The 'newborn - sleep nightmare' continuation thread, Cosmosis, count, emo etc. Still a sleep nightmare?

[Bumperlicious]

Just thought I'd catch up with all of you from the last thread to see if now we've moved on from the newborn stage things are any better?

Dd2 is nearly 5 months and sleep is still hit and miss. She is not good at sleeping when out and about so mornings are either spent at home or I choose to socialise and spend the rest of the day fighting to get her to sleep.

She still rarely goes down in the evening despite me trying for 1.5 hours. Eventually goes down 11.30ish and still often wakes twice a night

Am knackered, no end in sight. How's everyone else doing?

Oh Bumper you poor, poor thing. I saw your other thread earlier and meant to reply but got sidetracked pontificating about SATC on your Feminism thread.

I know that feeling of being at a loss. I've also sometimes felt like walking out and checking into a hotel so I could just sleeeeeep. (Obviously I would never be able to sleep even if I did, because I'd be worrying about DS and DH, so a wholly pointless fantasy.)

Obviously I'm the last person you'd want to take advice from, but maybe some of the things that have sort of worked on DS might be worth trying. Are you feeding DD to sleep at bedtime? Could you maybe work on settling her in the cot? That for me was a middle ground between CC and rocking to sleep. I used narmada's method (basically put them in the cot and wait, while comforting as best you can and not leaving them alone). DS is still waking loads, but is so easy to settle at bedtime now. It took just a couple of minutes tonight, not a whimper.

Keep posting - we're all here if you need us.

I sent DH up tonight to settle DS at the 2hr 20 mark and he came down after a while to tell me he didn't have to do anything - DS stirred but didn't wake up. I'm hoping this Pantley method is paying off but DH thinks it's just a fluke. DS managed another 50 minutes, then DH settled him then, so he did 3 hours 35 this evening.

Basically I'm trying to stretch out the feeds as much as poss. The last few nights I've done a feed between 10 and 11, one between 3 and 4, and that's it. There are other wakings but DS will settle OK without a feed and DH is doing some of them so I don't feel quite so knackered.

Sleepy vibes to all. Good luck with Andrea bigkids.

Last night I didn't sleep more than half an hour in a row at any time. I feel so tired I can't stop crying today and to make it worse DS has his jabs this morning. I'm so fed up with this. Why won't he just go to fucking sleep

bigkids oh my god. How are you even doing the minimum? Are your other kids at home?? If not, then I would just bung him in his cot and let him moan and grumble while you have a lie down. Or is there someone else who can take him off your hands for a bit?

I don't have any others thank god! DH usually wonderful but has massive presentation at work today and job interview on Wed so he's busy and stressed too.

DS just wowed the nurse, grinning away and didn't even cry after his jabs. She said "my what a peaceful easy baby"

I don't know why I thought you had other kids - I gues it's your screenname or something!

Hope your DH gets his job.

My DS did exactly the same when he had his jabs. My reaction was also .

How old's he now?
He doesn't have any reflux/ eczema/ allergy issues that could be contributing to the sleeping probs does he?

Oh so do I; him getting the job would enable us to leave London for Scotland and actually buy a house and have a garden etc. There's a lot resting on it, poor man, he only had four hours' sleep himself.

I don't know. He's so happy and calm in the day so I suspect not. He's asleep on the sling now and has been for half an hour. He sleeps so wonderfully on my chest I'm beginning to contemplate putting him on his tummy

Sorry, he's four months today!

oh bigkis, i feel for you, it sounds like classic 4mth sleep regression added to an already poor sleeper :(

do you have a moniter in the cot, you know those breathing moniters, i know people taht have those so that they can let their babies sleep on their front, totally NOT recomended by hv etc but it may be worth trying.

fwiw at that age dd would sleep in the sling but was a nightmare going dwon and we regulary had screaming fits before she went to sleep but not she is just 5 mths and getting much better, she still has to be swaddled adn have the dummy, but i can swaddle her, and put her down awake but sleepy and stick the dummy in and she will go off to sleep! AND i dont know if it is becaus she is getting better at keeping the dummy in? or that she just is getting into a deeper sleep but i am not having to put it back in so many times in the night, i still am doing but not every half hour like before! and she is also sleeping in again in the mornings and not getting up at 5ish like she was thank god. touches wood

my issue is that she WILL NOT sleep when out, so ends up an overtired screaming baby who is hard to settle, lots of walking up and down, jigging, rocking etc, but this too will pass.......

am pleased that some of us are getting more sleep tho, sounds like slowly but surely progress is being made!

