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.

Hi KVG - it is good to know we're not alone. Partly because it makes me hopeful that this is a stage they go through at around 4 months and so it might end soon! I have seriously contemplated going to bed at 6.30 but haven't yet done it.

Are you dreamfeeding? Am beginning to wonder if that is part of the problem, but ds now so used to it that he wakes up around 10/11 whether or not I wake him. Another book-suggestion that may not have been entirely helpful!

Lua - sorry to hear the bottle didn't work.

Was thinking of you guys in the middle of the night. It did help me retain my sense of humour a bit.

We had slight success with our new plan. Each time ds woke up, dh tried to get him back to sleep by rubbing his tummy and saying ssh (now I think about it, another idea from a book so maybe doomed, but still....). We got from 9.30 to 1 before I had to feed him (although dh spent an awful lot of the time between midnight and 1 rubbing ds's tummy). Then we got him to 4.30 before the next feed. Things went a bit pear shaped after that and he woke at 5.30 and 6.30, but still felt that maybe we were getting somewhere. I also tried to cut down the feed time very slightly. If we can cope with it we are going to try this for a week to see if it makes any difference.

At least it doesn't involve a lot of crying and I'm not sure the sleep thing can get much worse (now there's a challenge to fate).

Good luck tonight everybody.

Hmm, I've been thinking about trying to do a dreamfeed as ds is (sorry to say this) doing quite well with his nightfeeds just now, and theoretically with a feed at 11 should go all night. However, I'm partly too terrified to do anything to rock the boat, and partly don't think a refluxy baby would be best off with a feed that didn't involve a good old winding afterwards. (Last night at 1:30 ds managed to puke all down my t-shirt and even my pants, that was pleasant).

I must say, one benefit of bottle feeding is that I can see that ds is getting a good feed when he wakes in the night, it's tended to be by far his best feed when his tummy's bad, so there does at least feel like there's some purpose to it.

I think what we need to do is set up that commune in France with lummox that we discussed when we were pregnant, and then each night one of us can take it in turns to do all the feeding (obv you ladies will need to express milk for this purpose). Then that person gets the next day off. Sounds good to me!

trib - don't be sorry that your ds doing well. it's fantastic.

commune-wise we've got loads of out-houses, and as long as the babies' ears were kept warm we would get nothing but support from local folk.

I assume the babies' livers would also need to pass muster as well, lummox. If so, though, perhaps we could rope the locals in to help out and never have to do a night feed again - yippeeeee!

Don't take this the wrong way,but I'm glad that my dd is not alone in her sleep habits.I'm fed up of the mums at the toddler groups telling me how great it is that their 6wk old sleeps 10-6.I'm sure its great-I'd just like to experience it myself!

We didn't go for the 'no feeding' option last night.DH's dad has been in hospital & we found out last night that he has a brain tumour.So after that news,neither of us could face spending hours awake with a screaming,unhappy baby.So we decided to give her a dreamfeed & see what happened.We fed her at 10.30pm & she was so tired that she only had 3oz.We both woke up at 3am in a panic,because she hadn't woken,only to hear her crying about 10 minutes later.She ad 4oz & I had to go in & wake her at 8.30am.

Lummox,getting your ds to sleep by any other means than feeding is fantastic progress.Well done!

Tribpot,I'm so impressed with your ds too.I have had puke down the back of my pants in the early hours too & it is a most unpleasant sensation.

KVG,we had the BW schedule backfire on us too.We started putting her to bed at 7pm & that is about the time that the frequent wakings started.We are trying to put her to bed later,but she is so tired that I spend the last 30 mins before she goes down,trying to keep her calm.

She went down without a whimper at 8pm tonigt,so we will have to see what the rest of the night holds in store........

Lummox, when you said your Dh is trying to get him back to sleep, does baby cry while DH is rubbing tummy and shushing?
and for how long would you let DS settle himself/ cry before feeding him?

Mirage, so sorry to hear about your FIL. To be honest, in your shoes I would definitely now do whatever is the lowest stress option for feeding/sleeping short term and let the long term worry about itself, you have enough on your plate.

KVG, I do think we western ladies have many advantages over our counterparts elsewhere in the world but in the area of small babies we suffer big stylee. Mumsnet is a HUGE advantage, I think, and translated to a real world commune in lummox's outhouses would be even more so. I was talking to a Polish friend of mine whose wife had a baby last week and everything he said I just thought "oh yeah, could totally sort that out for you if I was in Warsaw" - god knows I'm no baby expert, but we have all changed so immeasurably in the last three months, it's amazing to look back. I really just want to get on a plane and go there and show them how to do a bath without the baby screaming her head off (scary Polish MIL won't let them put more water in and do it gently, which is how we found out how to bathe ds) and stuff like that.

