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Original poster

Support thread for the over 1's who still don't want to sleep through

115 replies

PenguinArmy · 30/03/2011 18:44

I know I need a place to moan about how tired I am and if I tell anyone anywhere else, again, I may get punched Grin

tbh I feel that we've given her the tools and she will do it, when she does. No major active 'sleep training' from us, although that may change when we move house and she gets her own room (though more a change in strategy)

anyone else?

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Fumblina · 07/04/2011 21:34

3.11 Shock

Salhal · 07/04/2011 22:41

Pinkjenny you do deserve a medal!
My DD wouldn't even go to bed tonight and I ended up bringing her back downstairs (which I hate to do) after an hour of trying to get her to go down (as I was so hungry). She then fell asleep on DH's knee so I put her to bed. I've just come to bed myself to read for a bit and she woke up as soon as I came upstairs and is now in bed with me. Argh! I am so weak and lazy.
Well done to all of you who are trying to make some changes, I'm stuck in the rut of being too tired to do anything about it.

kaiki · 07/04/2011 22:52

oh yes me too.

dd is a year old in two weeks and has never slept longer than three hours, even in bed with dp and i.

i have read gina ford, the no cry sleep solution and got around to ordering the baby whisperer before realising i was too tired to implement any sort of training and cancelled it.

god, we deserve medals. shall i make us all some medals ? (especially pinkjenny)

BlueChampagne · 08/04/2011 13:02

Kaiki think those medals better feature chocolate & caffeine!

kaiki · 08/04/2011 16:01

yes they very well should. maybe in the shape of a large yawn. a large yawn made out of dark chocolate. lovely. on a ribbon like jim'll fix it.

Original poster
PenguinArmy · 08/04/2011 17:41

that sounds good

our night took a step back. It wasn't so much that she woke more often but she struggled to be resettled. She woke at 11:15, had a quick resettle then woke 15 mins later and then 15 mins later again. I'm assuming that means that maybe she in pain or was cold.

We dosed her up at the 2:15 waking and she went off first time.

What I'm worried about is that she has a habit of taking to a new technique straight away and it appears to work, but it only does so for a short while and then we're back to square one.

OP posts:
kaiki · 08/04/2011 19:19

ah, penguin we have similar problems with dd - usually from about 11pm also, when she seems to enter her period of lighter sleep until about 6am when she is awake for the day.

when you say you're 'back to square one' do you mean you feel as though you are starting from scratch again or do you keep trying the new technique even in the face of it seemingly not working ? i only ask because all the sleep advice i've read and received has told me that babies like consistency in their routines and even when something appears not to work for one night then you should treat that as an 'off night' (or an 'off two, three or four nights') but theoretically you are meant to maintain the new technique over a period of at least four weeks to get your child used to it.

however i suspect that your dd is very much like mine in that consistency appears to have an adverse effect - with my dd it is that she started to recognise the bedtime routine as a prelude to sleep and seemed to actively fight against each step of it, from bath to books to songs etc - until we found ourselves breaking it down to the bare bones of bath, cuddle, feed, sleep in order to avoid her seeming to 'cotton on'. am i making sense ? sometimes baby seems to wise up to a technique or indeed, grow out of it very quickly.

can i ask what you've been trying ? i'll be off and on the computer tonight but if you reply i will try and get back to you with some help and plenty of booze support.

Original poster
PenguinArmy · 08/04/2011 19:40

It does make sense and we have a similar bare bones routine. In fact she won't sleep if we are there at all anymore.

By back to square one, I guess I mean her not being able to settle her when she wakes in the night. We're sticking with it for a while yet. atm we open the door so there is light coming in (it seemed to reset her), lay her down, dummy in, leave. OK she had still been waking up every 2-4 hours but it had been taking just one go. She didn't much solids yesterday so I find it hard to follow through in case she is hungry. I also find I can only take her being awake an hour before I feed her, but as I said has been being awake only a few mins.

We're put the heating on tonight and see how we get on.

OP posts:
kaiki · 08/04/2011 20:04

oh i do feel and share your pain.

dd has never been able to self settle - i finally succeeded in getting her to take a dummy at ten months but it has made no impact on the length of time she can sleep for (usually about forty minutes), and without me there to cuddle her she can't get back to sleep at all.

i have found at this age it has taken longer to settle her too, or the methods which have always worked in the past suddenly aren't working anymore...i'm convinced it is a developmental thing, and hoping that in her own time she will learn to do it herself - in the meantime i have found actually waking her up by saying her name clearly, putting on the teevee or clicking or clapping can sometimes help her come out of her sleepy fug long enough to stop being upset, and resettle quickly.

fingers crossed for a better night tonight, hope the heating works. i have raised the end of dd's cot so that she thinks i am still there as she fell asleep leaning on me. (rod-for-your-own-back-emoticon)

Original poster
PenguinArmy · 12/04/2011 03:30

Our nights continue to be the same. Mostly every 2.5hrs, with a few 4/5 hrs thrown in there. We have however progressed to 4:30 get ups and refusal to naps.

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Original poster
PenguinArmy · 12/04/2011 03:31

every 40 mins [shock[

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Murl · 12/04/2011 07:55

Hey eveyone. Have been absent for a while as DD has been in hosp :(
Back home now and getting better all the time :) (she had croup and a throat infection)
As you can imagine, the 4 days and nights in hospital have not helped sleeping in the night! Bless her, she now seems to want reassurance throughout the night that I am there (DH is not good enough for her at the moment unfortunately!).
Up 6 times last night, and although I can put her back in her cot after a quick cuddle, I can not leave her room until she is fast asleep - she keeps her eyes on me until she drops off!
I hope that if I keep being there whenever she wants me then she will gradually be more settled again - and go back to just getting up every 2 - 3 hours Wink
Just relieved to have her home at the moment so actually seem to be coping better with the tiredness (for now!)

going to catch on on this thread while I have a coffee.... well thats the plan anyway!

