Advice please before I completely crack up

[knomedeplum]

DC2 5.5 months WILL NOT sleep.

I am so fucking fed up of it. At the moment me and DH are working like a tag team from 7pm -6am taking it in turs to rock him or cuddle him or bounce him in his chair - it's that or no one gets any sleep. I know in the long run this isn't helping and last night I wanted to scream.

So today I thought, enough is enough I AM GOING TO FIX THIS. So, he usually needs at nap around 9.30 - 10, so I changed him, offered a feed, gave him some teething gel, put him in cot with dummy and proceeded to pat/stroke him to sleep. 2.5 hours later (he screamed non-stop) i've given up and he is obviously tired and cranky. So what do i do now? If i go out with pram he will probably sleep, and then i could try the cot again later, or do i literally just spend the entire day trying to pat him to sleep in the cot?

I am too tired/pissed off to really think straight. Obviously i knew it wouldn't be easy, or we wouldn't be in this position in the first place but how long do I persevere each time? I am happy to sit in his room all night doing it because I'm fucking fed up of being up all night doing all the other stuff for no real benefit anyway.

PLEASE, please give me your it-was-hard-but-worked-in-the-end stories. Please.

You poor thing.

Do you know what is wrong? Is he in discomfort at all?

No, because he is fine as soon as i pick him up (ds1 had colic but ds2 has no signs of anything like that), calpol, calprofen, teething gel, powders etc make no difference.

Have just spent another half an hour but still nothing. What do i do now?? Anyone?

And what's pick up put down?? I've never really understood what you actually do. If i pick him up he will calm down but he starts going crazy as soon as I even move to start putting him down so not sture how pick up put down would help?

How long do you keeping going for each nap?

Is it best to just try and get the nightime ssorted and do whatever it takes to keep them napping in the day until night is sorted?

I kind of thought trying to get him napping in the cot today would mean it's not such a shock but clearly that doesn't seem to ne the case.

Why won't he just fucking sleep FFS?!

Should also add that he won't even co sleep anymore so that option is out, he did sleep fine in bed with me initially but he won't even do that any more, hence my complete desperation.

take him to GP just to check for things like ear infection first? it's prob not but might be worth ruling out, especially if this is relatively new behaviour for him.

i feel your pain. it is horrendous and most people do not get it, even those with kids. my dd1 was like your baby. in the end i stayed with her, patting her in her cot, till she went to sleep. it took hours (maybe 3) the first time and she did cry but i never left her alone, less the second, even less the third, and soon we were home and dry. she had finally learned to self-settle. i think i started with first nap of the day. and just persisted. the horror truly was over in a day or so.

My DD has pretty much learned to self-settle overnight, but naps - huh! Naps can actually be harder work because you don't have the "biological imperative" to sleep on your side.

I started with naps too and had the same sort of result as you.

So, if you're prepared to put up with the protesting, you might find it actually works more quickly by tackling the night first and getting your DS to nap any way you can during the day. It WON'T teach him bad habits for night time settling, it doesn't work like that.

It took three nights for my DD to get the hang of self-settling - now her wake-ups have gone down from minimum 5 per night to 1-3 - and mostly, she resettles more quickly too.

It involved some crying (at about 7.5 months) of the intermittent frustrated protest variety (rather than a full-scale yellathon), but it has resulted in more sleep for both of us.

Poor you, it's a killer, isn't it? And I've only got the one DC. Good luck.

Have decided to focus on naps in the pram during the day so he doesn't end up knackered.

a new tooth appeared today so that obviously hasn't helped.

narmada how old was your dd when you did it? So it was basically a few hellish nights?

Maybe i will try again at night.