NARMADA, i know your ds is a fussy feeder, as is my dd, now he is 6mths can i ask how much formula he is drinking? at the moment my dd has 5 bottles in 24hrs i make up 5oz but she doesnt always drink it all, she is having 20-25oz a day and is almost 17lb! so its not affecting her weight gain! but i know they are 'suppposed' to have 20oz minimum from 6mth to a year? and i struggle to get that into her some days and thats without her filling up on solids as well! she is only just 5mths so another month till weaning time bu ti am already wondering if she is going to cut down on her milk intake and i desperately want to drop either her dream feed or her 4:30-5am feed (or move it to 6am) BUT i need her to have these feeds to get the quantity of milk in her ifyswim? sorry this isnt sleep related, well it kind of is re night feeds.. just wondered how you were finding the transition to solids.

good luck to your dh with the job interview xxxxxxx

4mad, we have taken to pegging a white sheet over DD2's pushchair which seems to help her settle in it.

Bigkids, what a nightmare! Can you use having his jabs as an excuse to give him some calpol in the hope it will help him sleep?

Narmada thanks for the reasoned reply. WRT CC I just don't know, I feel that like your DD, DD2 would have more staying power than me. There is PU/PD but I'm not sure that would help either, does it just make them more agitated?

Another shit night last night, though we did as planned and I went to bed at 10 and DH did the last feed and woke me at about 3 when she woke again, but after that she was awake till nearly 5, complaining every time she went in her cot but chatting and rolling around on the bed. The thing is she is fine in the cot in the morning, will happily chat in there for a while, and when she woke again at 6.30 and refused to go back to sleep I put her back in the cot where she played till she must have gone back to sleep again. It just seems to be late at night she doesn't like going in her cot so I ended up having her in my bed again which is NOT a long term solution I want to employ. My bed is the last bastion of personal space I have.

I wish I knew what the problem was. We might have to stick her in the office for a while, that might stop the early wakings but won't help the fact that she then wakes up as soon as she is back in the cot.

I'm back on my bar a day galaxy habit :(

Could this just be a short term thing related to development? She is rolling around a lot and has learned to push herself up to sitting.

Oh and we are dairy free atm. Not worrying too much about soya or hidden dairy as we just wanted her to stop being sick which she has. Though I just gave her some courgette omlette which I forgot had parmesan in it and she came up in red all around her mouth. She's had it before, so could the intolerance be getting worse?

4madboys DS now drinks about 30 oz of formula a day, solids not going terribly well - it's baby led weaning and so not much goes in. He won't tolerate a spoon anywhere near him. He weighs about 21 lb at 6 1/2 months. his milk intake has really only picked up since we discovered he really is allergic to dairy (I was a bit of an unbeliever) and since we got his reflux drugs right. At his worst, he was down to under 20 oz per day which wasn't enough for him to maintain weight as he is a constitutionally big baby, IYSWIM. I'm sure if your DD is growing OK, then she's getting enough. 25 oz per day sounds like a decent amount. Is she roughly following her centile?

I'm still giving a dreamfeed although there have been a coucple of occasions when we haven't because we've fallen asleep and he's still slept OK.

Jeez, Bumper just re-read my post about controlled crying, reads like a bloody essay, sorry about that.

I tried PUPD with DD and with DS but it just made them both immensely cross. I think it is probably OK if your baby doesn't make too much of a fuss about going to sleep normally and isn't hyper-alert but otherwise....

How much does your DD2 sleep in the day? I found with DS that as he's got older his daytime sleep needs have decreased dramatically. He seems to only need about 1 1/2 hours per day split into 3-4 micro-naps, otherwise he's just not tired enough to sleep in the evening and during the night. I've had to revise my sleep-breeds-sleep notions with him.

Have you tried a nightlight? Could she be scared of the dark? Our friend's baby was like that from about 4 months.

