Stuck in a never ending sleep regression

[PDog]

I am beyond exhausted. DD is coming up to 8.5mo and this has been going on for 2 months.

It seems to alternate between horrendous nights or horrendous days with horrendous bedtimes. She just can't switch off - I can't take my eyes off her for a second because she is not happy unless she rolling/grabbing something/putting something in her mouth.

When she does sleep, I have to feed her to sleep but as soon as I try to get her in her cot she wakes up and starts rolling.

She has only had 30 mins sleep all day today and gets more and more hyper. It then takes between 1-3 hours to get her to bed and she will be up to 2-3 times and ready to go by 6am (despite still been shattered).

Anyone offer any advice?

Or anyone in the same boat who wants to moan share experiences.

pickesrule- know what you mean about not having the strength for a fight. There's always tomorrow for a bit more consistency!

Dropping in briefly to add a new top tip:

Babies are extra easy to get to sleep if you're on a train around their bedtime. You can rock, the train rocks and it's a lot of fun. But the commuters may not appreciate the pre-nap crying.

Total 30 mins' daytime sleep today due to a trip to London - and an hour late to bed.

Last night passed in a blur of wakings as I was far too comatose to keep track. I couldn't work out if he was hungry when he cried again just after I'd got back into bed (which is why, crikey, I daren't put DS in his own room yet!) :)

Glad to hear some tales of progress.

Great tip Angel Dog- must try that one

Ah yes, but the great advantage of him being in his own room is that I now know every creak and squeak of every floorboard between our room and his!

I agree with you about consistency, but sometimes exhaustion and the anything-for-an-easy-life philosophy wins hands down!!

Yesterday's naps started badly, pickles, she barely managed half an hour in her cot for the first one. The second was a whopping 2 hours straight (parked in her pram at a pavement cafe close to one of the busiest roundabouts in Madrid), for three reasons:

1. She wasn't fed to sleep
2. She wasn't walked or rocked to sleep, then stopped.
3. The loud traffic noise was constant enough to stop any other noises from waking her up.

Well, that's my theory, anyway!

Haven't had much luck on trains thus far, AD, although DD has been know to fall asleep on the Metro if she's tired enough...

Last night was one step forward, half a step back.

Trouble free bedtime, then DD woke for a feed at 02.00 - a sleep stretch of 6.5 hours, which is a PERSONAL BEST!! She then awoke again at 05.15, but this time didn't want to be put down. Eventually, I gave up and took her through to the lounge where she had a snoozy feed and cuddle with me on the sofa until 07.20. Which was quite nice, but felt like a bit of a retrograde step.

I'm still a bit at sea about what to do with early wake-ups. Leaving her to settle takes too long, if it works at all and she gets very noisy, which isn't ideal for DH and the neighbours (or me, obviously!) but she's clearly still tired, but needs more help to sleep at this time of day.

By taking her out of the bedroom, I just hope I'm preventing the feed-to-sleep overnight association from worsening again, without exactly getting up for the day. We shall see.

Anyway, early morning aside, the night was very good.

How's everyone else doing? Sorry you had a bad night, AD...

I find the early wakings hard too IC- this morning it was 4.30ish. As DH was away, i relented and brought him back to our bed to snooze and feed tillwe got up at 6.45am.

This morning he went down for a nap at 9.20am and he's still asleep ! I just snuck up to check that he was still breathing as he's never slept this long in the morning! Had a great morning of hoovering, mopping, window cleaning, mnetting. Even managed a cup of coffee and 10 mins in the sunshine.

Hi sorry for not getting back sooner! I'm getting ready to go back to work in 6 weeks
DS's sleep is up and down at the moment - he's very clingy and seems to prefer me to DH.

He's also started the early wakings again. I think it's a combination of the cold and teething plus he's probably hitting the next developmental leap (there's one around 46 weeks). He wakes up early and just babbles for 45 minutes quite happily until I come and get him at 6am. If I go down to him when he wakes and feed he can drift off but not always.

