What is the middle ground between CC/CIO and co sleeping - I'm going insane

[Bumperlicioso]

DD2 is 7.5 months and breastfed. It was only about 6 weeks ago that she even started sleeping in the evenings.

Apart from a 4 week period at 2 months she has never slept through, and in fact her sleep is worse than ever at the moment. She wakes 1-3 times between going down at 7/8ish and me going to bed at 10.30 ish, but can usually be resettled with white noise and a hand on her or just our presence.

I will often dream feed her or she will wake up when I go to bed anyway (she is in a cot in our tiny room). Sometimes I don't and transfer her straight to the cot (she sleeps on the bed in the evening as it is easier to resettle her). Doesn't seem to make much difference. She is often waking again within an hour or so and between 1 and 3 times a night, by a night I mean when I am asleep, so between 11 and 7.30, which is when she is usually up for the day.

The last few nights have been worse though she has been up between 2 and 3.5 hours in the night, refusing to settle, feeding to sleep, but taking ages, then waking when I put her into her cot. I have tried leaving her to cry for a little bit (well, I am so tired I have actually been sleeping through the crying).

I am at the end of my tether, and with the current waking for a few hours at a time am finding it hard to get back to sleep. I am nurturing various escape/meltdown fantasies.

DH is trying to help by getting up with her in the morning but he is working 6 days this week and I have to be up with DD1 as well.

She has recently moved from an Amby nest into a cot, but that didn't make things immediately worse, though I think makes it harder to transfer her.

She has also finally stopped needing to be swaddled, which I think she is happy with, but she doesn't like being covered by anything, but I worry she is cold (our house is pretty warm, and she is in a vest and a babygro - am buying some babyleg leg warmers to put on her legs to keep her warm).

I just don't know what to do. I am tired. I am going slowly insane. I am already on anti-d's to help cope with the tiredness (which is helping, I was hideous before I started on them). But I am feeling so tired, despondent. I can't keep up with things, birthdays, admin etc. Plus I spend the whole day fielding my 3 year old's constant interrogation which rivals Jeremy Paxman. I feel like I might flip out any time soon. I just wanted to run out onto the landing and scream 'I don't want to do this any more' last night, or run away to a hotel in my vest and DH's boxers. And if DH was a shit husband I might. He is trying his best, will do whatever I ask, though isn't proactive in coming up with solutions (he knows I rely on MN). He gives me a night off about once a week with EBM. He spends most nights on the sofa as there is no point in him being awake too, and I would rather he can help out in the day.

I don't know what to do. I do know that I cannot co-sleep, I just can't, I think it is a lovely idea, but I just cannot do it, I've tried. My bed is the last bastion of personal space I have and I am a difficult sleeper myself, I need to be able to bury myself under the covers and curl up in a ball if I want to.

I'm not sure I can do controlled crying either, though I am tempted. Formula is no an option at the moment as she has a possible dairy allergy (oh yes, she spent the last 6 weeks throwing up nearly every night till we stopped the dairy - Dr and HV no help, Dr says just feed her water at night, as if it was that easy. HV thinks we need to leave her to cry, well she said that when I asked for help at 4 months).

I am asking you all for help before I flip out.

Bumper,

I feel your pain as ds2 is similar, but a few months older.

I can co-sleep, so get by.

Have you tried NCSS? Jay Gordon? Sleep clinics?

I have skim read the NCSS before it had to go back to the library. Maybe I need to actually buy it. Can't afford a sleep clinic as I am on SMP at the moment. Also I am on a thread with other non sleeping parents and one of the posters has just used one of the top sleep consultants with absolutely no sucess.

Have you tried a sleeping bag? My dd does not like anything over her, like a blanket as it comes off. Ever since we used a sleeping bag, things were much better as getting cold was an issue.

She doesn't like sleeping bags. I've just spent £22 on a thin sheet one from JoJo but she doesn't like that either.

Also maybe a top/t-shirt that you have been wearing, if you put that in the cot so she can smell mummy with her might work?

I found NCSS useful for general tips, but not great for solving sleep problems quickly. I also couldn't/can't leave ds to cry alone!

