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.

Good to hear from you, PDog! I was wondering how your hols went. Glad your DD is better, sorry it's been tough.

Sorry to hear you were upset, AD, hope it was nothing too serious.

Well, yesterday's naps were pretty hopeless, the last 30min effort ending at 15.10, which is a bit of a 'mare as DD still can't really go much more than 3 hours awake.

I was expecting a horrendous night, but in fact it wasn't too bad. I put her to bed at 18.45 because she was so knackered and she slept until 01.15. I fed her, she woke again at 03.15, but self-settled without too much trouble, waking again at 05.30. That time, she wouldn't go down for more than ten mins, so I took her into the lounge for an hour's feeding and dozing on the sofa until 07.00.

Unfortunately, I think that technique of lengthening the night is having an impact on her ability to settle for her naps, as it's becoming increasingly difficult for her to do so. Today she didn't go down until just before 11.00, despite me trying from 08.55 onwards.

I'm starting to think I'll just have to bite the bullet, get up earlier and stop doing this dozing-on-the-breast thing.

Any thoughts? My efforts to get a nap schedule going have been frustrated at every turn.....

Ah well. Night time is still better than it was, I'm clinging to that!

Glad you had a good holiday Pdog - sorry to hear the nights were bad though...

IC i agree, althought the dozing on the breast is so easy, it definitely made a difference for me once I stopped it.

angelDog I think babies are really sensitive...my DD definitely can pick up when I am upset or annoyed too.

Well we had the best night in a long time in the Curly houselhold, despite it taking me ages to settle her at bedtime. She went down some time after 8 - can't remember exactly as we ended up bringing her back down for a bit as she wouldn't settle...
Anyway, she did a bit of crying moaning in her sleep around 10ish and I thought 'here we go...' but I went to bed and when I heard her call for me I was really shocked to see it was 2.45! That's the longest she's gone in a while before waking for a feed.

Anyway somehow or another it seems her nappy wasn't fastened properly and her sleeping bag felt wet. So there we were at 3am doing a full change of clothes. I thought that as a result she would take longer than ever to settle, but she went straight back to sleep until 7.30am! I feel so much better for a decent night's sleep even though I am hopeful (but not optimistic) that she might repeat it tonight, just the once for now was great!

Her naps yesterday were a bit all over the place, 33 mins at 10am, 40ish mins around 2pm and then another 30mins at 4pm. I think you maybe right Pdog about the sleep breeding sleep theory!!

Anyway, that's it from me. I am working on her naps again today in the hope we can knock this can't-settle-at-bedtime on the head tonight

Glad to hear it worked for you, curly - that's that then, no more sleeping on the breast, finito.

Naps were all over the place again today. Second nap (out in the pram) ended after 26 mins. The third one was over an hour though, because I walked up and down the street countless times in an effort to keep her asleep for longer. It worked, so that's something.

We had a few short moments of crying after I put her to bed, but only when she could hear me in the kitchen. As soon as I moved out of earshot, she went quiet and fell asleep

Good luck everyone for tonight...

PDog, welcome back and I hope your DD's nights improve again soon. I found things really went to pot when DS was a bit unwell, and we're still trying to claw things back.

Curly, hoorah! Even one night can make such a difference, can't it? Night time nappy leaks are so frustrating.

I had a similar double-take this morning when DS woke wanting feeding - it's usually around 4.30, but he just needed repeated patting at 3.45, then slept till 6am!

We did have at least 5 wakings though - lots in the evening. For some reason he seems to sleep a lot better once I've gone to bed, even though he's only in a cot in our room, not co-sleeping.

Our wake at 6.30, nap at 8.30 for 45 mins and again at 12.30 for 2 hours, bedtime 18.30 continues to work most of the time, with 'most' being the operative word. We've had another day when DS slept the whole 2 hours without resettling, and another when he only needed resettling once instead of twice. So I think - hope - he is gradually getting the hang of it.

