Week 19 in the lack of sleep house. no teeth. no improvement. going mad. any advice/experience/anecdotes to make me feel better?

[lummox]

Have a 19 week old 19lb baby and for the last five weeks have had major sleep problems.

I didn't really want to, but did start to try wean him this week. Maybe I did it a bit half heartedly - tried 1 tablespoon of baby cereal made up with EBM once a day for three days. If anything it seemed to make things worse, so I've stopped.

Apart from those three spoonfuls of baby cereal he's been exclusively breastfed.

Don't know what to do for the best now. When it started I thought it was a growth spurt so best to feed more often and ride it out. Then he got very, very, very dribbly, red cheeked and grumpy so thought it was teething and we would just ride it out.

Five weeks later no teeth and surely it can't still be a growth spurt (although he still puts on about 10 oz a week).

I'm at my wits' end. Have got so desperate that I bought some books on how to help your child sleep (Richard Ferber and Elizabeth Pantley). They both seem to say that you should cut down the amount of feeding at night. I'm prepared to try that (particularly the Pantley/no cry way) but it goes against my instinct that he is hungry when he wakes.

Hope this makes sense. Feel like a zombie so apologies if not. Would be really grateful for advice.

trib - dh is reading over my shoulder so no comment on the last bit.

sorry to be obsessive, but did the sleep lady (I guess this poor woman has a real name, but will forever be the sleep lady) say when she thought would be old enough? did she give any tips about speed of introduction? sorry for all the questions - should ring her I guess.

Popsycal - sounds like bitter experience?

Bozza - think you may be right about habit, although it is a pretty new thing for him - first three and a bit months were fine, so not sure why he would have changed?

lummox where does your baby nap in the day?
if its not in his cot ( and ignore the rest if it is!) perhaps at night when he wakes its a bit of a shock as to where am i?
and maybe if u settle him in his cot in his room or oyurs in the daytime and let him get use to the idea , no doubt he'll hate it, perhaps in the night he might "eventually" get use to the idea that its his room and its for sleep not feeding! he needs to be quite sleepy otherwise he howl, u prob know that....

I coslept for a month when this happened. Then we went away and he slept in his own room in a portacot, worn out from attention. It wasn't brilliant until he was a year but he had health problems that made it worse.

Lummox - My dd was a total nightmare sleepwise and was breast fed each time she woke. Over the last 2-3 weeks she has started sleeping better probably 2 nights out of 3.

What did it for us was stopping feeding her in the night & then gradually reducing the amount of attention she got when she woke - e.g. to start with rocking her back to sleep, then just patting her without picking her up plus leaving her crying just a few minutes before we went in, then leaving her longer before we went in. Over about a week or two, she stopped waking up or at least when she does wake now she sometimes cries out & then goes back to sleep without us going in to her.

BUT, she is 9 months now, & on 3 decent meals a day. IMO, early weaning foods don't make much difference and 19 weeks is probably still too early to expect him not to wake up. There is an end in sight though!

Have you tried rocking him back to sleep when he wakes up - i.e. to see if he is really hungry or just waking out of habit?

Lummox, no, I didn't ask her that much about it really as it's not relevant to us at the mo. As I say, my focus is more on helping ds' tummy than anything else anyway. The Baby Whisperer has a good guide to starting weaning, albeit rather an obsession with pears I seem to recall Do you have a "visiteur de santé" over there, or are les mamans françaises left to get on with things on their own?

Do you normally feed ds to sleep, i.e. during the day and his first sleep at night? Sleep lady says definitely not to do this (I still do in the day, it's a work in progress). Basically she says:

• in the evening, do the bath, then straight to the bedroom
• feed, but don't let him go to sleep (if he does, wake him by blowing a trombone next to his head - joking, actually do it gently by winding or tickling his feet (I think)).
• put him down in the cot on his side, swaddled if appropriate
• rock gently from side-to-side, poss with one hand on tummy, one on back. Lots of shushing. Carry on until he sleeps, without picking him back up again.

Do the same when he wakes in the night.

Now, that is advice aimed at getting a refluxy co-sleeper to go into his cot, so may be completely irrelevant to you, but just thought I would mention it. He does need to go into his cot awake so that when he stirs he doesn't think "mon dieu, where am I?" and he does need to learn to go to sleep on his own, not on the breast (if indeed that is what you are doing).

Is he in the same room as you and dh? If dh's snoring is very loud this may be disturbing his sleep as well. My dh has been banished to the other end of the house for this very reason.

tripbot...my 7 month old is a reflusy co-sleeper..going to try out your advice

Hope it works popsycal! We would be nowhere without the Elixir of Life, aka Infant Gaviscon, though. Otherwise ds just couldn't be flat and all the rocking in the world wouldn't make any difference.