One thing I have noticed though is that he's a lot easier to settle and he self soothes a lot easier now. He wakes in the night, babbles then drifts off. Before he'd need me to feed to sleep most of the time so huge progress.

Angel I saw your question re wake to sleep. As far as I know, there is no reference to sleep cycles etc. You just ("just"!) wake the baby up, not completely, an hour before they normally wake and sooth back to sleep. The idea is that they don't fully rouse but it's enough to restart their cycles. I think that this works for morning waking and habitual night wakings. If your baby is waking due to geniuine hunger/discomfort etc then it wont work! I've not tried it myself - I saw on a thread one mum who'd tried it and created a new habitual working but I do know others who've had success with stopping 5am risings.

I'll check out the other posts in a bit!

Hi all,
Well, we've had a couple of good night - now the bottom teeth are through the gum. On Mon night he went to sleep at 7, we snuck in for a dreamfeed at 10.45 and he didn't wake until 3.30am. Last night not so good, but still the first waking of the night was 3am rather than half midnight... progress, or just tempting me to think so?! Mentioning it out loud will of course mean I'm up 10 times tonight. I'm tempted to try now doing the 'core night' thing - but not sure I can face the screaming!

Something interesting I've been thinking about - and partly thanks to whoever linked to the Kellymom article about sleeping through earlier in the thread - I think part of my issue is other people's perceptions on sleeping through. When I'm being rational I think it's OK at the moment - we have more good nights than bad, I'm not yet back at work properly, I managed a day working last week after a 3-stopper night and even managed to sound coherent in a meeting. BUT, then my SIL will talk about her 7 week twins sleeping through already, ask me why I don't try ignoring him when he wakes at night (because I live in a small terraced house with neighbours not in a detached palace, love.) etc. Then there's the good old baby group friends comparison etc. Then my 'D'H getting all over dramatic with 'well he just doesn't sleep does he' (could I borrow a real non-sleeping baby to demonstrate that we've got it relatively easy?), and saying 'I don't know how you'll cope when you're back at work, I suppose I'll have to help at night' with a big put-upon sigh. Anyone else find this?

Anyone tried the core night - once they've slept to a certain time not feeding before then?

And breathe!

FoF, not tried the 'core night' but I have read about it. I think it's rubbish myself because:

1. babies change all the time
2. growth spurts
3. sleep regressions
4. eating different amounts during day = needing different amounts during night

My DS slept 7 - 6.30ish on about three nights when he was around 3.5 months old. At 4.5 months he needed 3-4 night feeds, and now at 8 months he needs 1-2.

But I agree with you on other people's perceptions. I hate it when you're made to feel a failure because you have a not-very-good sleeper.

IC, that was some nap! And well done your DD on the 6 hours. The early wakings are tough. DS has done this lots less since getting more daytime sleep, but I'd better not ban on about overtiredness yet again... With DS it seems to be related to general overtiredness, though, rather than being overtired on a particular day affecting that night IYSWIM.

Iggly, thanks for that. We've had a couple of nights where DS hasn't been up for a long stretch so I'm not pursuing the wake to sleep idea. at creating a new habit. Mind you, I think that can happen with a dreamfeed. Never tried the d/f myself - even the barest possibility of waking DS was too awful to contemplate in the early months.

Well done to your DS on more self-settling.

DS managed to sleep for 1.5 hours at lunchtime without resettling. :) :) Unfortunately he woke up in a bit of a state and was in meltdown by bedtime, probably because he normally sleeps for 2 hours and was tired from yesterday.

I think we're making progress again at night but it's hard to tell as I've been too dopey to keep track. I got out of bed about a million times last night, but most were DS waiting till I was back under the covers to say yes, he did need that little bit more help to get back off, please. I only fed him once and when he was wide awake I ignored him (apart from patting when he got cross) and he went off again without help. He has been easier to settle in the evenings too.