Original poster
PenguinArmy · 12/04/2011 16:21

I hope it passes soon Murl, FWIW I think you're doing the right thing.

We had a good night. She does seem to sleep better when her naps are bad and vice versa, so the complete opposite to what we're told.

5pm bed
9pm feed
1am resettle (first time)
3am feed (6hrs!!)
5:30 feed and get up

OP posts:
StrawberriesAndScream · 13/04/2011 06:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sirzy · 13/04/2011 07:01

Just found this Thread. So glad there are others who still don't sleep through!

I think Ds who is 17 months has slept through 4 times. Normally just as we get close to having a routine sorted he gets ill again and all goes to pot :(

GapsAGoodUn · 13/04/2011 07:24

Feeling your pain - I too am the befuddled and sleep deprived mother of a future insomniac genius.

I wish I could write this in super tiny writing, but dd is now 7.5 and has slept through the night 27 times.

In total. Shock

And like Kaiki she used to doze for 40 minutes at a time. I'm still amazed I managed to have another!! (ds is 5).

It is desperate, and it does get better when they start school (well, somehow we started napping again anyway) but it is a long hard drag.

I wish I had words of wisdom! The only thing I've found helped is having a really boring list to say out loud - like a mantra. DD used to take 3 hours to do to sleep in the first place and we are now generally down to 45minutes or so. I either do a slow, boring coundown from 900 in ones (in my specially cultivated 'Bueller, Bueller' voice) or say a list of the states that make up the US in alphabetical order over and over and over and......

Original poster
PenguinArmy · 13/04/2011 16:31

ahhhh

OP posts:
Boblina · 13/04/2011 17:12

me too. My DS is 17 months today and he still does not sleep. last night it took me 1 1/2 hours to put him down (yes not usual) and then was awake another 3 time. Great. I am so glad I am not the only one. Just wish he would sleep. I just don't get it DS1 was sleeping through from 7 months and always went down without a problem. Where have I gone wrong.

GapsAGoodUn · 14/04/2011 01:13

Sorry - I'm sure that your child won't be the same

Original poster
PenguinArmy · 14/04/2011 01:43

No worries gap :)

It was more that we had had a horrible night sleep wise. I had meant to come back and clarify the scream Blush

By 4:30 we resorted to CIO (thankfully only took 10 mins). She had been awake since 3. Prior to that she had been waking every 2 hours and had been difficult to resettle.

Boblina It seems most people have the other way around (terrible first sleeper) so I assume people think they've learnt the second time around. You've done nothing wrong, I honestly believe that some people are just bad sleepers. I know my brother slept through before I did and it was quite close whether my second brother did.

We seem to have a different problem in that she goes to bed fine, it's just the staying asleep. Having only 1 bedroom is really doing us in atm as well.

OP posts:
Sirzy · 14/04/2011 07:54

boblina another Friday the 13th baby then? Ds was 17 months yesterday to!

Last night we had a two and a half hour battle to get to sleep (pretty unusual for him) and then away from 2.40-5. He is still sleeping now though!

NorfolkNChance · 14/04/2011 11:42

Thank the Lord I've found you lot!

DD is 19 months and for the past 4 motnhs we have had several wake ups a night. She does have some health problems but those are being medicated and I really really need some sleep.

DD seems to be nocturnal now, proefering to sleep during the day. Have tried shortening naps but it has no impact on night sleep arghhhhhhhhhh

BlueChampagne · 14/04/2011 13:01

Our DS2 is a worse sleeper than DS1 at the same age. Maybe part of the problem is rushing to them quicker so as not to wake the other one.

DS2 seems to be taking teething hard, and managing to fit coughs and colds in around the teeth. We've had to get a cleaner because he keeps waking up in the evening (usually as DH and I are having dinner) then won't go back in his cot and ends up going to bed with us. Sound familiar Penguin? Just as well we're not planning any more kids! Once ensconced he usually sleeps quite well, but sometimes is a wriggle-monster.

kaiki · 14/04/2011 13:23

murl - your poor dd! hope things are improving for you both.

penguinarmy - you said "She does seem to sleep better when her naps are bad and vice versa" - i read a thread on here the other day about a nine month old who started sleeping better when she dropped her daytime naps (i think she was mainly getting by on a quick hours sleep in the arrvo) - is that something you could consider ? i know it goes against all advice but for some babies it is true that the less they sleep in the day the better they are at night. think the thread was in chat - there was some very very good advice in it from a poster called show of hands too.

gaps yes, the forty minute bloody sleep cycle. i get around it by rushing to dd's side every thirty five minutes and resettling her at the first sign of stirring. as you can imagine my social life is pretty barren.

currently i am IN BED with dd as the only way i can make her take a longer afternoon nap is to be next to her so she wakes up less (we have dropped the morning sleep as of monday) so we currently have an hour or so siesta every afternoon. Blushnext week is her birthday and her mmr jabs so once everything settled back down we are going to try the no cry sleep solution.

Murl · 14/04/2011 19:46

not only are night times difficult, but now going to bed is a nightmare as well! My DD used to go to bed really easily and actually seemed to love going to bed - but not for the last few nights - wants to be in my arms until completely asleep. Noooooo!! I am not going back to that! I am just praying it is a phase (yes, another one!).

Does every one have their little ones in bed now? I have fish fingers and chips in the oven to help me cope :)

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