Mind you, he threw up in the bath tonight, that was a nice one. Guess you refluxy mamas are used to that kind of thing.

We had already got him used to the cot by swaddling him and putting him down once he was asleep, before the sleep lady. First couple of nights he lay awake for a while, sort of looking around as if to say "what's all this then?" but not crying. He took to the sleep lady's thing very easily - in fact the first night it took nearly 50 mins (she said to expect an hour) but it turned out dh had done nearly all of that with ds on his back despite the instructions. Once he put him on his side ds was out like a light. One night we had a bout of crying in the middle of the night when I put him back down, but it can't have been longer than 5 mins as my tolerance is especially low due to having a lot of neighbours and very poor soundproofing. I was literally about to give up at the moment when he nodded off.

The aim is to withdraw so that ds puts himself to sleep in his cot, now dh is down to just patting him whilst he's lying there. Actually he shuts his eyes, so ds gets fed up of looking at him and then he has a bit of time looking at the lamp in the corner of the room and then he nods off.

Right must go, dinner time! Hope you have some success.

Btw, DON'T DO THE TROMBONE BIT That was just a joke

and i had one ready and everything

Hi Lummox,
Sorry to hear things haven't improved.
i Have no improvement to report either , which is why I have disappeared.
I think others advice about trying to appease DS without boobs is right on...With DD, I would always offer the dummy first. If that got her back to sleep it meant it wasn't hunger... Once we got her to go through the night without feeding, than we startedto tackeld the going back to sleep on her own (i.e without dummy).
Does your DS takes a dummy?!
Mine unfortunately dislikes profoundly, despite my insistence. He also seem to get more angry with pats and rockings {sad] and [angry}!!
Anyone else has anothe suggestion to "pacify" a baby? Once he manages to calm down, he usually will happily go on his own with his thumb in his mouth... the problem is getting him to calm down from screaming his head off without offering the magic solution....
Anyhoo, may the force be with you! and will send positiove vibes to you when I am awake this evening!
Popsy - Good luck to you too! Is a miracle you can still function!

My ds was officially the worst sleeper in the history of the world. Hideous, hideous. Very nearly put us off having another child. Would regularly wake and stay awake from 2am to 5am or worse. Nearly killed us. BUT....at nearly 9months he started sleeping through and has been the best sleeper ever since. Goes to bed beautifully. Sleeps all night. Nothing worked with ds but it DID END. Food made no difference btw.

Lummox - go for the sleep lady, honey. I know she won't mind at all that you're in France. She's really good at giving you the confidence to take some action, and very pro bfing and being kind and gentle with the babes. I don't know how much the phone consult costs but you'll probably feel it's more than worth it. Her numbers on the june thread - or I'll cat you if you can't find it
xxx

Welshie the phone consult is basically 60 quid for an hour (+ one month's support by phone and email) and if you're on for less than hour, it's less, i.e. it's about a pound a minute. So mine was 45 quidskis.

Thanks again, all. Slightly better night last night and slight recovery of sense of humour today. the power of MN, perhaps?

Think I will give the sleep lady a go trib and welshie. Don't think I will bother with the French health visitor. Was pretty unimpressed with my UK one (we had the baby in the UK and stayed there until his 8 week check) and have the feeling that the French ones will be, if anything, more prescriptive.

By a strange coincidence, trib, I do play the trumpet and dh the euphonium. could it be playing it in bed that's waking ds?

Lua - so sorry that things not working better. have decided on a new plan (below). We could either try the same thing together or try different plans and see who gets the most (or any) sleep

Apart from speaking to the sleep lady, my new plan is to try to extend the time between night feeds and gradually make them shorter if I can without ds going in to meltdown. Also started today trying to feed him every two hours during the day (which he seems pretty happy with) - trying to encourage him to have more food in the day. Finally am trying to be more careful about making sure he naps and trying harder to get him back to sleep if he wakes after half an hour. That is much easier with only the one, I guess.

Thanks to all again - it is good to know that other folk had the same problems.

And at least no-one has yet come on to say that their 5 year old still doesn't sleep through.........

Sorry - meant to add: witchycat, I have tried just rocking without much success. Occasionally it works if he stays in his cot and I just rub his tummy and make gentle noises, but once he is out of his cot (which is almost every time because he gets so upset if not) he will only accept being fed.

What do you think did it for your dd?

aloha - much, much respect. hope the second one slept better.