Lots of the books go on about developing sleep associations other than feeding. I can see how it works. I started lying DS on his side in his cot, not because he went to sleep any more easily, but because it made it easeier for me to pat his back. Now he fusses as I transfer him from the feeding chair and often cries if I lie him on his back, but most of the time (unless he's really cross), as soon as I put him on his side his eyes close and he drops off. At night when he wakes, I can sometimes just turn him over and he goes off.

Evening all!

Well, DD has gone down without so much as a whimper tonight (she has just started to self-settle but usually has a bit of a moan and groan before finally dropping off!) so surely this must be a good sign

last night she woke at 10.45 just as I was dropping off to sleep. I wasn't expecting her to wake that side of midnight! Then she woke again at 2.45 when I fed her again and she went back off fine. Then she woke at 4.30 screaming her little head off, she wouldn't settle for DH so I had to get out of bed again (she's just gone in her own room) and managed to settle her with the dummy and some patting - then she slept till 8am again!! I would actually prefer her to wake earlier for the day but have less wakings IYSWIM. This up and down all night is hard work! I was so sure we had a good sleeper when she was doing 9-5 at 8 weeks! How wrong was I

I don't think I will be trying the wake to sleep thing as I don't think her wakings are habtual. LIke you Angeldog I have never been able to bring myself to wake DD for a dreamfeed, I just let her tell me what she needs...

FoF good luck if you try the core night thing. I was thinking about that, but I think DD might still be a bit young and I am not convinced one way or the other as to whether she actually needs these night feeds or not.

Hope everyone has a good night.

I'm trying not to feed DD before midnight at the earliest. Trying to encourage that first long stretch.

Naps were a bit messed up yesterday. 40mins for the first one, only half an hour for the second, which meant she woke up at 13.55, which is a bummer time as she would need to sleep again before bedtime, but would have to do it after 16.00. So back she went at 16.00 and slept a solid hour, but of course I had to wake her. Sleeping after 17.00 would have been even worse.

Consequently, not a GREAT night, although not tragic either. She woke at 10.00 and again just before midnight and protested intermittently in both - five mins or so the first one, half an hour or so the second.
I then fed her at 02.00 and she slept until 06.00, took another feed and slept until 07.00. Could have been worse!

Much fellow feeling to you all, AD, curly, FoF.... One day we'll look back on this and say cheerfully, "Yes, my DC was a TERRIBLE sleeper when s/he was a baby. Of course now..."
Progress to all!

Thanks IC lets hope you're right there

Well not a great night in the Curly houselhold after all...

She did however manage a longer stretch than she has for a while - went down at 7.30pm and didn't wake until 12.10 - woohoo!!! Trouble is, although she seemed to re-settle OK, she started crying again just before 1am and I had to give her more boob to settle her - patting/shushing was doing no good whatsoever. So she didn't get back to sleep until 1.50. Next waking wasn't until just before 6am though, and i just knew that she wasn't going to want to go back to sleep after this one fed her and tried leaving her to whinge, didn't work so ended up bringing her into my bed and feeding back to sleep there, where she slept from 7.20ish until 8.10 (guess that could be considered first nap of the day tho?)

So, twas a bit all over the place, but on the positive side, she managed 2 long(ish) stretches of 4.5 and 4 hours so maybe we are making slow progress...

Hope you all had better nights?

About 5 night wakings here, I think, and only one feed, and he was in bed from 6pm - 6.30am. In general, he's getting quicker to settle. He slept all night on his stomach which seems to help him and makes it easier to find his bottom to pat in the dark.

He appears to have stopped going back to sleep when I feed him. I put him back in his cot after feeding now and ignore him unless he protests, when I pat until he's quiet then let him get on with it.

Iggly, I think you were probably right about the sort-of co-sleeping not necessarily helping. His cot is still in our room, so I don't have far to stagger, but I'm sure it helps that he is always falling asleep in the same place now - it's several nights since he's been up for a long spell after feeding.

Curly, that's the spirit - there's often a positive, although sometimes you have to look quite hard! :)

Glad to hear that you are all making some headway.

