I have long passed the end of my tether and need some help/advice/suggestions please.

[BustleInYourHedgerow]

I got pregnant accidently. DP and I had always wanted children, but in the future, when we had finished college and had a place of our own. I love DS, I really do, but sometimes I resent him.The guilt I feel for this is enormus. I never want him to know how I feel. I just think that if I somehow muddle along through this year I will be ok.
DP is working part-time and attending college full-time, so he is rarely here to see all I do with DS.

I really want him to be here more but I know he can't. My feelings are compounded by the fact that I can't get DS to sleep for more than 4 hours at night. I really really need some sleep. I am a very bad sleeper generally, and when I finally get to sleep, DS wakes up half an hour later. It can then take me hours to get back to sleep.I have tried co-sleeping but I hate it, I just feel I need some space to myself, even if DS is right beside me in his cot.

DP feels I am 'obsessed' with getting him to sleep at night, and in a way, I am, I feel that I can be a better mother to DS if I can get some sleep and start to feel human again.

I try a night time routine with him every night, I bathe him, give him cuddles and feed him his bottle in the bedroom with the lights off.

He is 19 weeks old. He was BF until 15 weeks.

Can anybody tell me what finally worked for them ? I would be delighted with 6 hours at his stage.

Sleep and strict routine is the most important thing in my life.....I cant exist without it!!!! On my first I followed Gina Ford to the word and with our recent 2nd (now 7 months)I was not so strict but both boys are great - bedtime isnt a battle, baby usually down by 7pm, 4 yr old by 8pm.
Are you doing 10pm night feed as this works a treat? then by 5.5 months as he was starting on solids he dropped this feed and has slept through since.

You will natually feel miserable and resentful of your baby if you cannot battle through the day.

Once you have cracked this and baby is in good routine life is wonderful (sometimes)again.

My husband is extremely strict and he has always forced me to be stronger and harder. I have never co-slept as hubby did not want to start something that would be impossible to break.

Be strong, check your routine, and life will be positive again.

I think I will get off my ass and go into town to check the baby book section. Sod the messy house. Thanks Bacon.

Poor you. It sounds like the lack of sleeping is really affecting you and your relationship with DS.

Why is your DS waking? Is he waking to feed? Is he waking because he's not tired any more?

If he's waking because it's a habit and you're feeding him because you think it's hungry then you need to withdraw the night bottle. There are various ways of doing this - cold turkey, gradually decreasing the amount of milk available, offering cooled boiled water etc.

If he's waking because he's genuinely hungry then I think you need to look at how much milk he's having during the day.

If he's waking because he's not tired you need to look at day time sleep. Too little can be as bad as too much. Have you established that this is definitely night time and there is no interaction? Is he having a long sleep in the late afternoon?

Is your bedtime routine the same every night? Do you start it at the same time? I feel that's the most important anchor point in the day and starting the bedtime routine at the same time means the night/next day is more likely to go well.

Sorry for the all the questions but there are so many reasons for night time waking/broken sleep and it sounds like that is your major problem atm!

We can probably help you draw up your own routine if you want, or you can try looking at the various books on the market.

Chin up - even if you don't crack it, it won't last forever!

Hi - you sound exhausted - poor you. It's hard to see straight when you are sleep deprived and emotional. I am sure you love your son - feeling resentment towards him because you are knackered is not unusual. Feeling guilty just makes it worse so try to tell yourself that your feelings are normal and will go away.

Otherwise - can you get some time to yourself at all? Must be very difficult, but if DP is home on the weekend, maybe he could give you a lie-in either Sat or Sun? We did this every weekend and swapped days so we both got to catch up on sleep. But our DC were bottle fed, so it depends of course on whether your DS will take a bottle. But if not, at least DP could take over as soon as DS has been fed and give you some space to sleep one morning.

Does DP know how tired/fed up you are? If you can manage to communicate your feelings to him without blaming him/getting angry, you might be able to find more ways together by which you can get some time to sleep or go out by yourself. Don't buy the 'I work/study all the time - what about me' argument - many men try this one on but it's not fair! You work too, bloody hard and 24/7.

As for sleep, a good routine is key. Keep it up and it will pay dividends. Things that worked for us when they woke up were making it completely dark (blackout curtains), having radio on in background to soothe them back to sleep, not picking up when not feeding - just patting and calming and letting them settle by themselves, singing lullabies as part of sleep routine (this still works wonders), and one of those Tomy Dream Show thingies that projects teddybears onto the ceiling and plays lullabies for 10 mins at a time. And taking turns doing it so they got used to both me and DH being there at bedtime.