Hi Lummox!
I'm glad you had a bit of a better night! Your sense of humour is definetely back, and that's what it takes to get through! They will be better sleepers! They have to! [smiling desperately emoticon}....

Your plan sounds good! It won't work with mine though because we are already feeding day and night every 1 to 2 hours! My current theory ion my problem is cosleeping... He was sleeping much better before I started working again. I had a stretch where I got too tired and couldn't stay awake to put him back in his cot, so we got back to cosleeping in the middle of the night and since then haven't be able to stop it. Last night I managed to wake up three times, feed him and put him back. But the fourth (at 4 Am), I just couldn't fo it again and back in the bad he was .... He slep until * Am then! little rascal!
I think I am going for sleep lady - can't think rationally anymore!

Fingers crossed for your plan - do report how you are getting along..
and try stopping the trombone playing in bed!

Hi Lummox - I think if I'd tried just rocking and not feeding at the age your ds is it probably wouldn't have worked but it got to the stage where, working full time, I just could not cope with being woken at least 2 or 3 times a night. Combined with the fact she was eating 3 good meals (2nd stage weaning -s o inc. pasta & bulkier stuff) as well as 4 x 6ox bottles Ijjust started thinking, she can not still be hungry & so started rocking & singing her back to sleep instead of feeding her.

After a while I think she realised there was not much point in waking up at night and is now getting used to settling herself back to sleep. We do ignore her for the first 10 minutes or so of crying (assuming it's not really distressed crying) & then see how she goes - either going in or not depending on if she's quieting down.

Like I said, it might have just started working because she's got to 8 months now and she can take on more food in the day. I do think there was an element of breaking the habit though - i.e. letting her cry & refusing to feed her (but in gentle stages - didn't really feel like hard line controlled crying).

Really hope you get it sorted soon. I know what a nightmare sleep deprivation is. When you think they use it as a torture technique, you can afford to allow yourdelf to be p*ssed off at it!

I've been posting about the same problem on the '14wk old waking at night' thread.DD2 is 20wks tomorrow & is getting worse rather than better.I gave her a dream feed at 11pm & she still woke at 1am & drank 4oz,then again at 4am-3oz.Arghhh.She wasn't doing this a few weeks ago.

She will not go back to sleep without being fed,so in desperation I rang the HV,she said that if dd2 was on 3 meals a day & at least 5 5oz bottles,she shouldn't need feeding overnight.

Her advice was to put dd2 to bed later & not feed her until 6.30am,regardless of how much she cries.She said to go in & comfort her but not to feed her.Hmmm,dd2 has never stopped crying if denied a feed-I'd better invest in earplugs.

I'm not sure if I can do this with such a young baby,but I'm back to work in 2 wks & can't function like this much longer.

Mirage, could she possibly be thirsty rather than hungry? I have a feeling offering a bottle of water rather than milk tends to discourage the small ones from wanting to wake up in the night ...

Hi tribpot.The water trick worked like a charm on dd1,but dd2 will still wake up for it.However,it is about 10 days since we tried giving her water at night,so I may try it again.Anything is better than trying to console a screaming dd2 in the middle of the night.

I'll be interested to see if putting her to bed later does shift her internal clock-I can't quite remember,due to lack of sleep,but I think the twice waking thing started when we put her to bed at 7.30pm.[My mum tells me that she never put me to bed until 10pm as a baby & I'd sleep through til 6.30am.

I'll let you know how we get on.

Mirage - good luck. Must be really hard knowing that you are going back to work soon. Doesn't make it feel much better, but it is clear from this thread (maybe yours too) that this will, eventually pass [trying not to wish life away emoticon].

Things also took a dip here when we moved to a 6.30 bedtime. At first it was ok - still doing 4/5 hour stints, but when he was going to sleep at 10 ish he often did 6, once 7 hours.

Do let us know how you get on - one of us has to hit the jackpot.

trib - might also try water in the night. maybe could water down EBM? or maybe that would be dumb?

That said, I would rather try everything else than lose our evenings again.

have a new element to our plan - For at least one night feed dh will give EBM. Am hoping that this will be a bit less attractive and alos will mean that we can see what we are giving him and maybe try to cut down gradually.

Mirage

Argh! So this evening decide to try to have DH give him a bottle at night. The thought was that by separating confort from food we could find out what is waking him so often! He took the bottle happily and keep waking up the whole bloody night! Guess he is hungry! But how can that be? doesn't everybody assure us that now that they are bioggerthey shouldn't need to feed very hour?

How did everybody else got along this evening?