Re the dairy, I know it's a total and utter pain, but personally I reckon it's worth completely excluding it - including hidden dairy - for a while. I don't mean all the stuff that says 'may contain traces of....' or 'made on a production line that handles milk..'. The trouble with ingesting even tiny amounts of an allergen is that even small traces can trigger an immune response. Vomiting is one obvious sign, but with DS there were other things going on as a result of the dairy that we couldn't actually see - for example, he had oesophageal irritation (it's called oesinophilic oesophagitis apparently, probably spelt that wrong) and the paed said the dairy was probably causing him stomach cramps too. That said, he was consuming large amounts - not just traces - of unmodified dairy at the time.

Lastly (!) bumper I have a thick winter night time babygro in size 9-12 months (I think that's the size- need to check) if you want it. PM me and I can post. Know you're having trouble finding suitable night-time coverings for your DD

bigkids that sounds really grim :( I think sounds like full on 4m sleep regression - I know when we were in the middle of it there were some nights where he would only sleep latched on. You will get through it, even though you think you won't. I can remember many nights of crying and saying I can't do this any more.

I need to speak to the CM, he's not having an afternoon nap and he's falling asleep on the 10 min car journey home, then waking up really cross, and then not being able to get to sleep when we put him to bed. It took him half an hour tonight. Although thankfully was calm, I didn' think it would be given how much he screamed when I was getting him undressed etc.

Bumper I wish I knew what to suggest :(

bigkids hope you're having a better night tonight. I know how it feels to be so shattered you can't stop crying. Four months is when it all went tits up for us - we co-slept for a bit of that period just to survive more than anything.

bumper PUPD pissed my DS off beyond belief. I gave up and just put him in the cot and patted him and stuff. That's how we stopped rocking him to sleep. I agree with narmada - it's not the greatest method for high-need/alert/screamy babies - it's very stimulating.

DS was a bloody nightmare today. I took him into town for lunch with a friend and he totally refused to sleep in the pram. He'd had 30 mins in his cot before DH went to work and then basically didn't sleep all day after that - ended up wheeling a screaming, overtired baby through Mayfair while posh business people looked on in horror

I was so tired and stressed by the end of it that DH put him down and I went to bed at 7:30. I got just over 3 hours' sleep thanks to brilliant DH who managed to resettle DS twice without me having to feed him. What a legend :)

We?ll we didn?t have a great night  Not as bad as it has been, by any stretch of the imagination, but not that good. He woke at 9.30, 11.30, 1.30, 4.20 and 5. I did 1.30 and 5, DH did all the others. I fed him one side at 1.30 (after trying to settle him without) and I brought him into our bed at 5 and he had a feed and went back to sleep till 7. I think if we are going to stop night feeds, DH is going to have to do all wakings for a while as I just can?t get him to sleep in the night without. I can at bedtime and I can in the day, but not in the night.

How did everyone elses go? glad you got a stretch of sleep count but it sounds like a traumatic day!

Well, DS managed (surprise surprise) 2 hours 20 after the 11pm feed - I didn't, though - then he was up pretty much hourly until 6am. I resettled without feeding until 4:30am so he went a good five hours without milk.

I was basically awake for most of the night, but slept 7am-10am as DS took a long morning nap after DH put him down just after 8am. V weird sleeping pattern, but I feel OK and at least DH got a full night's kip for a change.

Can't believe DS is sleeping even worse than he was before we contacted Andrea. What's next - every 30 minutes?

hi everyone

thanks so much for the messages of sympathy - this thread is so wonderful! It, and mumsnet in general, are mostly what has got me through this time! The last couple of nights have been the same but I'm surviving by DH taking him from 5-8am so I can sleep, and co-sleeping still. I'm also trying to become more zen about the whole thing. I was becoming overwhelmed with thinking about sleep and trying to 'fix' DS and it was preventing me enjoying my utterly gorgeous boy! I've put some pics on my profile so you can see just how amazing he is!

Anyway, after chatting to my mum - my sister didn't sleep through till she was 6 so she knows about it- I've decided to accept that DS is a poor sleeper, try all I can to change that, but not obsess about him sleeping through because it will prevent me enjoying him for who he is. Plus I really feel like I'm earning my parenting stripes!