But - maybe your boy just isn't ready/able to sleep more than 4 hours at the moment? The real issue here could be that you don't get enough sleep and feel being a new mum is a very lonely task. So I'd focus on getting DP to share more of the load and trying to sleep whenever you can - including during the day and by going to sleep ridiculously early/ignoring everything else for a while (ie. housework!). Talking about how you feel is really important, so maybe try opening up to some good friends who have kids, if you haven't already/if possible. Good luck!

You sound like I was with ds. I wish I could give you an easy answer and there will be lots of women on here telling you to relax and that it is normal. This is true but I know when people told me that when I was going through this I used to feel almost suicidal as I was soo tired and resentful.

I really don't know what worked for us. We did try cranial Osteopathy and went every week for six weeks. It didn't seem to work but two days after our last vist ds slept from 7pm to 5am (he was 11 months old) which was amazing if a bit scary when we woke up and realised he was still asleep!. It may have been coincidence.

Ds didn't sleep through consistently though until he was nearer 2 years old but we did get more and more unbroken nights after that (excepting illness of course)

Tbh the thing that helped me most was having Dh take one night a week at least.

I was bfeeding but dh stayed with ds tried to comfort him and just brought him to me to be fed and took him away after the feed. Ds was often awake and crying and feeeding often didn't stop the crying so this worked for us.

If you aren't breastfeeding then your dh could do one night a week without intwerrupting you at all. Looking forward to that night of uninterrupted sleep will really help and one night a week won't kill your dh.

Mind you I was pretty good at putting in ear plugs and ignoring the noise though - mostly because I knew that I couldn't calm ds any better than dh could. It may not work if you believe your ds would calm down quickly with you.

I am a huge supporter of the Gina Ford method. My eldest was a nightmare and didn't sleep through until he was nearly 4! When I got pg with my 2nd, it was recommended to me and it worked a treat so I used it again with my 3rd.
I also agree with Bumbling - it would be good if your DP could take over 1 night. Can you go stay somewhere else, perhaps?

Don't do it all on your own - especially if you are feeling so low. On a night when your DP isn't working the next day, see if you can get him to do some of the settling and night feeds.
I used to have a 1am rule when my DCs were tiny. My DH would go and sleep in the spare room at about 11pm, whilst I did last feed, so that he had a good nights sleep before work. However, if I hadn't got baby off to sleep again by 1am, all bets were off and DH was woken up to help (before I threw either baby or myself out of window)!
I also swore by The Baby Whisperer for DC1. It really helped me a lot, but I guess you have to find the routine that suits you.
I wouldn't like to tell you what to do, as I know everyone is different (some agree with letting baby cry it out, some with attachment parenting etc etc), but I have always been fairly 'strict' once the newborn stage is over. If I was you, and was struggling as much, then I would have a good think about how hardline you are prepared to be. I have always left mine to cry (not to the point of hysteria) and then gone in at intervals of a few minutes, to pat them, sing to them, make shushing noises (but NOT picked them up). I've repeated this until they drop off to sleep. It has taken a while to get the routine set but has worked.
Is your baby crying, or just not settling? , cos I am a great believer (in the night) of ignoring them if they are just fussing (as opposed to crying).

Just a quick message, so that you dont feel all alone. My little one was waking up every hour until 3 months old. I was a walking robot, I cried, I hated being a mum, I was desperately tied. My stomach turned each night when I put her to bed and I climbed the stairs because I knew what kind of night I was in for. I kept up the routine, and finally it worked. Milk in a quiet place, no talking, cuddles then bed and the same music. The only other thing I learned was to put her down asleep so that she did not rely on falling asleep in my arms. It will pass I promise. Take care of yourself until then.

Thank you to everybody for your support and kind messages. I had a big chat with DP last night and I don't think he had fully understood how overwhelmed I had been feeling, so he has agreed to do one night a week and I've bought Dr. Marc Weissbluth's book- it seems to make sense, puting it into practice will be another story.

DS had two sucessful naps in his cot today and has just gone to sleep again now. Am going to follow the routine in teh book and see how I get on.

I don't think I realised myself how overwhelmed I had been feeling until I posted and read the feedback. Thanks to everybody and will keep you all updated