on stool. You name it! Last visit to the hospital, we were there for 17 hours. He seems fine currently... apart from the constant cold, phlegmy cough and stuff/runny nose which seems to be never ending.

We have great support from family and friends. However, the past month has been a mo go due to LO getting ill, then the in-laws being unable to help for temporary health reasons. My parents are going abroad for 2 months tomorrow so haven't had help in a while. My best friend is taking him tomorrow while I get some bits done. He hasn't stayed at anyone's house yet as I am too fearful he might disrupt peoples sleep and/or wake up being sick which seems to be a common theme.

Like you, I have tried absolutely everything known to the world and nothing seems to be working. I feel so alone in this especially when I read other mums saying how great their LO is. Maybe I'm failing as a mother.

Co-sleeping with him is very unpredictable. He will thrash, arch his back, whinge and eventually wear himself out after a few hours and fall asleep. By then, it's time for us to get up for work.
He wants to be held but doesn't want to be held. He wants to cuddle but doesn't want to be cuddled. Don't get me wrong, there's been days where he will happily fall asleep with us in bed. But majority of the time, he will not have any of it.

He doesn't take a dummy or have a comforter, wasn't ever interested in it since he was born.

I dread every bedtime. I haven't had dinner for the past 3 days because I just want to get into bed. And when I try to sleep I can't because I am waiting for him to wake up. It's a vicious cycle. What am I doing wrong?

You’re not failing at all! You are doing wonderfully. It’s extremely difficult when you don’t have regular family support and have to go to work and raise a child!
Obviously raising a child for most people is hard work but when you see those parents who are able to go on days out, look amazing, house is always tidy, they almost certainly have regular childcare provided by grandparents or pay for things like a cleaner, night nanny etc.

I remember the hours and hours waiting in hospital well. I would say as long as a fever is coming down and they don’t have chest recessions or other big red flags, if you find yourself wondering whether a visit is needed and it’s getting close to bedtime, I would stay at home and reassess in the morning.
It’s not worth the loss of sleep for everyone to be sitting in a waiting room for hours, exposed to more germs and then after they tell you it’s viral and nothing can really be done to help, you then have to look after them all day on no sleep.
I understand the lonely feeling too. Just last week it hit me hard the lack of family support but I can’t change that and so I had a little cry, acknowledged I was upset and we went out for the day and had a lovely time.
It WILL improve even though I know it doesn’t feel like it now.
I still have a lot of anxiety over illnesses and when I see him catching another cold it takes me right back to that first year and I crumble inside but so far it really hasn’t been anything like last year.

He hasn't had a night bottle since about 3months, we do offer him water to make sure he's hydrated.

@Cheesytoaster DO you mean overnight? That could be part of the problem, I'd try giving him a bottle OP, ours would mainline a bottle during a night wake up, but only take a few sips of water if offered that. We always did that with our DD then after we sleep trained her at 11m, she slept through, but every now and then she'd wake up in the night if she was a bit ill or going through a growth spurt, so we always offered a bottle and back off to sleep she went, so instead of having a 2 hour fight to go back to sleep, you have a 10 minute bottle, bum change and back in bed to sleep.

It won't hurt them to have a bottle in the night, don't listen to people who say they 'should' this or they 'shouldn't' that, as all kids are so different, if it makes them more content to be able to sleep it's well worth it, you can wean them off it when they're more ready and your nightime routine is more settled, but try and work on getting them to go to sleep independently, whichever method that is, once they get it, they and you won't look back I promise.

Have you consulted your GP about reflux?

Yes sorry! He hasn't had a midnight bottle for a long, long time. Usually he will drink some water then straight back to sleep. Recently, he may leave a little milk left in his bedtime bottle - about a teat full amount. I've upped it from 210mls to 230mls. If I give him too much, he will wake up and either be sick or just cry. We stopped porridge before bed recently because he kept waking up being sick so I aided he was too full from his afternoon tea at nursery, his porridge AND milk at home. I really don't know.
I'm not 100% whether he is hungry because as soon as I pick him up for a cuddle, he will fall asleep within a minute. It's putting him back down that's the tricky part, along with the numerous wakings in-between. I just feel like I don't know how to be a mum (maybe cos I'm so unwell atm I'm not thinking straight?!)

Many times! They aren't worried because they said his reflux isn't bad enough for him to be on medication. I agree to an extent. They also said his reflux should improve by the time he's 1... he's now 14months and I think him being sick is down to a big and not reflux... though there are times he would regurgitate small amounts of milk (possibly from burping) but nowhere near as bad as when he was a newborn!

I mentioned Baby Wisperer Solves All Your Problems book earlier. She is a former paediatric nurse and is very much against Ferber method. (So is modern neuroscience- the latest thinking is it must not be used before 9 months). I am sure you didn't mean any harm. However Baby Wisperer says she has seen many babies and young children traumatised by Ferber method. She has a solution for this- too long to describe here. Maybe it's worth having a look?