I also went to see Andrea today, she is lovely. We agreed that as he is climbing towards the 99th centile and is beginning to feed less in the day, he does not need any feeds now between 7.30 and 5am. Gulp! I must always put him down awake and cuddle / sing to him in the cot. Standard advice, but I love having a plan to follow. We're not starting it till next Monday when we get home from the in-laws'. She warned me it will involve crying which will be tough on me as DS pretty much never cries now, combination of a very placid happy nature and me wearing him in the sling 4 hours a day. I just have to be very brave and stick rigidly to the The Plan.

I was pleased I can still wear him in the sling though, I don't need to do naps in the cot or anything. I love the sling adn so does he.

Sorry for the essay! I might not update much this week while away so I hope on Tuesday I can read lots about your sleep filled weeks! I'm looking forward to a lot of naps while DS's grandparents and aunties spoil him!

bigkids he is gorgeous! Those eyes! Aaaah. I see from your profile you're in S London - SW or SE? Glad you had a good meeting with Andrea. You sound a lot brighter, which is good :)

I've sort of got to the zen acceptance stage too. Only way to stay sane! I figure we've tried everything we can to 'fix' it and just have to deal with it as best we can.

BigKids he is such a cutie! He has a really cheeky smile :)

When ds was at his worst I definitely felt better once I stopped watching the clock, accepted at and repeated "it's just a phase" at great length.

I'm in tooting, Count.

Hello all.

Planned to come on to post that things were a little better...then DS wouldn't settle and ended up feeding to sleep which he hasn't done at bedtime for over 2 months! He is unpredictable, that is for sure.

We've had some longer stretches though - 5 hours as the record to beat. Will see how things progress.

Definitely agree that being zen is helpful. Especially when you try what you can, but things don't really change. I keep thinking that it will just click for them one day.

Thanks for sharing the pics, bigkids - very sweet. Hope things go well with The Plan - keep us posted!

Bumper - how are you doing? Saw your other threads, hope things are a bit better for you now.

We tried him just in his cot again last night (he?s been in the basket in his cot for 3 weeks) thinking that as he?s got used to his room, he might be ok. Disaster! He was just over excited by it, rolling around, ended up with his head at the foot, was grabbing the bars, rolling over - all sorts. In the end because he was so over stimulated and tired, it took half an hour of screaming to get to sleep in my arms, I then just put him back in his basket. He did end up sleeping really well ? only woke at 3, and then up for the day at 6 when he came in to our bed for morning feed and cuddles.

What can we do to get him used to the cot??

Good stuff, Raising! Glad things are improving.

Cos have you tried letting him play in the cot? I dump put DS in there with some toys several times a day. It's a tip from NCSS to get babies used to their cots, but it's also another safe place to put them when you need to do stuff. I think it helped DS realise it was a nice place - we did it for about a week before he started to sleep in it IIRC. Know he's at the CM's during the week so maybe at weekends?

Funny that you tried the cot last night because we did the opposite and brought DS into bed with us last night after he woke every half hour after his 11pm feed. He woke up just as much and I couldn't settle him in the bed with shhing and hand-holding as I'd hoped so I had to get up and rock him to sleep once and then fed him to sleep at 4. He woke me up at 6 by fidgeting and patting me on the face

If I had one of those babies that just went to sleep in my bed I think I would just co-sleep until he sorted himself out but not sure this is the right solution, although I think I slept slightly better despite getting woken a lot ... hmm.

He goes in there a bit, but not that regularly. That?s a good idea though, will try it this weekend. Am working from home Friday as well, so can start then.

Sorry that the co-sleeping wasn?t a magic solution. I must admit, when we do it now, DS tends to just want to sleep latched on all night! But then we only really do it when he?s poorly and won?t be put down, so that could account for the latched on bit too.

Cosmosis we have the all night latching on too!

Count can't believe you had half hour wakings...wasn't your previous post you wondering how it could get any worse and joking about half hour wake ups?!! Its the curse of Mumsnet!!!

He?s getting very cheeky at helping himself actually, it?s so funny. I went to get him from his room the other morning to bring him into bed with us, and he?d latched himself on before I was out of his bedroom!