Nights are less good, but we're only 2.5 weeks away from the first of the two developmental spurts that cause the 8/9 month sleep regression so I'm not too worried. (Apparently they're at weeks 37 and 46 - adjust for whether your baby was born early or late.)

IC, not sleeping on the breast sounds like it's worth a try. My DS has never been like that in the mornings - once he's up he's just wide awake & raring to go no matter what, so I can't chip in with my experience there.

I was only upset about something silly, but thanks for asking. I'm a sensitive soul. On the rare occasions that DH and I have properly argued in front of DS, you could have used his shrieks as a foghorn!

Hi all,

just thought I'd check in and reassure you that it does get better!

Actually just as I am typing this, I can hear DS starting to wake up so maybe I'll be eating my words.

Anyway- quick update. Nap on return from school run at 9.20am is fine and can last up to an hour and a quarter. Second nap is a bit hit and miss though.

This hasn't really seemed to have had a negative effect on the night sleep though. We have had a couple of nights where he has gone from 7pm to 6am with either one waking or none. I'm happy to put him back in with me at 6am and feed him as I know the alarm goes off at 6.45am to get the other two DS off to school.

Not really sure why things have suddenly fallen in to place - maybe he's just got the hang of it! (for the time being anyway).

Anyway, fingers crossed that we all get good sleep tonight.

That is good news Curly, hope you manage another good night tonight.

IC I do something similar in bed if DD wakes early, it doesn't always get her back to sleep but at least I can doze. I guess though that if I am going to try and cut the feed to sleep habit, I need to be consistent so she doesn't confused.

AngelDog . Sounds like your DS is getting the hang of it, especially at naptime.

Crikey thanks, that gives me hope. I think we must all be due some good nights at some point.

Well I don't want to jinx things but we have had 2 fantastic nights with DD sleeping through from about 11-ish to 6-ish. Strangely though I feel more tired now then when I was up every 2-3 hours with her .

Naptimes are not great though. If she sleeps in the morning, afternoon tends to be bad and vice versa. Today she managed 45 mins in the morning, half on me, half in her cot. This afternoon she had 30 mins and nothing I did got her back to sleep.

Still feeding to sleep, although I am trying to persevere, I find it really difficult as she gets very upset.

She woke about 9.30pm on Sat so DH went in to try and sooth her. She went into total meltdown and was shaking her head at him and screaming. As soon as she hears my bra upclipping she does this little smile, opens her mouth and her eyes almost roll back in her head - she's like a drug addict .

Morning fellow NESR threaders!

Great news Curly, Crikey and PDog! I feel positively geed up to hear you've had better nights. AD, good news on the naps!

Well, DD was okay last night - three wake-ups - I fed her at 02.30 then again at 05.45. I didn't have much hope that she'd resettle after the latter, but (with a silent apology to our neighbours and DH) let her protest for a bit after putting her down rather than giving up right away. With the result that she did get herself back to sleep until 06.50, which was good.

My second attempt to get her down for a nap (after 2 hours 20 mins awake...from previous observations, I'm starting to think that's her optimum time...) has worked and she's currently asleep, having allowed me to unlatch her without protest. I'm not going to allow myself to hope she'll sleep longer than 30mins, but at least she's gone down okay.

I did a cut-down bedtime routine, as suggested by Igglybuff - sung our usual lullaby a couple of times as I fed her and did my "Ssh.. sleepy time..." whispering as I put her down. The radio's on though, so she knows it's not night - and she's in her pram again. Fingers crossed, anyway...

I'm knackered, though (know what you mean, PDog about feeling more tired after a better night from the LO!) - had a bit of insomnia. Think I'm worrying about her third set of imms, which are today. After the first lot she got a high temperature, but was okay and I didn't dose her. The second time ditto, except that time I gave her a few doses of paracetamol - which I rather suspect was responsible for a dramatic early morning vomiting session. Think I'll leave her to tough it out again this time unless she seems really distressed.

at your DD milk addict, PDog!!