My ds is getting earlier and earlier going to sleep each night .. and earlier and earlier waking, as well. It's obviously related to dawn and dusk, so I reckon he'll reset himself a bit when the clocks change, but wonder how this will work long term.

Mirage, I don't hold with this "my baby slept through the night from being 2 seconds old" thing. More lies are told in mum and baby groups than anywhere else in my view. Can you make up outrageous lies in response, like your dd can speak four languages and recite pi to 100 decimal places?!

Good nights to us all! xxx

Hi Mirage - sorry to hear about your FIL. Definitely not the time to worry about the baby's sleeping habits.

I guess I am lucky in some ways that there isn't much in the way of mum/toddler group stuff here (well, not that I've found, anyway). When people say stuff like you are describing it reminds me of a fantastic post I saw on MN once - the poster's grandmother claimed that her son (the poster's father) had never needed a nappy, but had been potty trained from birth. Like trib's idea of claiming outloandish skills for your offspring. Any chance you could drop it into conversation casually - "sory, you mean your ds doesn't make you tea in the morning? How strange. I'm sure your son will turn out alright anyway. Probably."

Lua - we've got one of those cots which sort of fit against the side of the bed, so if you remove one side you can just reach out and touch the baby. Two nights ago we moved it from my side of the bed to dh's (felt really strange for me for a bit). dh tries to pick up the very first sounds from ds and rubs his tummy. shhhs, or talks gently. If he catches him in time, he doesn't ever get to crying. Not sure if this is the wrong way to go about things, or teaching bad habits, or whatever, but also not really sure that I care. Last night we got to 2.30 which was 4 and a half hours after the dreamfeed before I fed him. It doesn't seem to work as well with the second chunk of sleep, though. He woke again 2.5 hours later, and dh tried again but it only worked for about 20 minutes.

Basically, pretty much as soon as he does start crying I feed him.

The downside of this approach is that it is pretty knackering for dh. ds stirred at midnight and one o'clock and dh did the rubbing/talking both times. Meant ds didn't wake up (and nor did I) but by the second feed dh had to go off to the spare room because he was so knackered.

trib - I know what you mean about changing in the last few months. My sil is about to have a baby and it seems unimaginable to be dealing with your first newborn. MN was a lifesaver for us. My first foray outside the ante-natal threads ("Is there a knack for getting a newborn baby out of the bath without him screaming blue murder?") was fantastic and my faith is confirmed by this thread.

It is really helping.

How is everyone else doing?

Sorry - long one.

Hello all, I found a diary I kept of dd's early weeks today. In it it says that she went from 11pm until 7am only when she was having 3 meals a day.....I know it goes against the grain but I wonder if we're all still feeding 2 + times a night because their growth spurt now doesn't coincide with when the advice was to put them on to solids. Do you think they're all hungry for more than milk?
Maybe I'm investing solids with too much power.....what do you reckon?
(I got all my old plastic pots/ice cube trays out today - haven't bought the baby rice yet - am trying to get to 24 weeks - and pretend that's 6 months )

welshie, I will say I am partly basing the decision not to start ds on solids on the fact he is only waking once in the night. When it starts happening twice, as I am sure it will, it's baby-rice-a-go-go. Plus also he's not feeding insanely during the day, although is putting in quite a good effort nevertheless.

lummox, trumpets aside, do you think ds might be more settled in his own room? The patting thing is good as an occasional life-saving effort for you, but obviously not sustainable long term, unless your dh can get some serious kip in at work

Right. I've been and gone and emailed the sleep lady. Things are still better than they were, but I think we need some outside input as we are just to tired to think straight. Thanks for the push, welshy.

trib - we've thought about moving him out of our room. Fortunately (or maybe not) dh and I both self employed. Neither of us are doing much work at the moment. In the long run I will probably have to do more work outside the house than dh - planning to do about 60 days a year in London, with dh doing about the same and splitting the childcare. don't know if that's ging to work, but seemed worth a go.

Of course, nothing is going to work unless we get some sleep!

Last night was OK - when to bed at 6.30, 9.30 dreamfeed, woke at 2 and then at 3.30 and then for good at 6. This is a lot better than it has been, but still pretty knackering.

Am probably totally paranoid but can't get the FSIDs thing about keeping the baby with you until 6 months out of my head. Not even sure what that is based on (would we even know if something was wrong, let alone be able to help?) but it makes it hard for me to put him in his own room for a few more weeks.

