Rock a bye baby, on the tree top, mummy needs a gin or some other shot! Your sleep tips for babies needed here!

[Bumperlicious]

My baby doesn't sleep in the evenings, feeds to sleep and is waking twice a night at 5 months. I am on the edge, as I know are many people on these boards.

I could read one or some of the myriad sleep training books out there but the irony is that with a baby who doesn't go to bed till 11.30 I really don't have the time or brain power.

So please impart your pearls of wisdom here, things you have read or learnt from experience. I don't just mean for my problems but just for getting kids to sleep in general.

My DS is 6 months and was waking 3-4 times a night at 5 months!!

Only in the last month I have figured out that day time naps are the answer! Once I got them into a routine, the nights have just fallen in to place and he now only wakes once.
routine is:

7pm - bed
11pm - feed - dream feed
5:45- 6am feed
wake up 7-8am

I was feeding him at 11 and 3, I started not feeding him at 3am and gradually he's just slept through it. Sometime he wakes but just for his dummy (bloody dummy!!! wish I hadn't bothered!)

He has 2 hour nap at about 9:30 and another 2 hours at 2. My rule is no naps after 4:30pm!! even if that means he's in bed at 6:30pm.

I HATE it when friends say "oh my perfect child slept through since 1 day old"

Bloody liars!

I also find wine helps, for you of course :)

Thanks IMissSleep, your post has made me feel better on two count: first my dd has a two hour nap in the morning (only if we are at home - but that's another story!) and I was worried that might be contributing to the not sleeping in the evening, also the dummy thing. My mum and DH keep trying to convince me to give DD one, but I know that if I did I would end up getting up in the night to replace it. Your comment has just cemented that for me. Don't get me wrong I don't have anything against them, DD1 had one for 2.5 years, but I am loath to introduce something that is going to make my life harder not easier.

The no nap after 4.30 rule is a good idea, but it is an awkward time for us, if DD hasn't slept very well she gets really crabby, and I have 3 year old DD1. DH works till 7 at least 2 nights a week so trying to do tea and bedtime with a crabby baby is not always easy.

I wish i didn't give him a dummy! He wouldn't latch on when he was born so HV said a dummy might help him.

No lie, I was up 10 times in one night (between 11pm-6am!!) popping the bloody dummy back in!!! Nearly had a break down!

You could try bedtime at 8pm. So no naps after 5- 5:30?? It just something that works for me.
My OH sometimes works till 7-7:30pm. I would like to keep DS up to see him but by 7pm, he's asleep! And I'd like some piece and quite by then too :)

I can't come up with a magic solution I'm afraid. My baby used to sleep 12 hours a night, not a single night waking from 8 weeks. Then at about 4 months it got worse. Then got better. Then got worse at 6 months. Then got better. And now at 8 months has got much worse again.

Naps in the day are a good thing. When my daughters sleeping better in the day the nights seem to improve. Ideally a child of this age should be napping 2-3 hrs.

Being a bit tough (obv if you feel comfortable to) helps. I'm not talking sleep training or anything and I've read no books so am not quoting any routine. But leaving baby in cot and patting and soothing to sleep, rather than feeding every time they wake up DOES help IME.

Feel free to ignore my advice, as honestly I am just about muddling through, adapting methods constantly.

Come one come all, add your tips here! Or is everyone up with fussy babies like me :)

Thanks for the responses so far.

Sometimes I think that no matter how had I try to 'assist' or 'encourage' a particular routine for my 6 month old, he is going to do exactly what he wants, when he wants! Some nights he will wake 3 times and will only settle with a feed and some nights he wakes just the once - and I've no idea why! These babies are very good at pleasing themseleves and leaving us guessing, don't you think?

Well, don't think there is a magic solution, but willing to share my recent nightmare!! DC4 is 5 months and has been the WORST sleeper, day and night, known to mankind. Hence my FINAL beloved baby..

He has, from birth, catnapped for 10 minute bursts and has been tetchy and crying in between. Yes, it is utterly exhausting, mentally and physically: I have 3 other DCs at home, as we HE. This has been testing my sanity to say the least.

I always cosleep: have done with all 4: this helps greatly at night as shoving tit in mouth is preferable to fannying about picking them up etc. As far as life chez Catbus goes, the cot is rammed up against our bed from day one, mainly to act as a bedrail.

Any road, last week I took nightmare boy to our homeopath: whether you credit homeopathy or not, the true test has to be with a baby. After the first remedy, he was even worse: crying in discomfort blah fecking blah, my hair falling out, literally and unable to cope for much longer etc. After 2 days, he has morphed into a calmer, smiley, chilled little fella.
Yes, he still cries; he's a baby: but he SLEEEEEEEEPS!!! and wakes happy.

Not all homeopaths will cut the mustard: mine happens to be a bllody miracle worker: I had the same problem with DC2: who slept 2 out of 24 hours for the first 3 months of her life, until sorted by same woman.
The difference this has made to our lives cannot be expressed!!