IC, DS's first 2 sets of imms were horrible, but the third was entirely uneventful. :)

DS was hard to get to sleep last night, but stayed asleep till 3.45am! I resettled and he went off again till fed at 5.30. I did manage to rock him back to sleep a bit after he finished feeding (he was rolling around wanting to play) so we both got a bit more sleep before the alarm went off.

That's the best night we've had for several weeks.

Nice on AngelDog sounds like a good night for you!!

PDog your drug addict story made me laugh out loud

IC I was more worried about the 3rd set of imms, but in actual fact DD was better than she was with the first 2 lots... Think maybe as they get a bit older, or the fact that they've had the stuff in their system already must help?

Well last night wasn't as good as the night before, but it was OK. Down at 8ish, fed at 12.15 and didn't wake again until 5am. Didn't think she was going to settle after this one (always tricky with awakenings after 4am) but she did and didn't wake until 7.45! so a couple of good long stretches there...she seems to be settling down again and I think she is now happier in her own room.

Naps yesterday weren't great and she looks knackered today despite good sleep last night. Hopefully if she can do a nice long 2 hr nap this afto we will be back on track.

Hi all.
Sighs. Well, it's one step forward, three back here. Had a couple of good 'training' nights - if he woke before 3am, I got him back to sleep with a cuddle and possibly some water (if cuddle didn't work). That had started working really well - first night took 40 mins, second night half an hour, third night just a cuddle and back in bed in 10 mins. Each time he'd woken up 1.30-2ish, but then went back to sleep until 4-5. So, had managed happily to go from 11-5 without a feed. Great celebration, isn't gentle sleep training working, yadda-yadda.

Then, he's now got another cold - this time with a raging sore throat (and has kindly given it to me too - am very grumpy). Combined with bottom two teeth making the slowest entrance ever (both at the same time, syncronised teething...) means we've had a hellish few days. Including 30 minute lunchtime naps, refusing food despite being hungry, etc. Yesterday evening he was downstairs with us all evening as just would not sleep. I've had to go back to feeding to sleep for all naps, which I haven't had to do since he was tiny. I'm just doing whatever at night - mainly feeding completely on demand.

Am really hoping that once cold/throat is better, he'll go back to how he was before, rather than having to start again from scratch.

Sorry to moan - hope everyone else is having a better time. On the plus side, I've got the OK from the Doc to dose him to the knackers with Ibuprofen/Calpol, and he's been asleep for hour and 1/4 so far of lunchtime nap (tempts fate).

Wow, sounds like better nights all round really.

FoF We've had teriibly nights due to teething and illness but it does pass, just hang in there. Sounds like your approach was working before the cold hit though so fingers crossed for you once he is better.

IC hope the imms went OK. Insomnia is the worst, especially when your LO is sleeping. I had a bit of that last night. I think it takes a few days for your body to get used to a new sleep pattern. When she was ill, I was absolutely shattered for 2/3 days but then felt fine even though I was still up every 2 hours in the night .

We had another good night on Monday but rubbish naps yesterday. Last night was quite good. DD woke about 12.30pm, unfortunately though I had just dropped off to sleep. Then she woke up just after 5.30am and wanted to start the day. I changed and feed her and brought her into bed with me but she wasn't playing ball.

She was shattered later and fast asleep in her cot by 9am. I had to feed her to get her though and she only managed 45mins.

She has her first full day at nursery tomorrow and I'm really worried. Thinking I should have started trying to break the feed to sleep habit much earlier.

PDog, I'm sure that she's old enough to realise that feeding to sleep isn't an option when you're not around. I reckon it'll take some adjusting to, but the nursery will be experienced in getting difficult sleepers to take naps.

FoF, it's so frustrating when you're making progress, then something knocks them for six, isn't it?

Goodish night here - despite struggling to get DS to sleep he didn't wake till 4.15 - but then he was awake till 5.30.

I have a horrible feeling that feeding to sleep is no longer the wonder solution that it was. Several times he's stopped feeding & started crying, or stopped feeding and then just wanted to play. I don't know if it's a blip, the end of feeding to sleep or me misjudging timings.

