I cant do this anymore, I dont want my baby

[Sobbingat3am]

Name changed for obvious reasons. I'm in such a dark place at the moment. My husband has taken the baby to try and settle him for what seems like the 100th time tonight. We've been up since 1am. We haven't slept properly since the baby was born 5 months ago. Hes never been one to sleep continuously well. We had the 4 month sleep regression. It was hell and nearly broke me. A couple of weeks of better sleep and now here we are again. Waking every few minutes. Worse than the regression. We pick him up, he falls asleep. We put him down he's awake again, scratching the sides of the next me and banging his legs. He's been breastfed, he's not wet, we've given him calpol, Ibuprofen and teething powder.
Im broken. I hate my life. I don't want my baby. It wasnt like this before. I'm so sleep deprived I cant cope anymore. 😔

Silent reflux for my baby was just relentlessly unsettled on his back, couldn't comfort him unless on the boob or held. Maybe he's so restless at night because he's on his back and this is unsettling him? We use carobell milk thickener and omephrozole from the GP and he's a different baby. I was zombified with my eldest who had it, middle didn't and my 6 week old has it and I knew straight away to go see the GP who listened to me. Maybe worth having a chat with your HV/GP due to how unsettled he seems to be. I'm sorry you're having a rough time, I've been there and you have my full sympathies because I was a broken woman with no sleep and such an unsettled little baby. I really hope you manage to get answers to his restlessness and you manage to get some sleep. I remember sobbing to my sister begging her to come get the baby because I felt like I couldn't do it. It's really hard going!

Ah I’m just under 2 years in. Last night I put my baby to bed (we are still cosleeping!) and he went to sleep, but woke up an hour later looking for me. I thought to myself there was a time where if I put him down, he would scream.

It is horrible, I say this to say that it will pass. But whilst you are in it, you can either sleep train (which I’ve never tried) or cosleeping and find a safe way to sleep with your baby so you can get some rest. I’ve had nights on the armchair with baby on chest. I’ve had him on my arm in bed whilst I sleep.

Again - not ideal and to be fair I was so sleep deprived I don’t know how we did it - but we survived.

Is there anyone that can take baby for a few hours while you just sleep? Maybe pump so baby doesn’t need feeding?

Wishing you the best - it does get better.

Sleep training does not have to be leaving him to cry for ages. We used the "pick up, put down" method with our sleep consultant where you never leave the room and it worked a treat.

I totally get it, I couldn't sleep train my own until they were about 10 months as I just felt too guilty and couldn't bear the thought of upsetting them. I won't try and convince yoh otherwise don't worry but I will say that I don't think you will find any sleep consultant who would recommend closing the door and leaving them to cry it out. I would say though that if he is having 3 hours over his first two naps then that doesn't leave much for the other one or two. I think you might have a sleep pressure issue. I would try dropping to three naps. Calculate his 24 hour sleep needs over the next week. Then distribute this time over 3 naps and overnight sleep. Try and have his longest wake window before bed. He will likely be grumpy for a few days while you make this change but just persevere. Try to distract him if getting sleepy before scheduled nap or bedtime, go into the garden,play music etc. As said I would switch feeding him to wake up times instead of before sleeping so as not to build a feed to sleep association( will also help if he did turn out to have silent reflux). If still breast feeding in the night you could try dream feeds. You get him up for a feed at a set time, for talks sake say ten thirty pm and feed him whilst he is still sleepy. This should prevent him fully waking up because of hunger. If you say he needs fed twice a night then do this twice. Pick a wake up time, usually between 6 and 7am and stick to it rigidly same for bedtime. You will need to know his 24 hour sleep needs to make that work though . Hope some of this helps even a wee bit. And again you are cut out for this sleep deprivation is just really really hard!!!

Oh bless you that must've been tough.
Breastfeeding can be so difficult in some ways and easier in others. I was lucky I guess the little one took a short while to take to it but we got there.

@Sobbingat3am i think you could benefit from looking at lenght of naps, 1.5 hours twice a day at 5 months old ? My 8 month old has only napped 1.5 hours total in daytime across all naps since she was about 4-5 months so three 30 min naps. When I cut her naps short, she started sleeping better. I advise going onto the Huckleberry app and calculating how much your baby sleeps total in a 24 hour period. If it’s 12 hours for example then you can try two hour nap total across the day and 10 hour night sleep. Just think about it, if you napped too much during the day, would you be able to sleep well at night? Try keeping your baby up for longer at night as well, so if last nap ends at 5, keep them up until 8 to build that tiredness. Again think about it, if you went to bed at 11pm, you’d probably fall and stay asleep easier than if you went to bed at 9pm because you’re genuinely tired.

Some suggestions - first nap of the morning is often when babies are more amenable to sleeping somewhere new. I would put the baby in the cot once they started yawning and jump in the shower. Most of the time, ten minutes later when I got out, they were asleep. The tray of the day I would get them to nap however I could. As the baby got bigger, I would breastfeed and then lay them on the sofa next to me and sit with a hand on their tummy & watch telly quietly. Or we would go for pram walks to force a nap, or my partner would come home from work and be sent straight back out again with the baby for a walk in the carrier.

Yes, teething seems to go on forever, if you get better sleep after giving Calpol or ibuprofen that probably is telling you something. I have had to give Calpol far more often than expected (rush of teeth around 13 months, poor little devil).

My baby wouldn't take a bottle from me until 4.5 months but would from Daddy. I assume it's the smell of milk. It's hard for the mother.

I ended up moving mine to their cot in their own room at 5.5 months because they were thinking too much in the Snuzpod and it wasn't safe any longer. This seemed to help with night wakes.