Not too bad a night here. DS woke just as I was dropping off to sleep (typical) and I managed to settle him back without a feed. He then woke at 5am which was rubbish as I just ended up feeding and dozing on the floor of his nursery till the other two Ds came crashing in about 6am. I've noticed he's getting quicker to settle to AngelDog

I think you're right about your last point IC. My older two (4 and 5.5 now) both go to sleep with no problems and rarely wake in the night. They do rise quite early though but as they go to bed at 6.30pm, I don't really expect too much of a lie in!

I call this 'the psychology of babygirl's nipple addiction' and was wondernig if anyone else notices this too.

Have been watching LO (7 months old)like a hawk past few weeks re: sleep issues and have realised that if I take the nipple out of her mouth very matter of factly of course you can deal with this - no problem. But if I take it out apologetically or worrying she cant cope, will wake up. Then she does!

Hmmm...

Interesting Firsttimer! Certainly, babies can sense if someone's confident or otherwise with them and often react accordingly. You could be onto something there!

DD actually unlatched herself after her bedtime feed tonight, which is a first. I put her down, she grinned at me, wriggled around for 5 mins or so and fell asleep. When I think of how she was only a week ago, it amazes me!

Naps today have been better - first one was 1h20, second only 25mins for some unfathomable reason and the third just over 1h30. All in the pram and all after unlatching and waking slightly as I put her down, so I'm feeling hopeful about getting the self-settling going during the day too.

She also ate a good tea and took a reasonable feed at bedtime.

Inevitably it will be a terrible night tonight after such a good day

DH is going to sleep in the other room because he's worried that he's waking up DD. He's also guaranteed me a lie-in tomorrow morning, telling me to bring DD in once she's awake for the day and then go back to bed!!

May the Sleep Fairy wave her wand over all the LOs (and their exhausted mummies) tonight...

Not quite sure what to expect tonight really...naps have been exceptionally good today. After waking from her first nap of the day quite early at 8.10, she went down again at 10.30ish for 2 hours , then she went down really easily for another nap (requiring no feed first or anything - a first) and slept for another 1hr 40 mins.

SHe is currently grumbling away in her cot and is having trouble going to sleep tonight - having gone to sleep like a dream for the last 3 nights

God only knows what we are in for tonight!!!

she's only just gone to sleep after me and DH have been up and down the stairs like yo-yos. Ended up bringing her down and plonking her in front of the TV for 10 mins to mesmerise her and get her sleepy as she was WIDE awake in her cot.

I guess we're in for a bad night now as she will have gotten herself overtired. I had such high hopes after the great napping today as well...

Why do babies have to be so random?! I wish they'd read the books!

Yes, curly, my DD clearly hasn't read about the correlation between good daytime sleep and good nighttime sleep either!

Despite napping like a champion yesterday and stuffing her face, she was very restless at times last night. I only fed her twice between 19.30 and 07.00, but she was fidgeting loads in between. Not much protesting - a little bit of complaining at one stage, but generally I left her to settle herself back down. Twice she turned herself 180degrees (still on her back).

I'm not sure if maybe she was a little cold (the nights are finally getting cooler here, thankfully); had indigestion (prodigious amounts of poo today - all very orange, reflecting the amount of carrot she's had lately!)or was excited at being able to turn herself round and wanted to practice.
Anyway, given that I generally ignored her (as she wasn't distressed, just active), it didn't feel like a terrible night. She seems fine today, too.

Naps have barely made it beyond half an hour so far today. Maybe we'll have a better night!!

Only 4 wakings here inc 1 feed last night which is good - and one was because I woke DS up whilst putting washing away in the bedroom.

Feel tired today though. I'm trying to reduce my sugar intake in the hope of a positive effect on my energy levels, but it's hard going.

The effect of naps is funny IMO. If DS sleeps for 2 hours at lunchtime, he can happily stay awake 4 hours till bedtime. But if he only sleeps 1.5 hours (which he did again yesterday) then he needs a third nap 2.5 hours later. Which, of course, meant bedtime was late - although only 7.30 so not exactly dreadful. He did wake early as a result, though. You're right, I wish more of these babies would read the books.