The solids thing I find totally confusing. Will be interested to see what the sleep lady says. I think the most difficult thing is that when I do reintroduce solids (am planning for this Thursday, as ds 20 weeks then which seems to be the new lower end guideline) the advice seems to be to do it very gradually. So it could easily be three weeks or so before he is really getting much more in the way of calories. Do you really need to go slowly when you introduce solid food? Welshy, did you with your dd?

One last point in this rambly, sleep-deprived post: I keep reading that there are fewer calories in solids than in milk. Since the solids that I gave ds were baby cereal made with breastmilk, I can't see how that can be less calories. Is it supposed to mean that the baby will take less milk if you feed solids?

Thanks for the kind messages about FIL.we have heard that they think its unlikely that its cancerous & are waiting to hear what treatment is proposed.We live 2.5 hours away,but are going up to see him tomorrow,& taking the girls.

On the sleep front,Saturday night we gave dd2 a dreamfeed at 10.30pm & she had 6 oz.At 1am she woke up & I managed to get her back to sleep by patting & shushing her,the 1st time ever she's gone back to sleep at night without a feed or dummy.She woke again at 4.30 & had to be woken at 8.45am.

Lst night she went to bed at 9pm,dreamfeed at 10.30pm & woke up half heartedly moaning at 3am.We ignored her & she went off again & I had to go in & wake her at 8.45am.So she slept nearly 12 hours with a df.We couldn't believe it.

I daren't hope that it continues.

Mirage, sounds good so far. Here's hoping!

Lummox, I am with you about the whole 'baby in room for 6 months' bizzo, I tend to split my time between our room and the spare room (because I can hear almost every snuffle through the wall anyway, hence dh has been exiled to the living room at the other end of the flat so his snoring is almost not audible).

I will say most people I know have put the baby in his/her own room at an earlier stage, as both they and baby sleep better that way. As you say, would you really notice if they (god forbid) stopped breathing in the night? Only if you stayed awake for the entire night listening I reckon. (I do know some friends of my middle brother, who took it in turns to watch the baby sleep day and night .. dunno how long it lasted but I do know my brother advised them they were aiming towards madness that way).

Overall I assume the 'issue' with solids is that they contain less calories than milk, so baby feels fuller and thus consumes less milk? On the other hand, solids keep baby feeling fuller for longer because they take longer to digest. Tea's dd was a classic case in point - she could seriously wolf a bottle in 5 mins, was still hungry but couldn't fit any more in her tummy. (She did turn her nose up at solids when they were offered though!). Ds is pretty hungry by his night feed, I reckon he would take a good 10 ozs if he could fit it all inside him in one go.

If you and dh are both mostly at home, is there any way you can catch up on sleep during the day? I can theoretically do this except that dh needs (allegedly) about 75% more sleep than I do. They always have excuse or another in my view ...

Hey trib - more stories about friends of your middle brother, please. They are making me feel my parenting is devil-may-care rather than stupidly precious .

Well, last night (when I had phoned Andrea Grace but not yet had the consultation) was the best in a very long time (went down at 6.30, woke 12, 4 and 6.30). Think maybe it is like making an appointment with the doctor and your symptoms clearing up for just long enough that you tell him nothingis wrong any more.

But good to talk things through with her this afternoon. Particularly, she is not in favour of the dream feed, which is somethingI've never felt very comfortable about, so am pleased to have support in dropping.

She is going to e-mail a sleep plan, so we'll gie it a go.

Really hope that things going better for everyone else.

lua, hope you are at least lurking rather than not able to post because too tired.

I noticed that a few other Junies are hitting a bad sleep phase around 14 weeks. Good luck to us all.

Lummox - glad that it was a useful chat with her - I found it tremendously helpful to feel that I had someone else on my side who understood what the issues were. good luck with it all x

Oh good stuff lummox, I hadn't asked her about the dream feed but ds had the equivalent last night, the "effing nightmare" feed if you will, when the neighbours came home and woke him up about 11. I have to say, they woke me up as well and I was furious, to the point of shouting at them (through the floor) in front of ds, and telling dh to "fck off and leave me to deal with it" which is something I would never* do normally, I don't think I was even really awake when I said it

Anyway, ds had a small feed then to go back off to sleep but woke as usual for his 4 o'clock feed, which is what has always happened when we've tried to introduce an 11 o'clock feed. Hey ho.

Okay, another story of the Mad Friends - they outraged my SIL by insisting her kids wash their hands before touching the baby. (I nearly suggested the same when ds met his cousins, just to wind her up). Now, I did prevent random strange girl from sticking her fingers in ds's mouth once when we were in the pub garden and she wandered over to look at him, but really. That's a kid destined for asthma if ever I heard of one.