According to the Moxie blog, many babies stop falling asleep feeding around 8-10 months. I really hope not in our case, as I'm not planning on stopping bf just yet, and other ways of getting him to sleep are unreliable and take too long.

I second AD, PDog - I bet the nursery has plenty of experience with nap-dodgers...

Oh, AD, I know that feeling of helplessness when something stops working.... Although I want DD to stop feeding-to-sleep and self-settle instead, I dread losing the feed-to-sleepy option because what replaces it??!

Imms don't seem to have caused major problems this time. She was a bit hot last night and woke once more than has been her wont lately - I gave her an extra feed, figuring she was probably thirsty. Otherwise okay. Thanks for the reassurance, everyone

Naps were rubbish today. Really rubbish. Don't know whether it'll affect the night (I sure hope not), but she wasn't as much fun as usual this afternoon because of tiredness.

I'm resolved to go up and down the street with the pram as many times as it takes to help her have at least one decent nap tomorrow.

And FoF - big sympathy. I LOATHE colds, curse them....

For anyone interested in the feeding to sleep issue, I was reading the comments on the AskMoxie blog - about when babies stopped feeding to sleep (often with an explanation of how they got to sleep after that).

I generally like the comments on Moxie posts - it's kind of like Mumsnet, only with more people posting in each thread. :)

IC, glad the imms weren't too bad. Shame about the naps.

Morning all

Well things seem to have taken a step backwards for me... just when DD seemed to be consistently taking a long nap in the afternoon, she is now waking after the first sleep cycle and I am having to re-settle her. I know she can do it herself as she has taken plenty of 2 hr naps so not sure what's going on.

She also wouldn't go down for her late nap yesterday and I ended up getting her back up (it was getting too late to keep trying) and then it was just horendous trying to settle her for bed last night.

Bedtimes seem to have gone to pot a bit too... just when she started to self-settle, she now looks like she is dropping off and then starts screaming about 15 mins later. Last night it took 2 hours from the point in which I initially put her down, for her to go to sleep!!! she woke at 12.30 and 3.30, but the second waking was a nightmare - she wouldn't go back to sleep and was crying. DH tried but I ended up having to get her back out and give her more boob! She finally went back to sleep at 5am, until 8am.

I can't put my finger on what is wrong and why bedtimes have become a nightmare again, if she has a late nap and we try putting her down for bed about 2-2.5 hours after waking, she won't settle and doesn't seem to look tired enough, but if she misses the late nap, it's also a nightmare as she is too tired. That's 4 or 5 nights now of this and it's driving me mad as I don't get to eat with DH or spend any decent time with him before bed.

To top it all off I am also ill, not sure what it is but I am aching all over and have a temperature would love to go back to bed for the day, but don't think DD would be too impressed!

PDog and IC sorry to hear naps aren't going well for you either...

Let's hope today is better

Ugh, Curly, that sounds horrible. Remind me how old she is? I would guess that if she has a late nap, she'll want to go to bed after a longer awake spell than 2-2.5 hours - perhaps 3 hours later (or even a bit longer). The awake time between naps tends to increase as the day goes on. Many babies end up in a 2-3-4 pattern, which is what my DS has been doing since around 7 months.

If she's almost dropping the 3rd nap it is tricky - either you go for a third nap and have a seriously late bedtime, or ditch the third nap and have a seriously early bedtime (although she'll probably still be pretty overtired by the time you try to get her to bed).

Hope you feel better soon.

Okayish night here. DS was hard to get to sleep again. Woke 1.30, I couldn't be bothered with the jiggling etc so fed him, but he didn't go back off till a while after I'd put him back in his cot. Woke again at 5am and only went back off 5 mins before our alarm went off.

He looks tired - even DH noticed - but he has been asleep at least an hour later than usual for 3/4 nights plus either up early or awake in the middle of the night.

Sounds like our two DCs are playing the same game AngelDog!

DD is 6 months, just. So I guess she still needs 3 naps, depending on their length I suppose?