IC, it's entertaining when they get more mobile, isn't it? If I bring DS properly into bed in the mornings, he really doesn't want to stay cuddled up to me - he'd rather be marauding round the bed! :)

It's especially entertaining when she starts kicking me in the head at 03.00

The time is fast approaching to put her in the cage cot...

Three naps of 35 mins each today. Typical.

Not a bad night, overall.

3 wake-ups: 11.30, 02.30, 05.30.
I ignored her the first one and after half an hour of intermittent complaining and protesting (not screaming, I hasten to add), DD got herself back to sleep.

I fed DD on the second two and she went back fairly quickly, waking for the day at 07.00.

She was also a lot less fidgety, although still managed to turn herself upside down during the first wake-up!

When I came to bed at 21.15 (best way to get some decent Zs) I gently picked up DD and turned her so she wasn't sleeping with most of her body of her mattress and on my side of the bed. Miraculously, she stirred slightly, but didn't wake up.

Naps have been tough, though. She hasn't wanted to be put down the last day or two, after a promising start. I'll keep trying...

How did everyone else do?

'Only' 4 wakings last night and the first 3 times settled with just patting, not PUPD which was good.

On the other hand, after feeding at 04.45 DS stayed awake till 06.25. We get up at 06.30 so I didn't get any more kip!

And at lunchtime he slept for 2 hours without resettling. That's the second time in a week, and yesterday he did 1 hr + 1.5 hrs. We are definitely making progress on the nap front, I think. I'm glad after a month's worth of work on them.

IC, do you find you're getting more sleep now your DD is settling more? I really should get to bed earlier myself, but there always seem to be too many things that need doing in the evening...

at the kicking you in the head.

Ugh, AD, that's a horridly early morning...

Yes, I am starting to get more sleep, although my own sleeping patterns are having to adapt to the change in hers and I find myself lying awake awaiting the call...!

Funnily enough, I'm feeling more tired at times - it's as if my body's remembering what it's like to have the full compliment of sleep (7 hours was an ideal amount for me) now it's getting closer and my body's hankering for the whole hog without so many interruptions...!

Anyway, impressed with your progress from PUPD to patting and also the better napping!!
DD did two 30mins disco naps today, then slept for an hour after nodding off in her pram on the bus. I elected to push her up and down the street rather than take her home, as I figured that was our best hope for a more decent length of shuteye. And so it proved.

Wishing everyone a goodnight... x

Glad to hear it, IC. Often when babies start catching up on sleep they seem more tired as previously the overtiredness masked the tired symptoms. I'm sure it's similar for adults!

I used to have insomnia when DS's sleep first improved back around 3.5 months. It's amazing what long term sleep disruption does, though, and now I rarely have any problems, however good/bad DS's sleep is.

The 4.45am start wasn't as bad as the day which started for me at 02.45! That was a horror indeed.

Humph, DS needed PUPD again this evening, but methinks it's his telepathic skills. He often gets in a state if I'm angry or upset - I was upset about something this evening, and he promptly started yelling and then took ages to get back to sleep. Considering I wasn't being noisy and was 2 floors down from him, it was pretty impressive really.

Well, we are back from our hols. Little PDog is much better now, although we had some horrendous nights with her and I'm still feeling the effects now.

Have been reading the thread to see how you are all getting on and seems like some of you are having some success with either naps or bedtime, not both. Maybe our LO's have read the books and are trying to disprove the theory that sleep breeds sleep .

I've just been going with the flow with DD really and trying to get her to sleep any way I can. She lost her appetite and even went off milk so I have been feeding her at any whimper so make sure she is hydrated and to get some calories into her. Now she has recovered though, I deperately need to break the feed to sleep habit.

Off to bed now to try and get a few hours kip before she wakes.

Wishing you all a peaceful night's sleep.