Pick-up/put-down worked really well for us, so I'd recommend it. We've done it twice now to fix two sleep issues (feeding to sleep at 5 months and then standing up in his cot at 8 months) and it took less than 3 nights each time. There IS crying, and when you've spent an hour lying a screaming baby down repeatedly at 3am it's tempting to give up, but he's now sleeping through (9 months) so for us it was worth it.

You poor thing, it sounds awful. I'm not surprised you're at the end of your tether.

If she doesn't like sleeping bags, try a fleecy all in one sleepsuit thing (like a babygro with feet but thicker fleecy material). They had some nice ones in Tescos a while ago, about £7 I think...

I'd also second the suggestion of pick-up/put-down - worked a treat with DS1, very similar to RitaMorgan's use of it. I think realistically you have to be prepared for some crying when you try changing a baby's sleep habits, but there is a massive difference between PU/PD and CIO.

Would you consider moving her to her own room? It's quite possible that a number of her night wakings are caused by her being disturbed by you, and so a room on her own might help? It sounds to me like she is really struggling to transition between sleep cycles - the peace and quiet of a room on her own might help a bit. I was amazed how, at around 4m, DS2 in particular started to become very unsettled at night - i.e. one of us would roll over in bed, or cough, or even take a deep breath, and he'd wake and cry - but the unsettledness stopped within a few days of moving him to his own room. Might be worth a try?

You have my sympathy.

What is your DD's daytime routine & naps like? My dd1 was a horrible sleeper but encouraging a consistent daytime/evening routine helped.

And I would worry about cold and be inclined to insist on a sleeping bag even if the baby doesn't like it. Or the fleecy sleep suits can be great. They are hard to find at this time of year, but the mother care website might have some.

sorry to hear things are so rotten.
what do you think about pickup putdown?

this worked well with dd2, when co-sleeping and swaddling stopped working for us at about 3.5months. i won't lie, there was plenty of crying for the first couple of days - 40 mins or so at a time IIRC, which i probably don't, as i was wasted with exhaustion. but she was fine after that.

it is easier to do these things if you have someone to support you. can DH take a day or two off work so you get 3 clear days to tackle it. dd1 could perhaps have a couple of pyjama and DVD days while you work on things together.

I have DS 6.5months. Not as bad a sleeper as your DD to be fair, but would only feed to sleep for bedtime and naps. This got harder and it became almost impossible to put him down asleep.

I decided I wanted him to sleep in his cot at naptime first, because I couldn't keep feeding him each time. Like you I do not like controlled crying, and thought PUPD would possibly be the way to go. However DS had other ideas - the longer I lingered in the room messing about with him - the angrier (and it certainly seemed like anger rather than distress) he got. I was there why wouldn't I take him out..... so I left him to it - it was bloody hard, but he put himself to sleep. probably exhaustion first off, but the second nap took 10 minutes of protest crying, and it got easier. Within 3 days he self settled for naps after an initial squawk of being put down.

Once I leave the room, he quietens down, within a minute or two.

Bedtimes, I fed to almost asleep and then put in cot etc. The success of this depended on how overtired he was at bedtime, and I have now made an enlightened discovery - a vary late nap is better than an early bedtime!

So even if he naps for 20 minutes from 6.30 - 7pm, he goes to bed by 8pm and sleeps far more soundly than if he was put to bed at 6.30pm. It's really odd but whereas he would wake once or twice before midnight with a 6.45pm bedtime, with the late nap he will now go through until 3am.

Night feeds, I again took a fairly harsh approach in desperation, and fed him and put him down in the cot. I KNEW he could self-settle, so left him too it and shut my ears (he's in our room). Again, the more I messed about with him, the longer he took to go to sleep. One night he cried in his cot for 20 minutes, but that was it - he's been fine since.

Anyway - in an apologetically rambling way - maybe you can get something of use from the above - mainly that if you have to resort to CC, sometimes they actually WANT to be left alone to get on with it. (I am like this myself - when going to sleep, noise and disturbance drives me mad).