Also consider that if your baby is showing signs of readiness, you can start solids. It won't help immediately, but it means someone else can feed the baby! I found that porridge with peanut butter was a very soft but filling evening food to start with (after veg etc) and there's some evidence that cereal-based food in the evening helps breastfed babies sleep.

@FlayOtters Similarly we tried shush pat for periods of separation anxiety and one of us pretending to fall asleep in the chair next to the cot. Worked very well & you don't have to leave the baby. I found mine got riled up if picked up once over-tired, holding their little hand and patting their stomach was more soothing for them. But every baby's different.

@OtterMummy2024 thank you. We actually put him in his room last night as he's really outgrowing the next to me and we thought, why not. Sleep's awful anyway, let's give it a go. He still woke multiple times. But every time managed (eventually) to be put down in his big cot. When you started the shush pat with your LO, how did that go initially?

We know we need to change something, but our baby will just cry and cry, even if we're there next to him. I don't know when we're going to be ready, we don't have reserves in us for if sleep training doesn't pan out well.

Hi OP. If you had a difficult birth (eg forceps or a very rapid last bit of labour) it might be useful to Google cranial osteopathy for babies. It wasn't around when I had our 3, but I'd have taken baby no 2 if it had been. It was a game changer for one of our grandchildren.

@Sobbingat3am I had done about two weeks of practice for cot naps first, morning ones worked with maybe 2-3 minutes of crying first (not every day!), afternoon cot naps often did not work and so I did contact naps or pram/car naps.

At night I sent my partner for most settles and BF at 2am and 5am wakes. We had the odd night where the baby woke every 40 mins (mostly when ill).

I really sympathise with babies who cry whether you are there or not, it's really upsetting but some babies don't seem to be comforted by picking up or rocking (mine was one of them).

We did go through a patch of the baby waking at 4am due to being cold in October last year, and as the weather changes, worth thinking about.

This is brilliant advice.

I would add to the above advice!

Stop listening to the perfect parents whose kids never cry, always sleep and eat everything - get them off your socials!!

Real parents understand the relentlessness of parenting!

Although you feel terrible your baby is growing and he will come through this. They all learn to sleep eventually and later in life you may struggle to get him out of bed.

Lower your standards. Accept that the first year can really be more than a bit shit and if you survive it without deliberately smothering them you have done just fine.

He is coming up to time to start weaning anyway and the cereal based evening meal may just help, especially if one that contains iron.

Our twins slept thru at 3. We often thought we had done well not to smother them. You are NOT alone. They bring so much love as they get older-the first 6-9 months are the worst. Ours were delightful teens too.

Hello! I’ve just been reading this thread and felt so much like I could relate to it. I really feel for you as I know how hard sleep deprivation is. I hired a sleep consultant and with her help we had my little one sleeping through the night. Best £150 I’ve ever spent. Have you thought about going down this route?

Hi, how do I find a sleep consultant?
My little one was up till 5am yesterday!
The HV hasn't been any help.

Be careful, sleep consultants are a con! They will package up something fancy but essentially it’s letting your baby cry. Which you can do for free yourself without a sleep consultants help/ ‘plan’ or training.

i think this persons post reads like an advert and you will message for some details and they will send you someone’s (their own as they are a sleep consultant trying to drum up some business!!)

Ahh yh thanks. It does actually. Sleep deprivation definitely makes me slow to catch on.
I'll persevere they aren't tiny for long!

Oh it totally makes my brain mush too at times.

I’m awake with my 5 month old now having a feed. My first was a really bad sleeper (waking 8 times a night sometimes) the sleep deprivation is out of this world sometimes! I feel for you. When it was at its worst for me I would have paid anything or done a thing to fix it.

it did end though (around 15 months). He sleeps through the night now in his own room after co sleeping til 2.5 and just easily moving and sleeping (we didn’t do anything really, he had some allergies which he grew out of)

If baby is well baby shouldn't be given meds and not sure why your giving baby teething powder far to young! Baby's don't sleep even at that age sleep regression isn't a thing. Many mothers do not keep there baby in the next to me as baby's that prefer to stretch will constantly wake themselves on the sides of these when stretching there legs same for moses baskets. Before I had my own I was a health visitor for many years, are you sure baby's tummy is full, remember at this very young age they want to feel mummy with them. Don't worry this stage will pass and you will look back in it and giggle as to how you got thru it :)

Awww thanks, its nice to know I'll come out the other end fine and get some sleep. Some nights are tough! Thie bubba wakes up so much or stays up till the early hours. Hoping it will settle down soon

I'll be unpopular here but i cried out my eldest at this age over 3 nights (some people say wait till 6 months but i had my kids sleeping through the night at 5 months) and it was a game changer - and there is no way it psychologically damaged them at all. I had dropped night time feeds already through a much more gradual process. Have plenty of friends who did CIO as well but later - often for one of their children and not the other depending on need. I didn't need to do it in the same way with my youngest as she was better at resettling herself at night but did let her grumble for a while during naps to get her naps working well. If you know your child is well and everything else is safe I'd have a good night time camera and CIO. Your mental health is important too. Other things that helped mine sleep - lots of room in a big cot as they had outgrown the next to me, dark, white noise, a super strong bedtime routine (small feed, bath, baby massage/moisturise, big feed, cuddles with books in a dimly lit room with jazz playing, down to bed) that was very consistent and a very consistent nap routine during the day.

I got recommended one by a friend. I had to laugh at other person who said they are a con and suggested I am a sleep consultant looking for business! The truth is I couldn’t get my little one to sleep on my own, then got help and now the whole house sleeps well and we are all much happier. If you want or need help, go and ask for it!