At that age we absolutely couldn't do any books or baths before bed.
My daughter had a killer relapse with her reflux at 13 months

I did have a look earlier and loads came up. So that I am looking at the right one, is the cover of a toddler in a pair of dungarees with his baseball cap backwards?

Really? How did you manage it? My LO's reflux has massively improved but like I said, he has the odd little hiccup of milk once in a while. It's more sickness bugs or he would wind himself so much and be sick. This is why we struggled to do any form of "sleep training".

It's been a battle ever since. It was difficult to manage until 8-9 months when it was then managed with 3 medications. By 13 months we were down to 1 medication. She barely gained weight between 7 and 13 months but as soon as she started gaining weight it came back full force. It caused her to comfort eat overnight she went from 5oz at night to 20+ a desperate for me. Making sure she was propped up on at least 1 pillow. We had one under the sheet so it couldn't be thrown away and a breastfeeding horseshoe pillow so she could go to sleep on the raised bit and then wiggle down to the hole later. Restricting her to no more than 10oz made a big difference but was heart breaking the first week. She has exclusively silent reflux now but she had a mix as a baby. We ended up back on all three medications at their highest doses. In between growth spurts the medication holds her reflux at a tolerable level but it's uncontrolled at the moment during growth spurts. We are awaiting an appointment with a new paediatrician. My daughter has particularly stubborn reflux that doesn't respond to medication but quite a few people I have mentioned her going through a relapse at around 1y have gone "oh, I didn't realise that was a thing and that might explain some of the sleep or behavioural changes I'm seeing"

My experience of reflux is that it is a much less linear process that drs will have you believe!

You need Baby Wisperer Solves All Your Problems in yellow colour. This book is the best. It literally saved me when I was a walking zombie from a lack of sleep

I don't have any magic solutions, because my 16mo is still walking up twice a night, so I'm hardly the sleep queen, but...

From what you're saying is the issue that he needs to be held by you to sleep, so you and your partner arr spending hours every night holding him, trying to put him down in the cot and then having him wake up and starting the whole process again? That sounds absolutely exhausting!

What happens if you gradually transition from holding him in your arms asleep, to lying down and holding him next to you? Would he stay asleep like that? It's not an immediate fix, but if that works you could gradually (over several days/weeks) move towards taking your arms away and having him sleep just next to you, and then sleeping on his own?

I can't see one with a yellow cover. There is one with a toddler wearing m dungarees with his hat backwards - is this the one you are referring to? By Tracy Hogg? Has a cream cover?

We tried a new method tonight:
As soon as he came home from Nursery, we gave him 3 crackers as a snack
Bath straight after his snack
Bottle, upped it from 210mls to 230mls
Book
Bed
By this time, it was 6:30pm. It's now 7:30pm and he has woken up 3 times as soon as we put him down in his cot. He would fall asleep on us but as soon as his body touches the cot or if I even attempt to sit down, his eyes are open and he's awake fussing, arching his back. Turning around, sitting/standing up and crying. I went to put him back down and he was having none of it. Husband has taken over now and I can see him whinging. It never took this long to put him to bed before.
We have given him Nurofen as we think it could be related to his first set of molars coming through but who knows. He's already had teething powder.

I'm so tired. My back is broken. And I'm so bunged up from this cold that wouldn't budge. I was on antibiotics which seems to have done absolutely nothing. I'm desperate for help. I'm beginning to think I am a useless mum that can't even do the simplest of tasks.

You are not a useless mum. It seems to me your son has an aversion to cot. Very understandable if you look at it from his point of view. It won't last forever. Can you take a couple of days off sick? You can also request an unpaid depend's leave. Our children don't stay small forever. There will be light at the end of this tunnel

I am just thinking- could it be that your son's nursery is rough with him at the cot at nursery? That might explain why he is so reluctant to sleep in the cot now

If you cosleep all night, he may not wake fully at 4/5am and so will go back to sleep OK? If he's in a different bed or room, then he has to wake more to get your attention and then will be harder to get back to sleep. fully understand that may not work! but it could be worth a try. sleepless nights are the worst.

Obviously I can't comment on how they put him to sleep but they mimic what we do. The Nursery we chose is a really nice nursery and has lots of glowing reviews. Not only that but it was recommended to us by colleagues and friends so I very much doubt it's down to them being rough with him.
I bought the book you recommended, thank you for this. Hoping there will be some answers for me. I just want my happy boy back.

We've already tried this. Some nights he will whinge for a bit then sleep through (from 5am). Most nights, he will whinge, protest, arch his back and whinge some more. I'm finding him really hard to read; he'll want to cuddle, sleep, snuggle up etc but at the same time he doesn't want any of that! Or he will eventually sleep at the time me and my husband needs to wake up for work! I'm at a complete loss.