In the day she usually goes down for nap 1 at 10-10.30 (about 2 hours after getting up) for about 40 mins or an hour if I'n lucky, and then nap two about 1-1.30 (she always self-settles for this one and goes down without a feed - although I've probably jinxed that now for saying it out loud!)

If she has 2 hours for this one, and wakes at 3-3.30 then that's fine for bedtime, but if she barely has 1.5 hours (which is what she has done for the last 2 days then it is too long a stretch till bedtime. For example yesterday she woke at 2.45 - hence trying to get her to have a 3rd nap, but maybe I should have just put her down for bed ridiculously early...

It's awful isn't it, when they look tired and you know they've not had enough sleep, but they just wont sleep!!

Oh dear sorry to hear about nights/naps having a setback.

Here too...

Not surprisingly, DD was seriously overtired after yesterday's poor napping and was restless overnight (although it wasn't TERRIBLE as nights go, and she gave me a bit of a lie-in until 0740...)

I'm at a bit of a loss about what to do re: naps. It was 11.40 before she finally allowed me to put her down for a nap (despite being drowsy at the breast from 10.00...) and it was less than 30 mins. She had another half hour in her pram later, then another 16.30-17.00. That late nap meant she was good humoured and ate well, enjoyed her bath and had a good roll around prior to bedtime. She wasn't at all drowsy when I BF her and was wide awake when I put her down at 19.30. Having said that, she then fell asleep within 10mins or so after talking to herself (no crying), so that wasn't too bad. We shall see what tonight brings...

Poor DH has become so paranoid about waking DD in the early morning, he's finding it difficult to get back to sleep after she wakes for her 04.30 feed. And he DOES wake her up when he moves around in bed, as do I. We reckon we're going to have to move her into her own room sooner rather than later. It'll be interesting to see how she (and we) cope/s with that.

Last night's restlessness might be explained by DD's first tooth, though - I'm certain I can see it starting to poke through her gum.

Get well soon curly - and FoF

Thanks for the Moxie link, AD! She talks a lot of sense...

Curly, what your DD is doing is exactly what my DS did. You might need to experiment a bit with which is better - 3rd nap and late bedtime, or no 3rd nap and ridiculously early bedtime. Of course, if you try bedtime really early, she may wake up, thinking it's a nap and not go off again for another few hours, but it's worth a try.

I wouldn't worry too much in this situation about keeping to whatever hour was your usual bedtime before - be flexible according to when she's likely to actually be tired.

What worked for us was almost always ditching the third nap and going for early bedtime even though DS would be overtired by then, as that meant more hours of sleep in total. But he was feeding to sleep easily even when overtired so that wasn't a problem.

What has also happened on a couple of occasions is him dropping off e.g. in the pushchair for the 3rd nap, but me waking him 5-10 mins later when we've got home. It takes the edge off the tiredness enough to get him through tea, but because it's only a short nap, he's still able to go to bed at a reasonable hour (although still later than usual).

I also found that he started waking early (5 - 5.30ish instead of 6.30) which again, was due to overtiredness. I kept doing the first nap at 2 hours from 'get up' time rather than 2 hours from waking. It stopped after a couple of weeks as he got more able to cope on just 2 naps.

IC, yes, I think Moxie has her head screwed on the right way. Have you seen her manifesto?

A tooth, eh? We found the first ones were the worst.

I'd give the cot in the other room a whirl. You can always move it back the next night if it's a disaster! I reckon the new self-settling DD could well be less fazed by it than you expect.

Thanks AngelDog that really helps. It looks like I just need to go with the flow a bit to see what works.

I usually do first nap 2 hrs after get up anyway as that's the only way she'll go down no trouble. The problem is, she doesn't seem to be able to have a long nap in the afternoon at the moment. She was going down for at least 1.5 hrs, usually 2hrs, and this was enough to carry her through to bedtime. Today she woke after 40 mins and although I managed to re-settle her she only slept for another 10 mins despite all my efforts to get her off again!! In the end I gave up and got her up again. I think it might be teething related.