Glad you had a good consult with the sleep lady, she perked me up no end by making me feel like I'd really been through a heck of a lot with ds and his reflux and all that. Made me feel like a maternal warrior rather than bloody useless first-time mum

Well, here is a bloody useless second time mummy!
Oh goodness help me!! Just went for an hour of screamming from the top of his lungs!
We did exactly the same thing as the night before. Gave him the bath and soothe him into the cot to prevent screaming starting. Yesterday worked a treat. Today nothing! I feel like the more I try things the biggest the whole I am making for myself!

Sorry I'm really down right now. After trying everything, letting him cry for 1/2 hour, putting him in the breast twice, giving teething gel,he only finally settled when I... Put him in bed with me! 3 minutes and he was gone! Arghhhh!! Is it the bed, is it me, is it the pillow? Either way he can keep having it! My Dh is convinced we are just going to have to let him cry out, but I feel he is still so young! Also, he is clearly healthy enough to cry hard for an hour ! But on the other I clearly cannot go to bed with him everynight. If nothing else, it will only make harder laterto break the habit, right?
sorry again for the me, me, me post... Desperate for help and sleep!

BTw, I really hope this is it for you lummox!!!

Lua, I'm with you, ds is too little to be left to cry it out. What happens if you go to bed with him and then get out again? Not ideal but maybe worth a try?

oh lua - so sorry. know exactly how you feel about doing exactly the same thing two days in a row but getting different responses.

i do think the sleep lady helped (partly like trib because she made me feel better) but things still going better so if it continues it will have started before implementing the plan.

to be honest i feel like the baby has sorted stuff out for himself after a five/six week "phase". he has done some developmental things in the last couple of days - sitting up and starting to laugh properly (exactly like a drain in fact).

sleeplady thought problem was prob caused by developmental stage.

how long has your sleep nightmare been going on?

trib - lol at nightmare feed. when short of sleep have said much worse in front of dh. i get particularly cross about little yappy dogs that wake him whilst we're out.

what did mad parents do when their baby started putting everything in its mouth?

Lua, meant to add that no part of the sleep plan that sleep lady suggested for us involves the baby crying it out. Don't know whether that is her general view or whether she was picking up on my preferences (although I didn't say anything about it directly).

Her basic point was to break the feed/sleep pattern and the method was to slightly shorten feeds (but really only slightly). What I do is break the latch when I think he is starting to slow down. If he root to latch back on that's fine, but then once he has fed a bit more and slowed down again I unlatch him again and so on. It is described better in the Elizabeth Pantley book and I also do the thing she recommends of gently closing his mouth by nudging up his chin each time I unlatch him (this was the only thing in the book that I found really useful).

Once he has finished re-latching and doesn't try to go back on the boob, I hold him upright, try to make eye contact (that's a bit hit and miss for us as he sometimes won't open his eyes), say good night quite loudly a few times, put him in the cot. Kiss him, kiss him again, and say goodnight loudly again. The idea seems to be that it is better if he is a bit awake when you put him down.

I found this last bit counter-intuitive. I think it was an overhang from when he was tiny, and just getting him to sleep at all was a miracle and I certainly wasn't going to risk waking him again!

Or maybe it's because we are lucky and ds doesn't seem to have a problem getting himself off to sleep at night provided that he has been able to feed (if I don't feed him it is a whole different story).

Oh, that's the other thing I wanted to say - sleep lady says that provided he has gone two hours or so since his last feed, it is fine to feed him if he wakes up. But do try to limit the time if you can, and do the saying goodnight/kissing/holding upright bit. That made me feel so much better about stuff. It also made sense in that it is giving a consistent response every time he wakes up, rather than what I had been doing which was agonising each time about whether to feed him/sometimes putting him down awake, sometimes asleep, trying to shh/pat him and probably totally confusing him.

Hmmm, this and finally post has gone on somewhat, but really hope it might help.

Sorry to butt in on this thread - I've been following it with interest - just wondering who this sleep lady is and whether anybody has a number for her ?(I live in London) Don't feel I'm quite at the stage of needing to use her yet, but may get there soon. Ds is waking up twice in the night, but seems to go down OK after breastfeed. Would like him to drop one, but not quite sure how to go about it. Tried introducing a dreamfeed, but it really screwed him up - he ended up waking up every two hours after it. Plus, he's another refluxy baby, which doesn't make things any easier!

Ellieo - you beat me to it - was just going to ask the same question!

My dd2 is 6.5 months and was sleeping through the night by 3 months. At 4.5 months started waking again and seems to be getting progressively worse. Solids have made no difference (if anything things are worse since we started), seems to have been teething for months but still no sign of any teeth, and think things have been going on too long for it to be developmental (although maybe not).

She currently has a cold so things have gone to pot on the "reducing night feeds" front. If things don't improve once the cold has cleared up the sleep lady may be my best option!