I do use a dummy, when comfort sucking gets annoying:as we cosleep, it's not hard to shove it in again: I would rather this than a thumb, which you can't remove eventually!

I so feel your pain though. I am just coming out of the fog that is sheer exhaustion and frustration and feeling vaguely human again.

I tend to keep DC4 downstairs with us, in the pram, til I go up: to be honest, I don't give a shit where he sleeps as long as he DOES sleep. All of mine have been ok to whack into a cot by 8 months, mainly as they seem to show me that's what they want..don't ask me?!

Apologies for disjointed post: brain will never be the same again.

Watching this thread - cracking title btw!

Great title op! I am also watching with interest.
DS 8m we have finally started some kind of bedtime routine: bed, lavender rub and bottle. Once conked out by the heady lavender and milk combo he is put in a pre warmed via hot water bottle cot and then wakes every couple of hours until the hours of 12-3 when going back down in the cot appears not to be an option.
He's then back in with us, which I hate- nothing against co sleeping but am pg and I need my space!
Any ideas?
Great idea op :)

pipplin have you got my dd there?? we've been up since 4.30 as apparently sleeping at night isn't an option. she is now fast asleep on the sofa though.

I play a white noise CD all night long. Also, stroking his forehead and nose like a cat seems to make him sleepy!

Afraid not princess! DS had less than 2 hours in napping today! I am so tired!
We have a White noise sheep that plays all night long. He won't even go to DP in the night now :(

How's everyone doing?

catbus please tell more, what remedy were you given, was it the same one for both. I'm not sure if I 'believe' in it but as I understand it the remedies can do no harm.

sedgie I don't yet know the remedy DC4 had, as she knows I will research it, thus possibly tainting the outcome, as it were. I hope to ask her this week, as it's been a week now, and good results.
DC2 had Tarentula Hispanica: said woman deduced DD had chronic head pain and shock amongst other things. She asked all sorts of random questions to arrive at this, including asking my DH how he slept (hands behind his head) and why he thought he might sleep this way...
She must have been spot on, as the results were bafflingly amazing: I still remember the transformation nearly 8 years on!

catbus thank you, how extraordinary.

I'm not sure about homeopathy because I can't understand how it can possibly work, and yet, I can't dismiss it as some 20 years ago my mum took a remedy given her by a homeopath HV...at full term for my brother who was breach presentation (in the days when a natural birth was still the done thing) and that night he turned all the way around she gave birth that weekend to one big baby, and we were so thankful for the result.

I might just seek out a good homeopath - thank you.

bumperlicious my dd is the same age, I don't pretend to have all the answers, but about one month ago, I stopped the feeding to sleep thing and started doing the shush pat, with some gentle PUPD. DD is very high energy, difficult to wind down and really unsettled in the evenings and still upset about going to bed, but it doesn't take half as long to get her calm using this now. It was hard to establish but now there is a direct association between the 'shush' and going to sleep and she will go from screaming crossly (about not wanting to go to sleep) in my ear to closed eyes in a matter of minutes now.

This is actually faster than feeding to sleep - not so calm - but I tried the pantley pull off no cry thing for weeks and it didn't work, and I knew I had to stop this feeding to sleep thing because my nephew was doing this at 15 months and waking every hour and the notion of it going on and on terrified me!!

I have problems still with night wakings but I think it is improving, (slept through 3 nights out of 7 but the other nights weren't great so its still a WIP) my theory is the more that she gets used to self settling the better the NW should be!?!

Your lo is still very little so hopefully he'll settle down.

For me the key thing is being able to self-settle.

So the end goal is for your baby to not rely on anything to get to sleep or back to sleep: feeding, sucking, rocking, music, anything.

I think I'm possibly stating the obvious! But in my opinion there is no magic prop that will help in the long term because that's just what it is- a prop.

That doesn't mean to say I advocate leaving them. If my dd (13mo) is upset I'll stay with her til she is sleeping. But once she grew out of the newborn phase, we made sure she goes into her cot awake but sleepy (even if it means waking her a little). Then we'll do whatever feels appropriate for her age and where she's at. So, approximately, we did shush-pat when she was around 4-7 months; pick up put down when she was 7-9 moths; then she went through a stage where stroking her to calm her worked; now we do PUPD without the "pick up" part. Obviously she hits regular blips in her sleeping patterns, but finding a way to settle her without relying on props or getting her out of her cot always helps her through.

We also weaned her off night feeds which basically led to her sleeping through- but that wasn't til 7 months when she was well established on solids and wasn't feeding properly in the night.

My DS is 14 weeks. First 12 weeks woke every two hours, gah. Then we discovered the car. Little drive before bed every night, he'll sleep for 4 hours at a time. Realise that might seem bad to some people, but it is a bloody miracle for us!
Pass the gin!