Tonight gave nurofen as a precaution and although she was really overtired at bedtime (even though we did it early) she seemed to go down OK. Will just have to see what tonight brings.

IC I think it's worth you biting the bullet and moving DD to her own room...we were having the same problem with her getting disturbed by us, especially as DH often has to get up at 5am. We just went for it and she sleeps much better at that time of the night/early morning now. She quite often doesn't wake until 8am (the room is also darker than ours) which is a godsend when we've had a bad night!

Curly, if she's reverting to short naps but doesn't seem overtired you could try extending her awake time slightly before that nap. Sometimes they will go to sleep easily, but haven't been up or active quite long enough to be tired enough to need a long nap IYSWIM.

Only lengthen awake time by 10-15 mins at a time, though, in case the short naps are caused by teething or something else - or you'll have an overtired baby and even shorter naps! Try each new time for 2 or 3 days and if it doesn't help, keep stretching out the awake time until she either takes longer naps or gets overtired, at which point you need to shorten it again.

Of course, it's also possible that short naps are caused by overtiredness and so you need to shorten the awake time.

My guess is that having longer naps but needing resettling between sleep cycles can sometimes be due to slight overtiredness, but not so bad that it stops them sleeping for longer periods.

I think it can also be to do with developmental things going on / hunger / teething / just getting the hang of taking longer naps (obviously that last one doesn't apply in your case).

If she's only doing 40 mins at lunchtime, I'd try for a third nap that day.

Glad she went to bed more easily tonight though.

It all takes a bit of detective work, doesn't it? I've often had the sleep 30 mins - resettle for up to 30 mins - sleep just 15 mins and then want to be awake. Drives you mad!

Oh dear, sounds likes things have gone a bit haywire for some.

Know what you mean about feeding to sleep AngelDog. I'm not really enjoying bfing anymore but am too scared to stop because it is the easiest and quickest way to get her to sleep.

Agree about the move IC. We found we were waking DD when we went to bed. She would be fine until she saw me and would then cry until I fed her.

I have good news - yesterday DD napped for almost 2 hours in the afternoon . This is about the third time she has done this since she was about 10wo. I went into her room after she had been asleep for about 35mins and jiggled the mattress gently. Her eyes fluttered but that was all and it seemed to be enough to get into the next cycle.

Last night I managed to get her down for the night in 40mins (Usually takes at least an hour). She woke at about 1am and I was doing shush pat to get her back to sleep. It seemed to have worked but then I stood on the creaky floorboard and woke her up. I ended up feeding as we both needed a good nights sleep.

Nursery wasn't too bad. I had a few tears after I left her but she was fine and had a great time. They only managed to get 3 30 min naps out of her though and had to push her in the pram to get her to sleep. She was shattered when I picked her up but took ages to get to sleep. She only drank about 60mls of milk all day too so was desperate for boob bless her.

Woohoo at the long nap, PDog. I'm glad your DD survived nursery and managed to get some sleep at least. I'm sure it'll improve as she gets used to it.

Yay, PDog - great nap! I suspect AD is right, I'm sure she'll get accustomed to nursery.

Yep, after my sister has gone home (she's staying this weekend 'cos it's my birthday...) we'll shift DD into her own room and see what happens.

Having said that, she's not yet in her cot, so I'm wondering if it might make sense to set that up in our room first and give her a week or so sleeping in it to get accustomed to that environment before moving the cot into her own room... What do you think? Or just go for broke and do both changes in one go?

Last night was actually pretty good - DD only woke twice before 06.30 - I managed the longest stretch of sleep I've had since she was born!! (about 4 hours) - more than 6 in total, I feel truly revived. Couldn't have come at a better time!

First nap she allowed herself to be unlatched without protest and slept for just over 30 mins, which isn't brilliant, but will do.

My sister has 4 DCs, so she brings experience and the calm of being an old hand at motherhood with her (although she's younger than me!) - great to have a bit of family support around for a couple of days!

Have a good weekend, All.