I just find it so frustrating. we have 2 sets of friends who also have kids (but they have all slpet brilliantly from day one) and they KEEP asking to come over/inviting us over and I know they're being nice wanting to meet up but they just don't get it and I feel like telling them to just fuck off. It really winds me up, because they're so insistant 'oh it doesn't matter if you have to pop upstairs, we'll stay over and wear earplugs, after a few glasses of wine blah blah blah, what about friday, next sat, the week after???'. Aarrrrggggghhhh, just piss off with your happily sleeping kids!

We don't 'pop upstairs' we spend the whole sodding night up there.

Sorry, tired, fed up rant. Thanks for the support and suggestions - have been to GP - he's fit as a fiddle

Pick up put down

Basically, pick up and hold till they calm abit- not OTT cuddling just holding.
Then put down, if they scream as they go down still put down and wiat the count of 30 befoere you pick up, if they dont scream just put down
Repeat, until they sleep

Took my 40 or 50 PUPDs first night 20 second, 5 or 6 the 3rd, then a blip at 7 days then fine

I liekd that he wasnt left to cry but he still learnt to go to sleep

Its from Baby Whisperer- Amazon do next day delivery or the library may have it.

Good for you, quietlysuggests!!

And thanks for the clarification on PU/PD DreamTeamGirl.... Does it work as well for naps, do you happen to know?

knomed, can you suggest a get-together during the day?? I know what you mean about the impossibility of a night-time meet-up, but it's a shame not to see your friends...

Hi Honey

My DS no;1 was like that - we went through hell and back and surprisingly had DS no;2. I thought "I'm never going there again". I bought an ebook called Savvy Sleep by Sleepy-tots. DS no;2 is now 7 months and sleeps through. Don't know wether it was following the advice in the book but it really worked - for me anyway.

We also used the baby whisperer - shush pat technique at night and bedtime routine (bath, massage, nursery rhymes) - it took 3 weeks before DD realised this meant bedtime and it was exhausting for DH and me. But she did realise in the end.

Also I realised I wasn't giving her cues to tell her when naptime was so I started singing 1 nursery rhyme at naptime and walking round for 10 mins singing that to give her some winddown time.

I found this book incredibly helpful. He does discuss CC in there. With my DD I used PUPD and it worked well, it did take a few days but we got there in the end With my second child settling and leaving for 5 mins at a time worked better. Sadly with both of mine there just came a point where I had to do this and now they both sleep brilliantly. It is hard at the time but so worth it.

For me it was essential that they had good naps in the day as well or they slept worse at night.

How is he with feeds? How much does he have and how often? I used to mix the calpol in with the milk if I knew they were teething badly. Otherwise I used teetha sachets and Bonjela.

knomed, my DD was about 7 months i think when we did it. until then i thought she was too young and her her reflux ( genesis of our DD's sleep probs) wasn't really under control.

what we did sounds similar to what quietlysuggests tried, except we didn' use a dummy as DD wouldn't tske one. i forgot to mention one really crucial thing we did, which was that DP went into her in the night if she wasn't waking from hunger. just to reinforce that she had to learn to fall asleep without the breast in her mouth now and again.

ps FWIW i don't think it's necessarily anything parents do that breeds bad sleepers. we now have DS aged 4 weeks and his sleep is already better than our daughter's was, altho in fairness his reflux is being treated whereas hers wasn't. but i still believe bad sleepers are born not made for the most part....

oh and knomed totally understand about the friends with good sleepers thing. drives you nuts.

cradling baby, sorry for illiterate typing.

Btw there is a forum for babywhisperer you may find it helpful?

My DS has just woken from his nap so I'll be back later.

InmaculadaConcepcion
I used PUPD for nights first and then moved onto naps, and that worked well for me.

Thanks Dream... (sorry for the hijack, OP).
Do you remember how long it took to work on the naps, roughly...?

Thanks

It took 3 days with mine using PUPD

Sorry for butting in

I did it once nights were settled as until then I fed to sleep

Took mayber 2 - 3 days same as teaandcake from memory- but we all know how decieivng memories can be!!!!

Cheers both!
(with more apologies to the OP...)